1 Off Kilter by Hannah Reed Page A

hallway, tripping along, realizing I was one of the last guests to vacate when Jeannie practically shoved me from the building. She followed swiftly behind me, glancing back, a worried expression on her face.
    “Is your father out?” I called to her.
    “Aye. He’s safe and sound,” she answered, moving off.
    A fire-and-rescue truck had arrived, a miniature version of the kind of fire trucks I was used to seeing in America, immense vehicles with every kind of lifesaving piece of equipment and long, powerful hoses. This one seemed dinky in comparison. Could it really get the job done?
    Outside, fresh, cool air cleared my mind. I shivered while taking a quick inventory of all I’d left behind . . . which amounted to almost everything. Except for my manuscript, tucked away safely inside a file on my laptop. We all have our own priorities in an emergency, and this had been mine. Adding my cardigan or a blanket to the list would have been a nice touch.
    As I stared up at the building, at the window of my room, where smoke rolled out through the now open window, one of the other guests turned to me, angry and fearful. “This is yer fault!”
    “Mine! What?” I’d had nothing to do with this.
    “Smokin’ in bed, that’s wha’!” another guest decided.
    “I don’t smoke,” I said in my defense. “I’ve never smoked. Maybe it was faulty wiring.”
    No one seemed convinced.
    By now, the emergency fire brigade was taking charge, rolling out hoses, handing out equipment, all operating as one well-oiled machine. Thankfully, I hadn’t seen any flames inside, but smoke was still making its way out of the building. Had the fire been contained?
Please, be contained.
I kept glancing down the street, hoping another fire truck would arrive. Because this little one could use some help.
    “Aren’t more trucks coming?” I asked whoever wanted to listen.
    “This is the only one within close tae fifty kilometers.” Metric conversion isn’t my strong suit even on a good day, and it must have been apparent because the person speaking helped me out. “That’s about thirty miles.”
    The only one within thirty miles? From my extremely limited but highly memorable experience with the Highlands’ narrow, windy roads, I knew it could take a good hour or longer to travel thirty miles. It had taken me much longer than that coming the forty or so miles from Inverness. By the time backup arrived, the entire town might burn down.
    No flames yet, though.
    “It’s yerself again,” I heard from behind me, and I turned to find Inspector Jamieson addressing me in a rather resigned, exhausted manner. “I haven’t had a good night’s rest since ye arrived. It’s like having a newborn pup keeping me up till all hours o’ the night.”
    His gaze traveled down to the hem of my shirt, reminding me that all I was wearing beneath it was my underwear. He quickly turned his eyes elsewhere. “Yer shivering, lass. We’ll have tae get ye covered up somehow,” he said. “And find ye lodging elsewhere.”
    I hadn’t thought about actually abandoning my room and all my belongings for longer than it took to contain the source of the smoke. I clutched the laptop. “My car keys are up in the room, my money, everything. How can I go anywhere?”
    The inspector’s look shifted over my shoulder. “I’m guessing a ride is here fer ye,” he told me.
    A ride? Sure enough, as I turned in bewilderment, I saw Vicki MacBride making her way toward me with a blanket under her arm. Inspector Jamieson moved off as Vicki swept me into her arms and squeezed.
    “I can’t breathe,” I managed to choke out when she didn’t let go.
    “Oh, sorry,” she said, releasing me and wrapping the blanket around my freezing body. “It’s that I’m relieved is all.”
    “How did you find out about the fire?” Small-town gossip couldn’t have made its way to the farm—and certainly not to Vicki—so quickly. She nodded to where I now saw the volunteer