Bogeyman

“Maddie!”

Despite the awkwardness of her hobbling run, Blythe was gaining on the little girl. Encouraged by that realization, her eyes again lifted to search for the figure in the woods.

The shape was no longer in the place where she’d last seen it. Her gaze trailed along the edge of the forest, trying to find that dark anomaly.

Eyes on the trees instead of the ground in front of her, she stumbled, pitching forward despite her frantic efforts to regain her balance. Even as she broke her fall with her outstretched hands, she looked up to locate her daughter.

Perhaps emboldened by her fall, the shadowy figure at the edge of the woods seemed to once more be moving toward the little girl. The light of the fire clearly illuminated what was happening.

Blythe scrambled to her feet, again screaming her daughter’s name. Finally—unbelievably—the little girl turned, looking back across the yard. Looking directly toward her. Slowing. Stopping just short of the woods.

Still Blythe ran, adrenaline pumping so fiercely through her veins that she was conscious of nothing but getting to Maddie before he could. She caught the little girl in her arms, holding the small body against her own as she turned to run back toward the fire.

Its known horror was less now than the unknown that lurked at the edge of the forest. She threw a glance over her shoulder, but the shape seemed to have again melted into the shadows.

Then Blythe, too, heard the sound that had undoubtedly driven him back into the darkness from which he’d materialized. Faintly from the distance came a wail of sirens.

Finally. Finally.

By the time she’d reached the gravel driveway beside the house, which was now totally consumed by the conflagration, the first of the fire trucks had arrived, their sirens drowning out the noise of the blaze.

When the sheriff’s cruiser pulled into the drive, probably twenty minutes after the first of the firefighters, Blythe was sitting on the open back of the paramedic’s van. Someone had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, but she couldn’t remember who or when that had happened.

Perhaps it had been while they’d checked out Maddie, which she had insisted they do first. Or maybe it had been before the paramedic, who seemed hardly more than a kid himself, examined her ankle. He’d told her that he didn’t think it was broken, but she’d need to have it X-rayed to be sure.

Now her daughter was huddled in her lap, her legs again wrapped around Blythe’s waist. Despite the activity that swirled around them as the men fought a losing battle against the fire, the little girl hadn’t lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder.

Although Blythe had pulled the blanket around them both, Maddie’s body was occasionally racked by tremors. Not the result of the cold, but of the incredible stresses of this night. As soon as they got to Ruth’s, Blythe told herself, Maddie would be okay.

Okay. Incredibly, they both were. Considering that the house where they’d been sleeping was now engulfed in flames, that was a miracle.

Thank you, Father.

She glanced up at the sound of a car door slamming. As she watched, Cade Jackson walked up her drive. Although she couldn’t see his face beneath the uniform Stetson he wore, she realized she would have recognized that distinctively athletic walk anywhere. Anytime.

She hadn’t expected Cade to show up out here, but she should have. This was his county. His responsibility.

He stopped to speak to one of the firemen. The man pointed toward the van where she and Maddie were sitting. It had been pulled toward the back of the yard, well away from the house.

To express his thanks for the information, Cade touched the brim of his hat. As ridiculous as it might have seemed to outsiders, there was something about the gesture that was touching. Crenshaw had been caught in a time warp as far as the traditional courtesies were concerned, and she liked that.

Cade was moving more quickly now that he had a location. He would be here before she’d had time to prepare for the questions he would ask. Right now, she didn’t want to have to think about what had happened tonight. Or why.

Despite the fear the memory still evoked, she also didn’t want to talk about the figure in the woods. Either Cade wouldn’t believe her, making her feel like a hysterical fool. Or even worse, he would.

That would make it real. More frightening, somehow, than the fire.

“Ms. Wyndham.”

As he said her name, Cade again touched the brim of his hat.

Tears started at the back of Blythe’s eyes. She blinked to control them.

“Are you okay?”

The deeply masculine voice, its accent comforting, was full of concern. And that, too, touched her emotions, which were battered and too near the surface.

“We’re alive.”

Bottom line. And all that mattered.

“Thank God for that. Any idea what happened?”

She shook her head. “The smoke alarm woke me. I ran to Maddie’s room to get her, and by the time I had, the staircase was on fire.”

She hesitated, trying to think if there was anything else about what had occurred while they were inside the house he should know. At the time, she hadn’t been thinking about anything but finding a way out.

“That’s where the alarm was,” she added. “I had meant to put one up in the kitchen, but…” She let the sentence trail, again feeling as if she’d done something wrong. As if she hadn’t made a great enough effort to protect her daughter.

“So the fire was already at the staircase when the alarm went off?”

“I…I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head again as she tried. “There was smoke in the upstairs hall. Actually, the alarm is up there. At the top of the stairwell. By the time I got Maddie and was back out in the hall, I could see the flames coming up the stairs.” The words ran down, as she was overwhelmed by having to relive those moments of sheer terror.

“What did you do then?”

“I broke a window in the other bedroom and dropped Maddie out onto the roof of the screened porch.”

Cade’s eyes widened slightly. Not questioning, but apparently surprised.

But then, she was telling this in fits and starts. It probably made no sense to someone who wasn’t there.

“There’s no other way out from the upstairs,” she explained. “I didn’t believe we could get down the stairs. I didn’t want to try. Not with Maddie.”

“Good thinking. And then after you dropped her out the window, you climbed through and…?”

“We crossed over the top of the roof of the porch, and I dropped her onto the grass on the driveway side. I couldn’t think of another way to get her down.”

“And then you followed.”

She nodded.

“Any idea how it started? You leave a coffeepot on or something? Light some candles before you went to bed?”

“No candles. No open flame. The furnace is gas, but…” She shook her head. “We haven’t had any trouble with it. Or with anything else here.”

“We’ll get the fire chief to check it out. I just thought you might have some idea. A place to start. I’ll tell him what you’ve said.”

His right hand started upward in the gesture she’d already seen him make twice. Halfway to their target, the long dark fingers changed direction. He leaned forward, bending to put his hand on the top of Maddie’s head. It rested there a moment, but the little girl didn’t respond.