Kiss Me If You Dare

19

My heart skipped a beat. “Alisha Braddock. I’m Alisha Braddock.” I hoped the more I said the name, the more convinced Portia would become.

She squinted in accusation, shaking her head. “Your name is Patricia Louise Amble. You’re from Walled Lake, Michigan. You were the first ever convicted of assisted suicide in the state. You were a suspect in the murder of some guy named Martin something, but they let you go without charges. And the cops in Michigan want you for murder one, grand theft auto, and leaving the scene of a crime. Did I forget anything?”

My eyes felt like saucers in my head. “How do you know all that?”

“Come on, Alisha, Patricia, whoever you are. It’s the information age. You just have to know where to look.” She put her hands on her hips. “Okay, I confess I had Koby check into it. And if he got the info that easily, so could anyone else. Am I right?”

“So-,” I gulped, “what do you want? Money or something?”

She turned away in frustration. “I can’t believe you’d think that. I’m your friend. I want you to be safe. Believe me, if it was money I was after, I could have sold the information a month ago.”

I looked around, dazed. “I guess so. Didn’t know there were warrants out for my arrest. Denton said he took care of everything for me. Covered my tracks. I figured he must have explained what happened and everyone understood and let it go.”

“You’ll be surprised to hear that you’re also dead. Funeral and everything. Maybe that cancels out the warrants.” “Dead? Are you serious?” I giggled, then sobered as I digested the information. “If you and Jane both know who I am, other people probably know too. How safe am I here?”

Her face was blank. “I don’t have an answer for that. But I have a few ideas how you can get off that hit list.”

From the other room came the sound of glass breaking. Then a scream.

“Oh no.” Portia raced into the hallway.

I followed behind. Air rushed past as we staggered down the hall toward the sound. Then came the whoosh of an explosion.

“Celia!” Portia’s voice came from just ahead, but flames and smoke blinded me. I kept one hand on the wall as a guide.

Celia’s cries came shrill from across the room. “Help! I’m on fire!”

Orange blazed over the floor and up the windows, fueled by the chemicals we’d been using. Through eyes burning with heat and smoke, I watched Portia make a dive toward Celia’s chair. But flames drove her back, gasping and slapping fire from her own clothing.

“The tarp! Grab the tarp!” Portia crouched to the floor and crawled through the thick haze toward the kitchen. Right behind her, I snatched a corner of the cotton painter’s cloth she thrust toward me and scooted back into the mayhem.

Celia’s screams of agony and fear filled our ears, mixed with the deafening roar of the inferno.

“Hurry!” Portia pulled the fabric out of my hands as she made the rush toward Celia and threw the cloth over her frail body, crouched and burning in the wheelchair. Portia patted out flames where she could, even while her own clothing caught fire. She grabbed the handles of the chair and pulled it toward the hallway and the back of the house.

Another crash of glass as a second bomb, what looked like a bottle stuffed with burning gauze, hurled through the back door and exploded, blocking our escape.

“We’re trapped. Get to the bedroom, quick!” Portia’s orders kept me from dropping into a useless heap on the floor.

We pushed through the blinding smoke toward the tiny space.

Portia jammed Celia’s chair against the threshold. “It won’t go through.”

A moan came from beneath the charred tarp.

“Thank God she’s still alive.”

I heard Portia, though I couldn’t see her through the smoke. I dropped to the floor for a breath of air. Through heat-singed lids, I caught a glimpse of Portia. Hair had melted like a helmet to her head. One cheek was black and oozing. Her palms were blistered from the heat of the chair handles. Smoke came in puffs from her clothing. Portia’s burns spurred me to action. “We have to get out of here.”

I yanked the wheelchair from the doorway and squeezed through, pulling Portia behind me. Her vacant eyes told me she was heading into shock. I left her on the floor by the window and went back for Celia, still wrapped in the smoking tarp. I dragged her by the feet onto the floor. Her head made a thud as it hit the wood.

“Sorry,” I muttered, tugging her dead weight across the planks. My lungs were at the bursting point. I stretched out a leg and kicked the door closed, hoping to conserve oxygen. I crawled across the room and felt around for the window latch. A twist, then a push as I tried lifting the sash. But the years had left it swollen in place, like so many of the others we’d already repaired. I tore off my ragged cardigan and wrapped a fist in the cloth. My face instinctively turned away as my arm smashed the glass.

Smoke rushed outside as fresh air streamed in. I gasped for oxygen, feeling new energy with the momentary gust. But behind me, flames snuck through the gap beneath the door and spread up its panels, engulfing the corner of the room. I grabbed at Portia and nudged her toward the window. Her body seemed to move in slow motion as she lifted herself onto the sash. With a push of her toes, she was outside. Now it was Celia’s turn, but the lump beneath the tarp didn’t budge. I wrapped my arms around her bulk and tried lifting her through the window, but my arms were made more of jelly than sinew.

Lying on my back, I worked my feet underneath her chest and hoisted her headfirst toward the sash, using the same kind of airplane ride my mother used to give.

My legs were ready to give out when Celia jerked forward as someone pulled her swaddled body through the window to safety.

The fire had spread to the floor nearby. Above me, only choking black smoke. I tried to breathe, but my chest wouldn’t move. I closed my eyes and focused on the pinpricks of light that danced behind my lids. Soon the dots formed a face-a crinkly-eyed, laughing Brad. As blistering heat pressed against my skin, sadness swept through me. I’d never see that happy face in this world again. The dots moved and a light took shape. I relaxed, knowing that the pain to come would be fleeting. In a moment I’d be through the veil, meeting my maker, dancing for Jesus. The world spun beneath me, hurtling through the blackness of space, and I felt every revolution. Blood rushed through my ears, a steady whoosh whoosh. I waited for the sound to slow and eventually stop. Instead it grew more intense, gradually becoming a shrill beep beep beep. I opened my eyes. Through white haze, I realized I was in a hospital room. As my senses checked back in one by one, I detected an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. The beeping must be a heart-rate monitor, and the tender area on my arm must be the needle for an IV drip. But the oxygen-I took another deep breath- the oxygen tasted so wonderful and pure. It tasted like… life.

I was alive. I’d made it through. Somehow I hadn’t died in the fire.

A figure sat in a corner of the room. “Welcome back, Ms. Amble.” A man approached me.

Detective Larson wasn’t exactly the first person I’d wanted to see after my brush with death. But stuck in a hospital bed, I didn’t have much say in the matter.

I peered at him through lazy lids and let the oxygen mask do its thing. He’d obviously figured out my identity and was about to hammer the fact into my smokedamaged brain.

His lumbering form towered over the bed. “Lucky for you I put the pieces together in time. If I hadn’t ordered personal protection for you when I did, you’d probably be taking up space at Del Gloria Mausoleum instead of Del Gloria Memorial.” He chuckled like he’d just told a funny joke.

“See,” he continued, taking advantage of the fact I had a muzzle on, “in this day and age of computers, the human mind is still the smartest kid on the block. Computers can match faces and fingerprints, determine DNA, and look up criminal records. But it takes a real live person to noodle through the information and come up with four.”

His body shifted and his voice sped up. “Back in the fall, I had a good laugh when I read the report on the rooftop heroine and her stolen ladder. Never thought another thing about it. But when I saw the same girl at the scene of a murder, I couldn’t help but wonder, why her? What made Alisha Braddock the common denominator between the two crimes?”

The detective’s voice droned on like background music to my heart monitor.

“If this was LA, I’d have never linked the two events. But here in Del Gloria, we pride ourselves on being The Town Crime Forgot.”

He chuckled again, this time almost dousing me with a stray spitball. I cringed, shrinking deeper into my pillow. “So I did my detective thing. Fed the computer your picture, your name, and whatever else I could come up with, made a few phone calls, checked a few sources, called in a couple favors, made some hypotheses. And last night, I ordered personal protection on a woman named Patricia Louise Amble. The officers tracked you to the same block. But instead of a missing ladder, they found a raging inferno.” He shook his head in awe. “I gotta hand it to you, kid, whatever guardian angels you got looking out for you, they’re doing a pretty good job.”

I thought of Portia and her single-mindedness in saving Celia and getting us out of the building.

“How’s Celia? Is Portia alright?” My mouth spoke the words, but only a muffled sound made it through the mask.

His eyes watered. “Ms. Romero will be fine after a few surgeries.” He choked and looked to one side. “They’re not sure about Ms. Long. Her health was fragile as it was. She might not pull through.”

A deep moan filtered through my mask. I squeezed my eyes closed and felt a stream of tears burn down my cheeks.

“It’s like this.” Detective Larson leaned toward me. “I’m the captain of the Good Ship Del Gloria. When a Jonah sneaks on board, I find him and throw him into the sea before any more of my passengers get hurt.”

I should have known better than to stay here. What made me think I could escape a well-oiled drug machine? The day I got involved with Candice LeJeune was the day I signed my own death warrant-along with Jane’s and maybe even Celia’s.

Detective Larson was right. I was a Jonah in this town. I could wait for the cops to throw me overboard, or I could jump ship myself. Either way, the sharks were circling.

“We’ve got an idea who’s behind the bombs,” Detective Larson was saying over the beep of the monitor. “Your classmate Simon Scroll seems to have skipped town. I’m guessing it was his job to make sure you never left Del Gloria alive. And as far as he’s concerned, he succeeded.” “What do you mean?” I asked, my words barely legible through the mask covering my mouth.

“Mr. Scroll has been employed by Professor Braddock as your bodyguard.”

I groaned. Simon was so useless… I would get him for a bodyguard.

The detective continued. “We think he got a better offer from someone else to make sure you turned up dead. We’re hoping to get the feds to step in this time with a little more sophisticated version of witness protection now that there’s proof your life is on the line. Professor Braddock had good intentions, but it’s obvious you need another fresh start.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. My throat hurt from trying not to cry. I didn’t want another fresh start. I didn’t want any of this to be happening. If I couldn’t stay here in Del Gloria, then I wanted to go home to Port Silvan. I didn’t want another name, another town, another life. I just wanted to be Tish Amble again, whatever that entailed.

But something in the back of my mind warned that if I ever remembered what it was I’d forgotten, I might not be so excited to get back to my old life.

I told that something to shut up.