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Chapter One

Dr Mitchell Baker arrived at his rented duplex just as the firefighters extinguished the last flickers of fla what re, blackened shell Heavy clouds obscured what little natural light rehters had set up portable lighting to assist them as they wrapped up their work Norlow at this hour, but the poas out on this whole street

One of Arkansas’s infah winds, boo strikes Soht in July, a tree had fallen over a power line, knocking out the electricity to this part of Little Rock alhbor in the other half of the duplex—the woman he referred to as “the ditz next door”—had lit candles all through her rooht and then left to buy fast food for a late dinner When she returned, the duplex was fully engulfed in flames

Water trickled down his face and dripped off his chin He reached up to swipe at his eyes with the back of one hand, clearing raindrops from his lashes The rain was little more than a trickle now, but without a hat or raincoat, he was soaked He made no effort to find shelter Instead, he watched the firefighters gather their equipment and listened to the ditz next door as she told her tale to a woman who appeared to be a newspaper reporter She wasn’t even sht with a shake of his wet head She freely ad had caught so on fire

Maybe? He’d always believed the forty-so bottle-redhead was short a featts in her ured most of the bulbs were permanently dimmed, to carry the metaphor further

He thought regretfully of a few valued possessions he’d lost in that fire A quilt his late grandmother had made that he’d used as a bedspread Electronics equipe and medical school activities and from his few travels Pictures

Fortunately, his laptop had been in his office at the hospital, and he kept files backed up online, so he hadn’t lost the ital photos stored in his desktop cos that had belonged to his father and grandfather—were safely stowed in plastic bins in his mother’s attic because the duplex had been too ss he’d lost All his clothes, for exa he owned noas a couple of shirts and two pairs of jeans stashed in his office and the sneakers he ith the blue surgical scrubs in which he’d left the hospital

“Dr Baker? Are you all right?” The wo duplex next door approached beneath a big, green-and-white golf u after he’d moved in, when he’d helped her retrieve her new kitten from a tree that stood between the two rental properties That kitten was now a fat, lazy cat who liked to co for treats Both Mitch and Snowball would miss those visits

“I’m fine, Mrs Gillis Thank you”

She lookedremains of the house, then distastefully at the ditz, as dra her hands for the benefit of a television cahborhood, but I

thought it would be because of her reckless driving The way she zips down this street without any regard for anyone—and you know she hit Miss Pennybaker’s mailbox just last week Now this”

“At least no one was hurt, and none of the other houses were daly at her “All the other stuff can be replaced”

“I’lldoctors want to live in this neighborhood They all want to move out to those fancy houses in west Little Rock or some place like that”

When he’d moved into the rental, he’d been a very busy, twenty-five-year-old intern who’d been given a month’s notice to find a new place after his former apartment had been sold to a developer He’d looked for someplace available, convenient to the hospital and reasonably priced, all of which he’d found in the tidy duplex in an aging but respectable hborhood He hadn’t intended to stay more than a few months, but those hty hours a week at the hospital and what little ti his ed mother

Noo ery practice, he could afford to buy or build, but he couldn’t think about that now Not while al in front of him