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    The Fire in the Basement
    The Fire in the Basement
    The Fire in the Basement
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    The Fire in the Basement

    By J.P. Lee

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    About this ebook

    Josie spent five years in prison for the negligent death of her young teenage son. When she gets out, the town she grew up in still can’t forgive her for the terrible mistakes of her drug and alcohol past. Then the ghost of her son leads her to the truth about his death. A truth which threatens to rock the entire town and tear down all its illusions.

    But given her past, who will believe her?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJ.P. Lee
    Release dateJul 3, 2013
    ISBN9781301799206
    The Fire in the Basement

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      Book preview

      The Fire in the Basement - J.P. Lee

      The Fire in the Basement

      by J.P. Lee

      Copyright 2013 J.P. Lee

      Cover Design by Laura Shinn

      Smashwords Edition

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Afterword

      Chapter One

      The Year 1996

      On a bright autumn day, Josie stood outside the state prison that had been her home for the last five years. Her mangle of long wavy hair that had once hung loose was now pulled back in a haphazard bun. She was dressed in jeans and an old jacket sweater and the rest of her few possessions were in a patched-up duffel bag at her feet.

      She remembered the day she arrived, terrified and shrinking away. Now, as she stood outside the discharge gate, she could feel herself wilting back into the steel fence. She thought if she were a ghost, she could go back unseen. How nice that would be. She could permeate the walls and she’d be in her cell again, safe and comfortable and unknown. Instead, she looked up at the brilliant blue sky. Crisp, they called days like this in New England. How she’d missed these days when she first arrived. But today it felt forced and foreign. She wanted to be staring at drab concrete walls that expected nothing.

      She’d even made friends with the other inmates. There was one woman who had killed her abusive husband. I didn’t know they put you in prison for that, the woman said, half joking. I thought I was doing everyone a favor. They did put her in prison, but a sympathetic court accepted a plea bargain reducing the charge and the woman was paroled after three years. She surprised Josie, she was so educated and so smart. She went to college. She talked about her mother and her father. Her parents were still married, she grew up with a dad, even if he was seldom there. A nice woman from nice people living in a nice suburb. How did a woman like that get married to an SOB?

      After the woman left, she wrote Josie once. She said how strange it was to be back with her kids and family. Everyone acted as if she had just been away on vacation, as if nothing had happened. She offered encouraging words to Josie, but never wrote again. Beyond sharing a prison cell, the two had little in common. Except the same charge that brought them to prison. Negligent homicide. Only, Josie hadn’t done anyone any favors. And the only thing that brought her sympathy, even from the other inmates, was her wrenching guilt.

      A blue sedan she didn’t recognize drove up with a familiar face in the driver’s seat. Josie picked up her bag and put on a smile. As she neared the car, she heard the click that unlocked the doors. She put her bag in the back seat, opened the front passenger side and heard her voice ring out like the day: Hey, Ma. She got in the car and the doors clicked again.

      The hour and a half ride home was mostly spent with Josie trying to break her mother’s wooden face into small talk. So, she was actually relieved when they finally turned off the thruway and wound down a familiar two-lane road that, to her surprise, had been widened as they entered a more populated area. She couldn’t help exclaiming on the new developments that had sprung up since she was last there, including a new strip mall, though she only got an Hmm from her mother. The only landmark she recognized was a small airport in the distance.

      Soon after that, they passed the sign: Welcome to Worton, pop. 14,486 and under that, what Josie had always thought was so stupid: If you lived here, you’d be home now. Then the road paralleled the river, passing more familiar sites. She looked away from a large wooden structure called the Diamond Bar & Grill. Just beyond that, on the edge of town, was the Green Valley Human Resource Center housed in the old mill. From there they were prevented from entering the downtown area by several road blocks. Josie saw in the distance a banner: Annual TAD Bikeathon with throngs of people, and seemed to remember that TAD stood for Teens Against Drugs. Her mother followed the detour signs through residential side streets.

      After they got back on the main road, they soon turned left into a neighborhood and pulled into the driveway of a house. Josie gingerly opened the door and got out. She got her bag out of the back and stood there leaning against the car, waiting for her mother to come around the side.

      The house was still a narrow, three-story white clapboard with a porch across the front, but there were a few marked differences. When Josie had last seen it, she stood on the lawn and watched as medics carried a body out. The basement was blackened from fire and where two basement windows had been open, black scorch marks went up the side of the house. But all that had been erased and now it looked better than it did even before the fire. Even the old, dilapidated detached garage, which hadn’t been damaged, had been rebuilt and a new lift-up garage door added.

      Josie looked around the neighborhood which was still a hodgepodge of older, modest, homes, most of which hadn’t changed much in five years, when even the ones with aluminum siding looked like they could use some paint. But she was surprised at the number that had been bought and fixed up. The irony that her home now looked like one of those didn’t pass her by.

      She noticed that her mother wasn’t getting out of the car and got back in.

      Ain’tcha comin’ in, Ma?

      No, Harold’s waitin’ for me. We’re drivin’ back today.

      All the way to Florida? Gee, you coulda rested up here tonight. Such a long trip.

      Gotta get back to work. There’s a few groceries for ya.

      Why doncha stay for lunch?

      Harold’s waitin’.

      Josie fell silent. She looked at the house and said almost absently: Dr. Mansfield did a real nice job on the house.

      Yeah, her mother said. She shifted in her seat, her eyes locked in front of her, hands on the wheel. Oh, she relented. She pulled something out of her purse. Here are the keys. The car, too.

      Josie took the keys, rubbing her fingers over them as if they were worry beads. Finally, Thanks for everything, Ma. Maybe I can come down for Christmas or somethin’.

      If ya like. We can’t send ya the plane fare, though. Things are tight.

      No, no, ya done enough. Have a good trip.

      Her mother had turned onto the main road before Josie stepped on the grass toward the house. With her eyes focused on the upper floors, she walked quickly up the porch steps, slipped in the key and through the door.

      Chapter Two

      Thirty minutes later, Josie sat at the kitchen table eating a tuna sandwich. Her eyes avoided a fire extinguisher propped by the basement door. Instead, she turned her chair and looked out at the large old sugar maple in the backyard, branched out in all its autumn glory, beyond it a small woods, and beyond that the main road into town. But even this, she glanced away from.

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