Leopard 04 - Wild Fire

waiting for that one moment when all her senses would tell her there’d be a calm and she could go diving. Her gear was always prepared and stowed at all times so the moment she knew she could make a dive, she was ready.
    Her boat and truck were always kept in pristine condition. She allowed no one else to step on her boat Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    except the women in her family—and that was rare. No one but Rikki touched the engine. Ever. Or her baby, the Honda-driven Atlas Copco air compressor. She knew her life depended on good air. She used three filters to remove carbon monoxide, which had killed two well-known locals a few years earlier.
    She knew the tides by heart thanks to the Northern California Tidelog, her bible. Although she’d committed the book to memory, she read for fun daily, a compulsion she couldn’t stop. Today she had minimum tide ebb and flood with hopefully no current—optimum working conditions where she wanted to dive.
    Despite Blythe’s concerns, Rikki really did consider safety paramount. Rikki stowed her wet suit and gear in the truck along with her spare gear. Divers—especially Rikki—generally kept a spare of every piece of equipment on the boat on hand just to be safe, in an airtight locked container that she checked periodically to make sure it was in working order. Moments later she was driving toward Port Albion Harbor, humming along to a Joley Drake CD. The rather famous Drake family lived in the small town of Sea Haven. The Drakes were friends with her sisters, particularly Blythe and Lexi, but Rikki had never actually talked to any of them—especially not Joley. She loved Joley’s voice and didn’t want to chance making social mistakes around her.
    Strangely, she’d never been bothered by others’ opinions of her. Friendships were too difficult to manage. She had to work too hard to fit in, to find the right things to say, so it was easier just to be herself and not care what people thought of her. But with someone she admired—like Joley—she was taking no chances. Better to just keep her distance entirely.
    Rikki sang along as she drove down the highway, occasionally glancing at the ocean. The water shimmered like jewels, beckoning to her—offering the peace she so badly needed. She’d had a few months’ reprieve from her nightmares, but now they were back with a vengeance, coming nearly every night. The pattern was familiar, an affliction she’d suffered many times over the years. The only thing she could do was weather the storm.
    Fire had destroyed her family when she was thirteen. Definitely arson, the firefighters had said. A year and six months later, a fire had destroyed the foster home she was staying in. No one had died, but the fire had been set.
    The third fire had taken her second foster home on her sixteenth birthday. She had awakened, her heart pounding, unable to breathe, already choking on smoke and fear. She’d crawled on her hands and knees to the other rooms, waking the occupants, alerting them. Everyone had escaped, but the house and everything inside had been lost.
    The authorities wouldn’t believe she hadn’t started any of the fires. They couldn’t prove it, but no one wanted her after that. No one trusted her and, in truth, she didn’t trust herself. How had the fires started?
    One of the many psychologists suggested she couldn’t remember doing it, and maybe that was the truth.
    She’d lived in a state- run facility, apart from the others. Fire-starter, they’d called her; the Death Dealer.
    She’d endured the taunts and then she’d become violent, protecting herself with ruthless, brutal force when her tormenters escalated to physical abuse. She was labeled a troublemaker and she no longer cared.
    The moment she turned eighteen she was gone. Running. And she hadn’t stopped until she’d met Daniel.
    He’d been a diver too.
    Rikki turned her truck down the sloping drive leading to the harbor, inhaling the fragrance of the eucalyptus trees lining the road. Tall and thick, the trees stood like a forest of sentinels, guarding the way.
    The road wound around and the Albion Fishing Village came into view. She drove on through to the large, empty dirt parking lot and then backed up to the wooden guard in front of the gangway connecting to the dock.
    As she unpacked her gear, the last remnant of her nightmare faded. Now, here, in the daylight beside the calming influence of