The sawmill was barricaded. Slick yellow crime-scene tape roped off the debris of charred saws, twisted black beams and rippled, heat-destroyed aluminum that had been siding of several of the sheds. The office was a shell of broken windows and scorched walls, the roof gone; file cabinets, computers, desks and chairs reduced to black rubble. Some of the raw timber had been saved, but stacks of cut lumber, graded and planed and ready to ship, had been ruined by the blaze and the thousands of gallons of water pumped onto the inferno. Caused by arson. Just like before.

Fire and water.

As Eva had predicted.

Though the temperature was over eighty degrees, L.K shivered. She didn't get out of her Jeep, just let the engine idle in the pockmarked lot, listened to the radio with half an ear and stared at the remains of the heart of her father's business.

Ashley wouldn't have burned it down. Despite the depression in the timber industry, Bale Logging and Sawmill was breaking even while the other parts of the conglomeration that was Bale Industries were reporting record profits. Who in his right mind would burn down one of the few mills in the state that was working at full production and ruin thousands, maybe millions,. of board feet that were worth more each day as lumber prices continued to soar? Ashley was no fool. He understood money. Growing up poor had taught him early lessons in finance.

Through the dusty windshield, she spied several people clustered around the remains of the mill, peering through the twisted chain link fence and past the old safety sign with the letters that had peeled off under the heat. They talked and joked between themselves, pointing at a forklift that had endured the blaze, the tires flat and melted, the tines of the fork black as coal, the padded seat burned away and the engine useless.

She didn't hear her brother until he rapped on the glass with his knuckles. She rolled down the window.

"It's a bitch, isn't it?" he said, nodding toward the ruined mill as she rolled down the window. Warm, muggy air drifted into the Jeep. Hazy clouds blocked the sun, and Elvis's voice crooned through the speakers.

Alex motioned to the radio. "Turn it off."

"Why?"

"I hate Elvis. You know that." It was true - ever since they were kids, Alex had ranted and raved, been nearly out of his mind, whenever Abi or L.K had played any of the records they'd found stashed in the attic along with Monica's clothes and books.

She snapped off the radio. "What're you doing here?"

"Gawking, just like everyone else." Alex rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. A sprinkle of blonde shot through his hair. When he was sober, he was a handsome man who looked more and more like their father with the passing of the years. "Christ, what a mess."

"Amen," she agreed.

"Kaya says Ashley is gonna make it."

"Yes." She sounded positive. Around her brother she always put up a good front. He'd been against her marriage to Ashley from the start, and L.K was determined never to give Alex the satisfaction of knowing he'd been right about her happiness. Even if she and Ashley divorced, she hoped that all Alex would find out was that they didn't get along, that they had just drifted apart, that there was no guilt, no lie, no suspicion, and certainly no hatred.

"He comin' home?" Alex scrounged in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

"Yeah. If he had his way, he'd be out today."

"And then what're you going to do?" He found a Marlboro and jammed it between his teeth.

"Take care of him, I suppose. Until he's on his feet again. It'll be a whole. Physical therapy five times a week for six months to a year."

"He won't like it." Alex shook his head and squinted his eyes against the lowering sun. "You're only asking for trouble again by sticking with him, you know."

"He'll need help."

"And you'll give it to him. Over and over again. You know, L.K, I never figured you for being a - what's the current fashionable term? An enabler, that's it." He clicked his lighter and drew hard on his cigarette. Smoke drifted from his nostrils. "I think that's just a fancy name for a doormat of a woman. You know the kind. A woman who will do anything to keep her man. Even let him walk all over her, stomp all over her emotions and her heart, then keep doing what he wants to because the woman lets him."

He sounded like he was describing his wife. Kaya had been in love with Alex for as long as L.K could remember; she'd chased after him in high school, become best friends with Abi so that she could be closer to Alex and had finally trapped him with a baby. Now, despite Alex's affinity for Jack Daniels and his rumored passion for the women, she stuck by him, the ever-dutiful martyred wife.

L.K decided to ignore the attack on her character. "Is there something you wanted?"

"Not really," he said, surveying the mess as the wind kicked up and the scents of burned wood and exhaust from the idling Jeep wafted through the interior. "I was just coming from the house - Dad and Martina finally showed up. I gave Dad an update on what's been going on around here, then was heading into town when I saw your rig. Thought I should stop by, offer my condolences or whatever the hell they are and tell you that Martina's looking for you."

L.K sighed. She wasn't ready to face her mother - not yet.

He frowned. "You don't have to stick to Ashley just because he's your husband."

"Of course I do."

"He doesn't deserve it, L.K."

She rammed the Jeep into first. "I think I'll be the judge of that."

"You know, him being laid up puts me in kind of a bind."

"Puts you in a bind?" she repeated incredulously. "Ashley is lying in a hospital bed - battered and burned - and it puts you in a bind?"

"Of course it does. I've got to hire people to fill in for him while he's gone. A couple of lawyers to start with and then some troubleshooters . . ."

"I wouldn't start filling Ashley's shoes too quickly."

Alex drew hard on his cigarette. "The man's a cripple, L.K. He can't talk, can't walk, and for all we know, he could be brain-dead."

She couldn't help laughing, but the sound was bitter. "You wish. He's far from brain-dead and talking already. Be walking sooner than you know."

"Think about it. He won't be able to come back to work and I can't hold up the entire operation because of it. But I could buy him out. Hell, with the amount of shares he owns, you'd both be set for life."

"What about my shares?" she asked knowing that Alex had always resented that L.K owned a portion of the company. Not much, but enough to remind him that he wasn't the only heir to their father's fortune.

"I'd buy them, too."

"Over my dead body." L.K stepped on the gas, and the tires chirped as she cranked on the wheel and headed out of the parking lot. She didn't know why she suddenly felt so possessive of a few stock certificates, but she wasn't going to let Alex bully her. The entire idea of him offering to buy both Ashley and her out so soon after the fire smelled bad, as if he wanted to profit from the blaze.

She glanced into the rearview mirror and was surprised at the determination she saw reflected in her eyes. What was it about her brother that could make her protective of a husband she hadn't loved in a long, long while and possessive of stock she once would have given away?

"You're losing it," she confided to the blue eyes staring back at her. "Definitely losing it."

---

"We've been worried sick!" Martina's voice cracked through the foyer of the home where L.K had grown up. She pushed the door open a little farther and threw her arms around her daughter. "We took the first flight we could get. Oh, dear, let me look at you." Holding L.K at arms length under the chandelier, she studied her daughter. Little lines of worry pursed a mouth still tinged with traces of peach lipstick. "How's Ashley?"

"He'll be okay. Right now, he doesn't look too great, but the doctors are optimistic."

"Lindsay!" Her father walked stiffly into the foyer and a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. "It's good to see you."

"You, too, Dad." She meant it. She'd been dreading facing her parents, but now they were here, she was glad they were home.

He grabbed her hand. "How're you holding up?"

"Pretty good, I think."

"Need a drink?"

L.K shook her head. Her nerves were jangled already, her emotions snarled, her imagination running wild. What she needed was a clear head. "I'm fine."

"Well, I need one."

Martina's gaze was reproachable, her tone slightly scolding. "Christian, I don't think you should-"

Christian didn't hear his wife, or if he did he chose to ignore her advice and strode purposely to the den.

"This is killing him, you know," Martina confided as they walked into the kitchen. "Those horrid old memories" - her fingers fluttered at her sides - "all back again." Her face looked suddenly pale and old as if she'd been forever fighting a no-win battle with age. "I thought it was behind us, but oh, no. He even insisted that on our way over here we go to the cemetery, for God's sake. After the flight, we couldn't even come home and take off our shoes or unpack. No way. He had Alex pull off at the cemetery and he spent about twenty minutes praying at Monica's and Abi's graves." Her chin wobbled a little, and she took a seat in one of the kitchen chairs near the windows. The sadness that her husband would never love her as much as he'd loved his first wife made her shoulders slump. "He'll never forget her, you know," she admitted, wiping a spot on the tile inlay on the wooden table with a long finger.

"Abi?"

"Monica." Martina reached into her purse for a breath mint. "And Abi, too. They looked so much alike. He . . . well, you know how he felt about her." She gave a little shudder and looked as if she might break down. "He always treated her as if she were some kind of princess - a replica of her mother. Sometimes I wondered if . . ." She swallowed hard, then shook her head, as if in denial to herself.

"You wondered if what?" L.K asked, feeling a needle of dread prick her heart.

"Nothing . . . nothing . . ." Martina said quickly, forcing a smile. "I thought he'd change," she admitted. "Forget Monica." She wrapped an arm protectively over her waist. "But losing Abi. It only made it worse."

Their gazes touched briefly, and her mother's eyes were dark with a private torment. L.K's insides seemed to congeal.

"Sometimes I wonder why I married him."

"I think your mother's had a long day." Christian Bale's voice whispered through the room, and the temperature int he kitchen seemed to sink five degrees. "You're tired, Martina."

Martina's shoulders stiffened.

Christian, swirling a short glass of some amber-colored liquor, smiled sadly. "Your mother's been having these spells-"

"I have not!"

"She's mixing up fantasy and reality."

"Oh, for God's sake, Chris, don't try to confuse Lindsay. She won't buy it. She's a smart girl and she remembers how it was. How you treated her. "

"Stop it!" L.K hissed. "What's wrong with you two?" Then, to calm everyone, she held up her hands. "Let's not get into all that, okay? Abi and I were different. Dad treated us differently and it was fine with me, really." Her father stared down at his feet. "Dad, really, I never wanted you to treat me like you did Abi. I was afraid that after . . . after she died you might . . . well, change and look at me like you did her. When you didn't, I was relieved."

"It wasn't fair!" Martina put in. "He should have adored you the same way he-"

"He loves me, Mom. I know it. He knows it. I'm not Abi, and thank God for that!"

"You left after Abi died because of the way he treated you," Martina charged.

"I left because it was time to go. To find out who I really was. To get away from all this . . . this fighting. Now, come on, let's just put all this behind us. For now."

"Martina didn't like me stopping at the cemetery." Christian took a long swallow from his drink. "She's making more of it then there is."

"I don't like you moping around for a dead woman and a dead daughter. It's been too long. Just because there's been another fire doesn't give you the right to start acting melancholy all over again. You grieved over Monica forever, then you grieved for Abi and I understood it, but it's been too long, Chris, too damned long. I won't put up with it anymore." She blinked rapidly.

"The problem is you're jealous."

"Damned right, I'm jealous. I never measured up, did I? Never as good as Monica. I played along with it, thought you'd eventually forget her, but you didn't, and I'm tired of being understanding, pretending I don't hurt every time you look at her portrait, that I didn't notice how you ignored L.K whenever Abi was around-"

"Mom!" She couldn't hear this now, not while Ashley was fighting for his life and Andy . . . dear Lord, she couldn't shake the image of his body from her mind. "This isn't the time."

"L.K's right. We've got other problems."

"Do we? Sometimes I wouldn't know." Shooting a scathing look over her shoulder, Martina glared at her husband before walking stiffly out of the room.

Christian finished his drink and dropped the glass into the sink. "She exaggerates." He turned and managed a well-practiced smile. "Now, tell me about Ashley and how he's doing. The prognosis."

She filled him in as much as she could, suggesting that Christian and Martina visit him as well as talk to Detective Williams. They discussed the arson, but stayed away from the obvious fact that the two fires were similar.

Christian finished his drink. "They have any idea who the other man is - the John Doe?"

"No."

"Ashley doesn't know?"

"He says not."

"Ah, well. Another mystery." He rubbed his temples, sadness slid across his eyes. "Max's been missing, hasn't he?"

"Unfortunately, yes. He hasn't been at the house, or at work."

"Damn." He twisted his glass in his fingers and stared through the windows. "I hope he's okay."

"Max's tough."

"But innocent. Naive. And it looks like a storm's brewing." He studied the darkening clouds, his face reflective. "Nothing like a summer storms." Rubbing the back of his neck, he asked, "Do you believe in curses, Lindsay?"

"What? No." What was he talking about? Why the sudden shift in conversation? She felt a sudden sense of foreboding. It was odd, she thought, but then she and her father weren't particularly close. She couldn't remember the last time they'd had a conversation, just the two of them.

"Good. That's good." He spoke softly as he stared out the window, past the pool, to a distance that only he could see.

"Do you, Dad?" Where was this leading?

"Of course," he said without even a second's hesitation. "And I think I've been cursed for a long, long time. I only wish it didn't involve you or your brother or your mother. It was bad enough that it destroyed Abi and Monica."

"What - what are you talking about?" she asked, and wondered if she really wanted to know. There were secrets in the Bale house. They all had them, and she sensed her father was about to share his.

"I think it's time you knew a few things about me."

Oh, God, she was right! Christian wanted to make a confession. A dull roar seemed to build in her ears.

"Oh. God," he whispered, almost as if it were a prayer. "I don't really know how to say this, but..." His fingers gripped his empty glass so hard his hand shook. "It's my fault they died, you know. All my fault." He blinked rapidly, fighting the urge to break down.

"You didn't kill them," she said, hardly daring to breathe. Surely he wasn't saying . . .

"Not intentionally, no. But I destroyed them; as surely as if I'd turned the ignition in Monica's car or struck a match in the old gristmill." Tears glistened in his eyes.

"But how? Dad, this is crazy talk."

"By not being faithful. A man should always be faithful."

The grandfather clock in the den began to chime. Christian glanced at his watch and seemed to pull himself together. "Jesus, look at the time. I guess we'd better go visit Ashley."

"Wait a minute," she said. "What do you mean that you weren't faithful? You can't make a statement like that and you leave, Dad." She was angry of what she was about to hear.

"I suppose not." His features grim, he closed his eyes. "It's simple, Lindsay. I cheated on Monica. There were other women. One who I really cared about - not like Monica, you understand; I didn't love the women, but I did care about this one."

"You mean Mom?" L.K's stomach quivered.

He closed his eyes, and his lips moved silently as if he were sending a prayer. "No," he admitted, his jaw sliding to one side.

L.K's fingers clenched around the edge of the counter. "Then who?"

"It's ironic, really," Christian admitted, dropping his empty glass onto the table. "The woman I cared about - the one I went to when I was lonely - was Eva Biersack."

Notes

Again, so sorry for the long wait. I honestly didn't realize I hadn't logged on for more than a few weeks.

The longer the story goes, the more interesting it gets. Hold on to your hats when Ashley gets better because *hint* he has a deep secret.

So, what do you think?