Show Me (Thomas Prescott 4) Nick Pirog (philippa perry book TXT) 📖

I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and ducked, making it to the paneled door. I pushed the door aside, the wood hot, but still bearable. The fire was louder than I would have expected, a symphony of cracks and pops. Smoke billowed from the open doors, and I dropped to my knees.

“Harold! May!” I screamed.

Since hiding there to get away from the fireworks on July 4th, the piglets had been spending most of their time in the barn, dug into the hay.

Coughing, I crawled to the piglets’ new home. Through squinted, watering eyes, I could see two shapes. I crawled to them.

They both whined.

“It’s okay.”

I picked one of them up in each arm—no easy task as both weighed nearly thirty pounds—took a deep breath, and darted through the approaching flames. The fire nicked at my flesh, but a moment later, I was safely through with the piglets. I continued running with them until I was back in front of the farmhouse. I set them down and took a few satisfying breaths.

“Are you guys okay?” I wheezed.

They were both covered in a fine layer of soot. Harold seemed fine, but May’s breathing was labored. She sat down on her butt, taking in small wheezy breaths. I wiped her nose clean of soot, hoping that would help, but it didn’t.

Turning to look over my shoulder, I gazed at the barn. The entire thing was ablaze, flames whipping in the soft breeze. If I’d gotten there a minute later, there was no doubt in my mind both Harold and May would be dead.

Who did this?

Lunhill?

Blackwater?

The Chief?

Was this a warning?

May’s breathing broke me from my reverie.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I told her, rubbing her head gently.

Then I ran inside and grabbed my cell phone.

She answered on the third ring.

“Wheeler!” I shouted.

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“Someone lit my barn on fire.”

“Oh my God. Did you call the police?”

I half expected the fire trucks to show up any moment. But then again, if any of the far-off neighbors did see the flames, they probably just assumed I was burning brush. “Not yet,” I said.

“Do you kno—”

“The pigs were in the barn,” I blurted.

“Shit! Did you get them out?”

“Yeah, just barely, but May isn’t doing so hot. She’s having trouble breathing.”

“I’ll be right over.”

She must have driven twice the speed limit because she showed up ten minutes later.

Her truck screeched to a halt in the drive and she jumped out. She had a black bag in her right hand and sprinted to where Harold, May, and I were sitting on the ground near the front steps.

Thankfully, over the course of the past ten minutes, May’s breathing had improved.

“How is she?” Wheeler asked, falling to her knees.

“I think she’s doing better.”

She turned and looked at the barn, squinting into the flames, and asked, “How long do you think they were in there?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe five minutes, maybe longer.”

Wheeler seemed satisfied with this, then spent the next few minutes examining May. She took her blood pressure, listened to her heart, checked her oxygen levels, felt around her throat, looked into her mouth, and swabbed the inside of her nose.

Finally, she said, “Well, the good news is she seems to be doing okay. She definitely inhaled some carbon monoxide, but it doesn’t look like it was enough to do any real damage. Oxygen levels are a bit down, but should improve. Biggest concern was burned airways, but those look fine.”

“And the bad news?”

“Sometimes symptoms of smoke inhalation don’t appear until a few hours after exposure, so she could still—” She stopped. Didn’t say it.

“She could still die?”

She reached out and grabbed my hand. “I think she’s going to be fine. You just need to keep an eye on her for a little while.”

I gave her hand a squeeze and let go.

She switched her focus to Harold, giving him a quick examination, then declared him “Fit as a fiddle.”

As if on cue, Harold oinked then pawed at May. Wheeler and I both stared at the little girl, on edge how she would react. She pawed back at her brother, and the two scampered a couple feet away and began wrestling.

I let out a long sigh.

“I told you, she’s going to be fine,” Wheeler said, taking a seat on the ground next to me.

We were both facing the barn. It was an inferno, the flames at their peak. You could still feel the heat from a hundred yards away. After some debate, I’d decided not to call 911. They would have had too many questions that I would have to circumvent. For example, “Who would have torched your barn? And why?”

Oh, I don’t know, maybe a little company you may have heard of called Lunhill. And maybe because they wanted to give me a not-so-subtle warning to stop probing into their involvement in the Save-More murders.

That said, there was nothing the fire trucks could do. There was no saving the barn. And having de-brushed the immediate area surrounding the barn, there was little risk the fire would spread.

Wheeler asked, “What were the pigs doing in the barn?”

“They went in there when the fireworks were going off over the weekend and I think they liked it. They’ve slept there the last couple of nights.”

“Did you see anybody when you came out?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

“Why would someone want to burn down your barn?”

“A warning.”

Her eyebrows jumped. “A warning?”

“Yeah, to stop poking my nose where it doesn’t belong.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Does this have something to do with the Save-More murders?”

“Yeah.”

“You think there’s more to it than just Lowry?”

“I know there’s more.”

It’s the way I said the words. With purpose. Each letter granite. Each syllable as strong as the steel frame of her truck.

She looked at me. A look of want. Seductive. In any other situation, I would read the look as pleading for my lips against hers. But it wasn’t my lips she wanted. It was information.

“What do you know about Lunhill?” I asked.

“Not a whole lot.