Second Time's the Charm

Shaking his head, Jon motioned toward the long piece of fuse protruding from the puddle of accelerant. “It’s your turn,” Jon said.

A little more than halfway through the semester, the two “old men,” as they’d been dubbed in the freshman chemistry lab, had gained a bit of a reputation for the ingenuity, scale and success of their experiments. Jon’s lab partner, Mark, who’d worked as a forensics safety engineer for years without the title, and who was now in school to get the degree that would allow him to officially work in the field, deserved most of the credit.

Mark stepped forward, lit the fuse and ducked as a whorl of flame exploded from the puddle, bursting in front of them.

“Whoops.” Mark wasn’t smiling.

“Guess our calculations were a little off on this one.”

“The velocity of the fire was greater than we’d calculated for the amount of polish remover,” Mark said.

Straight-faced, they looked each other over.

“No singeing,” Jon declared.

“Make a note that idiots should not be allowed to play with fire,” Mark said as they stood, watching their piece of window as the fire burned down.

On the upside, the glass at the five-foot distance crazed—bearing spiderweb-type cracks that would allow arson investigators to determine that the fire had been set by an accelerant and that the glass had been close. The point of their experiment was to help arson investigators determine how long the fire had burned.

The glass at ten feet did not craze.

Another correct prediction.

“Nice experiment, gentlemen.” Professor Wood came up behind them. Several students had found their way to the room at the back of the lab to take a peek.

“A little less velocity,” Jon said, “and we’d have been perfect.”

“At least it didn’t burn out of the controlled area, or burn anything other than the intended substance,” Mark added.

Professor Wood nodded and, without another word, turned and left. “I’ll bet he’ll have some choice words for us when he tells his wife about this one,” Jon said.

“Is he married?”

“Hell if I know.”

Marriage wasn’t something he thought a lot about. Didn’t spend much time thinking about women at all these days. Or he hadn’t until the past twenty-four hours.

“Abe threw another fit yesterday at the day care,” he offered casually as he and his lab partner set to work cleaning up the mess they’d just created. He had half an hour before he was supposed to meet up with Lillie Henderson to find out what she had to say about his son.

“Yesterday was Thursday.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought he only threw fits on Saturdays. When you went to work instead of school.”

Jon had told Mark about the first fit. More than a month before. At work at the cactus jelly plant outside town where Mark, a supervisor, had gotten Jon a job as a janitor. They’d been having lunch.

He hadn’t seen Mark much at the plant since then. After one of the plant’s machines had broken down and Jon had been able to repair it and get it back up in time to make shipment, he’d been promoted to maintenance engineer. A fancy title for a guy who could fix things.

“That theory, that his tantrums were the result of an extra day of day care, proved to be false,” Jon admitted.

Frowning, Mark sprayed water on the metal piece that had held the puddle of accelerant. “You didn’t mention that you’re having more problems with him.”

Jon shook his head and, with gloved hands, lifted the crazed glass and put it in the trash receptacle. “I’m not,” he said. “Doc says it’s just the terrible twos, and from what I’ve read, we’re getting through it a lot easier than some.”

The room was half-clean. He had another fifteen minutes before he had to leave.

He’d pulled on his nicer pair of black jeans that morning and had been thinking about looking responsible, respectable, as he’d buttoned up the oxford shirt and rolled the cuffs to just below his elbows.

“He’s never had a problem when you leave him with us,” Mark pointed out. The thirty-year-old, together with his fiancée and grandmother, watched Abe one evening a week, giving Jon time to do whatever the hell he pleased.

Which usually meant homework but he was good with that.

“Maybe it’s the day care,” Mark offered. “Must be something there upsetting him.”

“Tantrums are normal. All I have to do is stay calm, not give in to him and this phase will pass. He’s testing his limits.”

Mark glanced his way for a long minute and then shrugged. “If you say so.”

His doctor said so. And he trusted his doctor.

* * *

JON DIDN’T TRUST Lillie Henderson. He found her attractive. But he didn’t trust her. He didn’t believe in angels. She’d told him that his son was not a discipline problem—Abe followed instructions and got along well with others.

But she’d said they needed to talk.

Like Abraham’s terrible twos were different from everyone else’s?

She’d also said that she’d met Abraham the week before, yet he hadn’t been told about a child expert being called in.

And that had his mind spinning noises he didn’t like.

Was someone making charges behind his back? Questioning whether or not Jon—a single guy in his twenties who worked and went to school full-time—was capable of providing for the needs of a two-year-old child?

Someone outside Shelter Valley?

Had Lillie been hired by someone other than Bonnie Nielson? Hired in secret by an older woman she wouldn’t ever mention?

An older woman with enough money to stay at Jon’s back until she got what she wanted?

The thought could be considered paranoid. He might even be able to convince himself of that if he hadn’t learned the hard way, more than once, about the duplicity of women.

At least, the women in his life.

Even then, he wasn’t afraid of the power of the opposite sex. What scared the shit out of him was his own culpability.

He’d made mistakes. Big ones. He wasn’t kidding himself. His past could be used against him—but only if his present supported the theory that he was still the loser he’d once been.