relies on her heart. She doesn’t want to do anything to hurt her husband, but she knows, she absolutely knows, that this boy she loves so much simply couldn’t have done this terrible thing. So maybe she goes to the laundry room-”
“Please, Caroline, stop right now.”
“And she puts the clothes in the dryer. Later, she goes back to the laundry room, takes the clothes out to the burn barrel by the barn, and sets them on fire.”
28
Three days after Katie Dean visited the DEA agent, Aunt Mary called her into the den from the kitchen.
“They just did a teaser for the news about a big drug bust,” Aunt Mary said. “I think this might be it.”
Katie sat on the edge of Luke’s bed. A male reporter appeared on the TV screen. He was wearing a camouflage uniform and holding a microphone. He was outdoors. Behind him was a wall of gray smoke.
“Local law enforcement authorities are saying this marijuana field is the biggest ever discovered in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,” the reporter said. “Agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and the Sevier County Sheriff’s Department descended from helicopters into this five-acre field early this morning after receiving a tip from an anonymous informant. More than twenty- five hundred plants have been cut and burned. Police estimate the marijuana’s wholesale value at more than three and a half million dollars. The street value is estimated at close to ten million dollars. Sevier County Sheriff Hobart Brackens says the marijuana was most likely meant for out-of-state buyers.”
A heavy man with jowls like a bulldog came onto the screen. He was wearing a cowboy hat with a silver star on it. Beneath his face were the words “Sheriff Hobart Brackens.”
“An operation like this has to be a wholesaler,” the sheriff said. “We’ve had information in the past that marijuana growers were operating in these mountains, but until now, we’ve never been able to find any of the patches.”
Aunt Mary turned off the television set.
“There,” she said matter-of-factly. “What’s done is done. I don’t want anyone in this house to speak of it ever again.”
The firebomb came through Katie’s bedroom window the next week. It was two in the morning on a Thursday. Katie had watched an Atlanta Braves baseball game with Luke before straggling off to bed around eleven. She was dreaming of swimming at the base of a massive waterfall in the bright sunshine, surrounded by brightly colored fish, when the sound of breaking glass and igniting fuel jolted her awake.
It took several seconds for her to realize the bedroom was on fire. The Molotov cocktail had landed against the wall near the door and exploded. The flames were already raging by the time Katie ripped the covers back and jumped to her feet. She heard men shouting outside her window, then heard more windows crash downstairs. She screamed. The flames were racing up from the foot of the bed, gobbling the purple quilt Aunt Mary had made and given to her for Christmas three years earlier. Smoke was already causing her to choke, the heat searing her skin and throat.
Luke. I have to get to Luke.
She couldn’t go toward the door that led to the steps. It was too hot. The flames would consume her, but she had to get out. She unlatched the lock on the broken window and pushed it up. The roof above the front porch was less than ten feet below her. She crawled up into the window frame, cutting her left foot on a piece of broken glass in the process, and jumped. The steep pitch of the roof below sent her skidding toward the edge. Her elbows and knees hit the rough shingles, and she rolled onto her side, once, twice, three times… and then she was falling. She landed on her right side in the grass of the front yard. Her elbow jammed into her rib cage, and she heard the sickening sound of bones breaking. She tried to stand, but found she couldn’t even breathe.
Katie looked up toward the front of the house. Dark smoke was billowing from beneath the soffit, and she could see flames climbing the curtains and reaching out like the devil’s fingers through the windows. Katie willed herself to her knees. The heat was so intense she felt her eyebrows beginning to singe. She lay down on her back and used her feet to push herself away from the inferno.
29
A tongue lapping across her face awakened Katie, and she opened her eyes. It was night, but the sky was full of light.
“Maggie,” she whispered. “Good girl.”
The sound that filled Katie’s ears was that of a locomotive, or maybe a tornado, close by. She tried to sit up, but the pain in her side was so excruciating, it took her breath again. She suddenly realized where she was. She turned her head and looked toward the house. Orange flames were shooting through the roof, reaching at least fifty feet into the air and throwing sparkling embers another thirty feet higher. Katie had managed to push herself a good hundred feet from the house before she passed out, but the heat was so intense, she felt as though she were slowly roasting.
Maggie bolted toward the side of the house and disappeared.
She must be going to check on the others. They must have gotten out.
Katie planted the soles of her feet firmly against the ground and began to push again, dragging herself farther away from the heat. She took shallow breaths in an effort to alleviate some of the pain. She wondered how many of her ribs had been broken in the fall, because every time she took a breath, no matter how shallow, and every time she moved her upper body in the least, it felt as if a butcher knife were being plunged into her side.
She thought briefly of the cowards who did this. It had to be the druggers. Someone had told someone about her visit to the DEA office. She thought of the eyes that watched her as she was leaving, and she wondered whether one of those pairs of eyes was responsible for what was happening now.
Aunt Mary. Lottie. Did they get out? Did they get Luke out? Are they hurt? Dead? No, please God, not dead. Not again.
She shouldn’t have gone off the trail in the park. She shouldn’t have let the druggers see her. She shouldn’t have told Aunt Mary. At the very least, their house was burning because of her.
Katie became aware of headlights coming down the driveway. They drew nearer. She heard a door slam, then heavy footsteps approaching. Someone was kneeling beside her. She looked at the face. It was Mr. Torbett, the nearest neighbor, a friendly, white-haired farmer with the longest fingers Katie had ever seen. Kneeling on the other side of Katie was Mr. Torbett’s wife, Rose.
“Katie!” Mr. Torbett cried. “Dear God, Katie. Are you all right? What happened?”
He reached behind her neck and lifted her head.
No! No! Don’t move me!
Razor-sharp pain shot through Katie’s body.
“The others,” she whispered, and the blackness enveloped her again.
The next time Katie opened her eyes, the woman standing above her was a stranger. She was pretty, middle-aged, with sharp features and hazel eyes. Her black hair was pulled tightly into a bun, and she was wearing white. Katie thought she might be an angel. She was fiddling with a bag of liquid that hung from a stand next to the bed.
“Where am I?” Katie said. Her mouth was dry, her tongue like sandpaper, but she felt as relaxed as she’d ever felt in her life. “Am I in heaven?”
“You’re in the hospital, sweetie,” the nurse said. She moved next to the bed and took Katie’s hand. “But you’re going to be fine.”
Katie smiled at the nurse and looked at her name tag. It said her name was June.
