'Jake! That you?'
'Mikeeee! Wha's up, kid? Wha's your lo-'
'I'm at 1638 Willow…I mean, Will-o'-the-Wisp, and we've got a-a-a gas leak here, Jake.'
'Possible leak?'
'A leak, Jake-the real thing!'
'A gas leak? In the Colony? No way!'
'I'm telling you, I can smell it through the g'damn door! I'm going in!'
'No, Mike! If you can smell it through the fuckin' door, then it's too dangerous to go burstin' in 'cause if you do-'
Jake, at command headquarters for Colony Security, heard the massive explosion occurring at Mike's end. 'Stupid kid! Stupid, stupid damned kid! Oh, fuckin' jeeze! Man-oh-freakin'-man!'
Jake could not hold back his tears. He stopped the tape that had recorded the conversation, and immediately got on the phone with 911, giving the address and the nature of the emergency.
Jake next called his boss to inform him of the explosion. 'Christ,' said his boss, 'someone's got to get over there to rep us, Jake. You do it, Jake. Get your deputies in to cover the phones and the radio, and get yourself over there. I'm on my way! How the hell'd this happen? How the hell'd a gas explosion occur in the Colony in the Glade, Jake? Whose fuckin' house blew up?'
'The Sangers', a Mr. and Mrs. with a daughter visiting. Mike met the girl, sir, and-'
'They called Mike to the location?'
'Mike Wdson's dead, sir. That's all I know.'
'Was he answering a call?'
'Awful, just awful!'
'What'd he go to the location for, Jake?'
'He was screwin' around, Dave!'
'Screwin' around?'
'Flirting with the girl there, the daughter. He went over to ask her out, and next thing I know he's shouting something about a gas leak, that he could smell it through the door, and he disregarded my orders and burst in, and-and- and-'
'Get hold of yourself, Jake! Don't have a coronary on me. Do we know if the family was inside? Do you know if the blast affected any surrounding structures?'
'No…don't know, but I felt the vibrations from here.'
'Mike rushed in to help people inside. He died trying to save life, doing his duty, Jake, you got that? Get over to the site and be a rep for Colony Security. I'm on my way!'
When Jake arrived at the Sanger home, fire trucks were battling the blaze, and a Houston Natural Gas truck pulled up, followed by a taxicab from which emerged Mr. and Mrs. Paul Sanger, the look of shock and horror unmistakable.
Jake, knowing the couple by sight, stepped up to them and told them what he knew of how Mike Wilson tried to save their daughter, dying in the effort.
'Meredyth! Oh, my God! Meredyth's in there!' screamed Caroline Sanger.
'Mike said her name was Lauralie,' Jake said to Paul Sanger, who was busy now holding onto his wife, pinning her to the cab to keep her from running into the inferno.
The cab driver leaned across his hood, staring at the activity of the firemen and watching the blaze. Scar- faced, scratching a three-day-old beard, the cabbie snatched his unlit cigar from his lips and said, 'Looks like a g'damn Texas tornado went through here.'
'Who the hell is Lauralie?' Paul Sanger asked Jake Everly.
'The girl staying at your place… said she was your daughter! Mike opened the… Maybe I ought not to say any more.'
Paul Sanger got on his cell phone and dialed for Meredyth. When she picked up, he breathed again. 'Thank God, Mere, it's you! I've got your mother here. She needs to hear your voice, Mere. Talk to her… ask about her trip.' Paul pushed the phone on his wife, Caroline. 'It's Mere! She's safe, honey! She's all right.'
Caroline took the phone, relief the size of a tidal wave washing over her, yet she could not control her tears as she repeatedly called out Meredyth's name and said, 'Sweet-heart, we love you so much, Mere. How much you'll never know.'
'You're safely home from Paris,' Meredyth replied from Lucas Stonecoat's bedside in the hospital. 'I've got one hell of a story to tell you guys, Mother.'
'And we've got one hell of a story to tell you. It's the house…all gone.' She continued to cry.
'Mom, are you all right? What's happened? Are those sirens I hear?'
Her father got back on. 'We'll be staying out at the ranch house, sweetheart. Your can reach us there. Think you could come out tonight, Mere? We really need to see you in the flesh and catch up. And by the way, do you know anyone by the name of-'
'Why aren't you going to the Colony home? What's happened there, Dad?'
'It's been reduced to rubble, apparently an explosion….Don't tell her I told you so, but'-he whispered now-'Mom appears to have left the gas on the entire time we were gone, and some poor schlep with Colony Security did a piss-poor job of checking it out. Opened the door and died of the blast. Whole damn house is in flames, pieces of it on our neighbor's roof.”
“Oh, my dear God, Dad! Are you and Mom-”
“We're fine! It blew, they're telling us, about twenty minutes ago. Had we not been delayed at baggage…'
Meredyth felt a creeping finger trace the nape of her neck and run along her spine-Lauralie's icy touch extending from the grave. Her fingerprints were all over this attempt to murder Paul and Caroline Sanger, to leave Meredyth without her parents. It was to have been Lauralie's final blow, and it nearly came to fruition.
'Before you go out to the ranch, Dad, you need to meet me at County General where-'
'We don't need medical attention, dear! We're shaken up, of course. Who wouldn't be. It's a shock, but we really don't need medical-'
'You don't understand, Dad. I'm stuck here at the hospital, but I need to talk to you guys before you go out to the ranch. So much to catch you up on, Dad.”
“You're in the hospital?'
'Hospital?' Again her mother's crying erupted, commingling with the sound of fire trucks coming over the line. 'No, not me. Dad. It's Lucas! He's-”
“That detective you used to date?”
“He's in a coma, fighting for his life, Dad, and it's all my fault, and he may die, and I–I can't leave him, Dad. I love him.'
'We're on our way, baby. Stay on the line.'
'…saved my life, Dad, and he's in a coma. I can't leave him. I need you guys.'
She heard him shouting for the cabbie to get them to County General. In a moment, her father was on the line again. 'We're coming straight there, Mere, honey. Don't you worry.'
Meredyth was crying into the phone now. 'I'm afraid he's going to die. All because of a sick woman who stalked us to the ranch…and because I couldn't get to him in time.'
'Stalked you?'
'Yes.'
'An old girlfriend of Stonecoat's?'
'No, it wasn't like that.'
'That one from the reservation? Her name wouldn't be Lauralie, would it?'
'Well…yes, I mean no…but how'd you get her name?'
'Seems she got into the house saying she was our daughter!'
'No wonder Mom was in tears.'
'They told us our daughter might be in the rubble of the house! The way it's shaping up, a Colony Security fellow named Mike was interested in our daughter-Lauralie from out of towns-and came sniffing around. No pun intended.'
