Chapter 82

Mr. Webster locked the shop door, flipped the closed sign and turned to Nettie, slipping the keys in his pocket. "Are you sure you won't come to dinner with us, dear? We'd love to have you."
"It's your anniversary, Uncle James. I'm not coming along as a third wheel. I'm going to unpack that new box of Agatha Christie books, and then curl up with a sandwich and my very own copy."
She waved them off, then tied an apron over her nice pink dress and went into the back store room. The box of Christies was right on top of the table near the door, so she didn't need to search. She used a pen knife to slit open the wrapping and started stacking books on the table. She'd already cleared off one of the new shelves out front for the grande dame of mystery's latest work.
The hairs on her neck prickled and Nettie stopped, looking around. She didn't see or hear anything. After dragging in a breath, she figured it out. Something smelled off in here, but her nose was stuffy from crying all night so she couldn't place it.
A noise, something like a splash, came from the back corner - where the washroom and cleaning closet were. Unlike Eli's spacious house, there was no living space on the first floor of the Main Street storefront.
Nettie moved back. A bulb must have burned out because it was hanging dark from the ceiling when it should have been lit. Her sense of wrongness intensified, so she lifted the first possible weapon she saw - a short length of lumber left over from building the new shelves.
She came to the door of the closet just as it sprang open. Her father stood there, not dead at all but looking nearly so. Crazed and skeletally thin, he held a jug of kerosene in his hands.
Without thinking, Nettie swung the plank, knocking the can from the old man's grip. It clanked and tumbled out of sight.
"Bitch," he roared. "Whore. It won't matter. I've already poured enough around to burn the place to ashes. This last can was for the front."
"You're supposed to be dead." She backed up steadily, holding her plank out in front of her.
"And you were living in sin. What's the matter? Your boyfriend sick of getting the milk for free?" Al advanced, pushing boxes of kerosene-drenched books to the floor. Scattering things, she supposed, so they'd burn better.
"Who died in our house?" She tripped at the threshold of the shop window and nearly fell.
Her father shrugged. "Some drifter. Coshed him over the head with a rock, then cut off his hand so they won't know it isn't me." Al used the time her stumble cost her to light a match and throw it on the nearest pile of books. A second flew in the other direction. Both instantly shot up in flames. Nettie turned and made a run for the front room. Her key was upstairs in the apartment, but there was a large, metal cash register on the counter in the shop.
She made it to the counter, but before she could pick up the register, Al was on her. He grabbed her hair and dragged her back toward the flames.
Before Eli, she might have let this evil man get away with killing her. Even though Eli had rejected her, first he'd convinced her that she was a person worth fighting for. She grabbed the nearest bookshelf and hung on tightly, making Al stumble at the unexpected resistance. When he got close enough, she kicked him in the groin.
"Whore!" he released her hair to grab his crotch.
"That one's getting kind of old." She ran again for the front of the store as the room began to fill with smoke. She pounded on the glass with her fists, and when someone on the street turned to look, she yelled, "Fire!"
The man nodded and ran toward the fire hall.
By then Al was on her again more furious than ever. He smashed her head into the glass, several times, stunning her into submission.
Outside, the fire bell began to ring.
Al, sensing perhaps that his own escape route was probably cut off, threw her to the ground. He did what she'd tried before, picking up the cash register, but it bounced off the thick pane of glass. When it struck the base of a bookshelf on the rebound, the shelf toppled over, pinning him beneath it.
Coughing, feeling the flames lick ever closer, Nettie crawled for the door. The firemen would be here any minute. The blaze wouldn't reach her that fast. She pulled her dress up over her chin, breathing through the silk.
Help would be here soon. All she had to do was breathe.
Eli was the biggest cad alive. Not only did he think that, it had been confirmed by his mother and sister as well as his housekeeper and the rest of his employees. He was back in his office the next day, mulling over and over his decision to break the engagement and he still convinced himself it was the right thing to do. His leg would never be one hundred percent. And the scars were hideous. Nettie deserved somebody whole, a man who could keep up with her boundless enthusiasm. Eli had even discovered two white hairs in his beard that morning. She wasn't for the likes of him. He did make a note to get Stan to drop off her sewing machine at the Websters. The other volunteers had pitched in and purchased a new cabinet as well as repairing all the damaged mechanisms. They'd planned to give it to Nettie as a wedding present.
When the fire bell rang, he cursed his inability to run the few blocks and hopped into his roadster. At least he could still drive. It was more than he'd hoped for at first. As he slowly climbed out at the firehouse, he saw that some of the men weren't even waiting for the truck, but instead, running down Main Street.
"Hurry up, Eli, it's the bookstore. " Stan yelled. "We need the pump truck."
"You drive it." Eli didn't even stop to grab a helmet, he just dropped his cane and ran, despite the sharp pains in his leg. Not Nettie. Please God, let Nettie be all right.