Category: Mystery/Suspense Publisher: Five Star Publishing
ISBN-10: 159414530X
Type: Fiction
Pages: 259
Copyright: May, 2007
ISBN-13: 978159414530X
A tale that starts with a Bang! As author Mattie Carrington starts writing her second cookbook, her kitchen explodes. Then when she rents a cabin on the lake to work uninterrupted, she's poisoned and the whold thing is beginning to look like a recipe for trouble.
At the moment, Mattie Carrington wasn't thinking of herself as a celebrity. Getting into her younger sister Katie's car, she was thinking about what she wanted at the grocery store.
"Ready?" Katie smiled affectionately at her older sister as she started the car.
Mattie nodded. She fastened her seatbelt. As Katie backed out and started up the street, her mind already roamed familiar aisles and was planning tomorrow's breakfast goodies. She settled back as the car began to pick up speed.
An instant later, the sound and vibration of an explosion made Katie swerve to the side of the street.
They sat in stunned silence for a few seconds, Katie's foot still on the brake.
"What on earth was that?"
"I don't know. It sounded so close!"
Katie turned around in the next driveway. They were only a few blocks from home. Neither of them spoke.
In a matter of seconds, they were back in sight of the house, their eyes widening in disbelief.
"Our house! Look at that smoke! Katie, it's coming from the back of our house!" Mttie pointed a shaking finger at a rising cloud of smoke.
"Oh! What-what?" Katie found her tongue but was too shaken up to finish her sentence. She turned to Mattie, who had placed a hand over her heart, "Oh, dear, Mattie?"
"I'm all right. I'm all right," Mattie quickly assured her. "Just breathing a little hard."
She squinted toward the house. "There's not all that much smoke. It just looks scary because it's our house. I wonder what happened?"
Katie didn't answer. She got out leaving the car door open.
Mattie climbed out her side of the car and both of them stood looking apprehensively at the house. Braced for another explosion or whatever might happen next, they were not yet able to cope with this. Katie wiped her eyes and squinted. The drifting smoke hurt them.
They could see a hole in the kitchen wall, the siding around it broken and blackened. Some debris lay in the yard beneath thehole where the smoke was still billowing out.
A voice broke through their shock. Their neighbor across the street was calling to them from her front porch.
"Ms.Carringon? Katie? Are you all right? What happened, or do you know?" She wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing and beckonMd to them.
mattie got a grip on her emotions and answered. "We don't know what happened, Mrs.Johnson. We heard it, but we don't know what it was. We've got to call the fire deparment."
"I did that soon as I looked out and saw the smoke. They're coming." Mrs Johnson added as she moved to the steps. "You two come on over here. Don't even think of going near the house."
"Yes, we're coming." Katie took Matie's arm.
Mattie looked back when she and katie reached Mrs. Johnson's porch. The smoked looked out of place in the settled old neighborhood with its well cared for old houses and the lawns bordered by large shrubs.
"We had started for the store when we heard it, the explosion or whatever it was."
Two trucks answered the call and people were appearing now, gathering on their porches and lawns.
As Mattie, Katie,and Mrs. Johnson watched from the safety of Mrs. Johnson's porch, Mattie's sharp eyes quickly located the person in charge. She gave Katie's back a pat and walked across the street to talk to him.
Stopping beside the man, Mattie took a few minutes to look at the ctivity then softly touched his arm.
"I'm mattie Carrington," she introduced herself when she got his attention. "This is my house."
"I'm Chief Owens." The man took off his helmet as he answered. It said FCFC on it, which stood for Fort Craig Fire Department. "You said on the phone there weren't any people or pets in the house?"
"We were not at home. It was my neighbor, Mrs.Johson, who called,"Mattie explained. "That's right though, there are no pets. We had only gone a few blocks when we heard what sounded like an explosion." She glanced toward the house. "Can you tell yet what happened?"
"Not yet. I'm glad no one was hurt. Looks like there might be quite a bit of damage though, to have made that hole. Have you notified your insurance carrier?"
"I'll go do that right now." Mattien hesitated. "Do you want to talk to them?"
"No, ma'am. Soon as we have things under control, we'll amake an official report and have it ready for them to get a copy of it."
"Oh, I see. Well, then, I'll call and tell them what's happened. Or what I can." She turnd and watched as a man in a slicker and helmet came out of the house and two more went in.
"I don't see smoke coming from anywhere else. We, my sister and I were afraid to get any cljoser."
"We haven't checked everything yet, but looking form here, I've seen a lot worse."
Mattie put her hands in her sweater pockts to keep them from shaking, feeling helpless as she watched the firmemen. The thought of an explosion in her house was hard to grasp.
She turned to go, trying to get a grip on her emotions before rejioning Katie. She glanced back only once as she left, unable to stop the scary thought, "And I would have been in there if I hadn't decided to go to the store with Katie."
***
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