“Dennis, please.” The pain in her jaw was so excruciating she thought she might black out. She grabbed the edge of the workbench to steady herself, willing herself to stay conscious, to keep him talking. “You don’t want to do this.”
He looked at her with a twisted smile, then took a step back. “Don’t I?”
“The police know everything,” she blurted, scanning the bench for something, anything, she might use as a weapon. “They know why Hollis killed himself. They know about the doll and the note, and that you burned the orchard. They have one of the torches you used to start the fire. If you do this, they’ll know it was you. They’ll put it together, and they’ll come for you.”
“It won’t matter by then.” Lizzy was stunned to see tears in his eyes. He blinked hard, but they spilled anyway. He smeared them away with the heel of his hand. “We paid enough, Hollis and me. Hollis most of all. It was supposed to be over. Paid in full. Now here you are, wanting us to pay all over again. Only that ain’t how this is going to go.” He paused, staring through her suddenly, his eyes dull and far away. “They say the only way to kill a witch is to burn her.” He paused again, taking another step back, then gave the lighter a flick. “A man does what he has to.”
“Noooo!”
Lizzy watched in horror as Dennis brought the kerosene-soaked rag toward the flame, aware in some terrified corner of her mind that she had slipped into one of those fractured moments when nothing seems real, when everything speeds up, and at the same time slows down, flickering one horrifying frame at a time.
The beaker felt cool as her fingers closed around it. An instant’s hesitation, a ribbon of fear, and then it was airborne. She watched, transfixed, as it arced cleanly toward its target, a tail of alcohol in its wake, then erupted in a rush of blue flame as it connected with the lighter in Dennis’s hand. His sleeve caught first, quick tongues licking up the spilled kerosene. He stared at it, eyes wide and blank, as if he were stunned to find himself on fire. Eventually, he began to flail, beating wildly at his jacket as the flames spread, blue-orange and hungry.
Lizzy opened her mouth to scream but there was no one to hear, no one coming to help. And it was already too late. She registered the sound of shattering glass as the milk bottle crashed to the floor, then a burst of heat and light as the kerosene flashed.
Dennis was engulfed in seconds, shrieking as the flames swallowed him whole. He thrashed briefly, then folded to his knees, a macabre marionette whose strings had been cut. He writhed a moment more, facedown in the flames, like a swimmer out of water, then went still.
Lizzy gulped back panicky sobs as bile swam up into her throat. She covered her nose and mouth, the stench of kerosene and charred flesh suddenly overwhelming. The flames were spreading rapidly now, devouring swaths of bone-dry timber as they crawled across the floor and up one of the walls. In minutes her only path to safety would be blocked.
Breath held, she dropped to her knees—something she’d learned in grade school fire drills—and scurried past the lapping flames. The barn had grown strangely dark as clouds of greasy smoke swallowed the wavering firelight. Lizzy groped her way to the door, fumbling frantically with the latch.
There was a deep huff of air as she burst through the door, like a sharply indrawn breath, and then a searing burst of wind that sent her sprawling into the dirt. She lay there a moment, choking down mouthfuls of clean air. The barn was engulfed now, moaning and crackling as the flames continued to feed, churning inky smoke into a pristine blue sky.
The sight should have gutted her, but she felt strangely numb as she watched the devastation, as if her mind had somehow become unmoored from her body. She should do something, call someone, but she suddenly found herself incapable of stringing two thoughts together. In the distance the wail of sirens, thin at first, then louder, closer. She closed her eyes. Someone had seen the smoke. Someone was coming.
FORTY
Lizzy shifted the disposable ice pack on her jaw and opened her eyes, willing her vision to clear. Blurred vision. Vomiting. Confusion. All consistent with a blow to the head, and all signs of a concussion, according to Janie, the paramedic who had advised her in the strongest terms possible to go to the ER, get herself X-rayed, and have her pulmonary function assessed. At least the ringing in her ears had subsided. She’d even gotten most of the assessment questions right, fumbling only the name of the current president.
Somewhere in the middle of the assessment, she had blurted out that they would find Dennis Hanley in the barn. Janie’s partner, Hal, had disappeared soon after, presumably to inform whoever was in charge that they would need to call the ME’s office.
“All set?” Janie asked, as they prepared to load her into the back of the medic rig. “Hal’s playing chauffeur. I’ll be in back with you.”
Lizzy nodded, looking down at the straps securing her to the stretcher. It wasn’t like she had a choice.
“Wait! Please!” It was Rhanna, wild-eyed and breathless, churning up the driveway. “Let me see her, please! Lizzy, baby—” She broke off with a gasp, her eyes swimming with tears. “My god—your face.”
Lizzy narrowed her eyes, struggling to focus. “What are you doing back?”
“Never mind that! What happened to you?”
“I’m okay,” she mumbled around the ice pack. “They just want to check me out. Where’s Evvie?”
“She’s behind me somewhere. We had to park on the street. We saw the smoke . . .” She reached for Lizzy’s hand, her face
