Fire in the Stars by Barbara Fradkin Read Free Book Online Page A

together to build new gardens, wells, schools, and clinics, as well as extra security. For all the good that had done.
    The headline read Heroes Against All Odds , and under the photo was a smaller caption. Canadian Aid Workers Fight to Save Village .
    The journalist, Matthew Goderich, had become a friend over the course of their ordeal and its aftermath. A stringer for the Canadian Press, he’d been ordered to return to Lagos by his employer when the Islamist insurgency worsened, but instead he’d insisted on staying on in the north as a freelancer. These stories need to be told, he’d said. No matter how many people back home don’t want to hear them.
    Despite the passage of time and the warm safety of the RCMP office, Amanda felt that familiar vice pressing her chest. Sensing it, Kaylee nuzzled her fingers.
    â€œI dug this up when I first met Phil,” Tymko said. “What you two did was incredibly brave.”
    She pasted a blank expression on her face. “Foolhardy. You don’t have time to think.”
    â€œNot everyone reacts like you did. Lots of people would have run for their own lives.”
    â€œThose children were like family.” She paused, loath to revisit the memories. To perpetuate the great lie of her heroism. “You never know how you’ll react until the threat is right there. The guns, the smoke, the blood … It’s all instinct. Fight or flight.”
    Or freeze.
    â€œI know.” He spoke as if he did know. As if he too had faced the devil head on. Well, he was a cop after all.
    â€œI guess it’s not all speeding tickets in your line of work, either,” she said gaily to change the mood.
    He obliged her with a smile but it was fleeting. “Afterward, though, when you’ve had time to think …”
    â€œAbout how you almost died? Yeah.”
    â€œAnd about who you didn’t save.”
    No doubt he was speaking about himself, but her heart hammered. The coffee cup shook in her hand. Seeing that, he looked stricken. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I know the memories must still be very raw. They are for Phil. He was really looking forward to your trip.”
    Grateful for the opening, she steered back to safer ground. To the reason she had come. “But something went wrong. Corporal Tymko —”
    â€œChris.”
    â€œChris. He’s taken his son with him. That wasn’t part of the plan. And his wife had just told him there is someone else. She thinks he’s just taking time to sort things out, but I’m scared it’s more. He’s been betrayed —”
    â€œIn more ways that you know.”
    Amanda hesitated. Chris’s lips were a grim line, his eyes hooded.
    â€œYou mean Jason Maloney?”
    He nodded.
    â€œSheri says she didn’t tell him.”
    Chris shifted. His bony knee jiggled. “Jason did.”
    She sucked in her breath. Even worse!
    â€œJason said he had a right to know, said he didn’t feel right sneaking around behind his back.”
    â€œOh right! So why not spit in his face instead?” Amanda thought back to the exchange of cryptic text messages on Phil’s phone, setting up a meeting. Was that when Jason had told him? Was that the last anyone saw of Phil before he packed up his son and took off?
    She revisited Jason’s behaviour from the night before, including his determination to handle things quietly, ostensibly to spare Phil the public humiliation of a full-fledged police hunt. She felt her blood pressure rise. Like hell. More to spare himself the censure. Or Sheri’s wrath should she find out.
    â€œSheri doesn’t know that Phil knows,” she said. But even as she spoke, she remembered Sheri avoiding Jason’s touch the night before. Was that just guilt, or did she have an inkling of what he’d done?
    â€œNo,” Chris said, “and I told Jason he should tell her.”
    So that was the