Fireproof

CHAPTER 63

About an hour ago Sam had been laughing with her son, watching her mother struggle to pick up a fried dumpling with chopsticks. That’s when she had heard the first siren.

It had stopped blocks away, but she felt her body tense up. She had forced a smile so her family wouldn’t notice that her pulse had started to race. She didn’t want them to see the slight twitch of panic as her eyes darted around the restaurant in search of the nearest exit.

A few minutes later she had heard a waiter tell someone that the shops just five blocks away were on fire. And Sam thought immediately about Jeffery. She knew he’d be frantic to get in touch with her. She had reached for her cell phone to turn it back on. Had it out of her purse and in her hand when she caught herself. Across the table her mother and son had been giggling over each other’s fortune cookies.

“Momma, read yours.”

Her palms had started sweating. The phone felt heavy in her hand as it slid from her fingers back into her purse.

It had been the purest choice she had made in a very long time.

Now when she saw Jeffery’s Escalade in her driveway a lump gathered in the pit of her stomach and she reminded herself that the right decision is not always the easiest. Nor would it be the best for her career, if she still had a career.

“It’s my boss,” she told her mother.

“Your boss here? On your day off?”

Instead of explaining, Sam asked her mother to take Iggy into the house and put the leftovers in the refrigerator.

“I’ll be just a few minutes,” she told them, hoping the alarm going off inside her head hadn’t affected the tone of her voice.

She watched them scurry around the big SUV that left only two feet between her garage and its bumper. Sam almost smiled at the scowl her mother was giving Jeffery, despite the dark and despite the tinted windshield. Her mother’s defiance helped fuel Sam’s courage. Still, her knees went a bit weak as she climbed out of her vehicle and went to stand in front of the garage, keeping a safe distance between herself and Jeffery and choosing someplace where she didn’t think he could run her over. She also knew that where she was standing she couldn’t be seen from inside the house.

She stood and waited.

She would not get inside his SUV. If he wanted to rip her a new one, he’d have to do it where her neighbors might watch or call the cops.

The engine started, a quiet hum. The driver’s-side window slid down. Jeffery’s face looked calm. His eyes did not.

The glow of the interior lights gave him an eerie blue sheen, as if the illumination came from under the surface of his skin. His tie had been yanked loose and his white collar smudged. His jacket had been tossed aside and his shirtsleeves were rolled up in haphazard folds. His face didn’t look angry, but everything else about him looked enraged.

“There were bodies tonight,” he said in a casual tone that sounded odd considering the context. “Just what Big Mac ordered up.”

She felt his eyes bore into her but she didn’t flinch or look away from them.

“Do you have any idea what you cost us, Sam? I hope your little chop suey dinner out was worth it. Don’t you dare turn your back on me again.”

The SUV’s window hummed back up as Sam’s stomach crashed down.

How had he known where they had gone for dinner? Had he followed?

Then she remembered that her mother had carried in the leftovers. Of course, the bag must have the restaurant’s logo stamped on it. But when Sam walked into the kitchen she saw the plain white paper bags still on the counter. There was no logo, no indication of a Chinese restaurant.