Page 31 of His Ex's Little Sister
“It happened so fast, I wasn’t able to stop him, not without leaving youinside.”
“So he’s still outthere?”
“Yes, but the police willfindhim.”
If I don’t find himfirst.
I can’t stand witnessing her heartbreak on learning someone she was close to did this to her intentionally. I’m even more relieved to see an ambulance van and two police cars arriving on the scene in my rearview mirror, followed shortly by a fire truck. They all quickly move into action. A paramedic checks out Robin for possible smoke inhalation while firefighters set up to fight the blaze. The police direct the roadway traffic, and one of the officers takes Robin’s and my initial statements and our contactinformation.
We’re cleared to leave soon afterward, but Robin refuses to come to my place. She demands that I take her to herdayjob.
“You can’t go to work in thisstate.”
“I have to,” she tells me. “I just lost everything. I can’t just sitaround.”
Her boss phones her back just in time. He tells her not to come in, thankfully, but that only fuels her need to remain outside her burnt up shell of a rental house. She won’t eat or drink. It takes a lot of coaxing to make her sip on a bottle of water to avoid dehydration. By the time the firefighters put out the last of the blaze, they come by and confirm what I expected. The structure is not cleared for re-entry until their fire investigators return to the scene to determine the cause. They’ve even cordoned off hertruck.
Robin is shaking at the shock ofthenews.
I offer to take her to her parents’ place, but she can’t go there either. They’re out of town, and Robin’s spare key for their house is on her key chain—inside of her cordoned off rental house. She’s cried so much in the last couple of hours that she can hardlyspeak.
“You’re coming to my place,” I tell her. “It’s not a request. If Dave can do this once, he’ll try it again once he realizes he didn’t succeed the first time, but he won’t know to look for you at my condo. You’ll be safe. There’s lots of room. You can stay in the guest room until your family or friendgetsback.”
Taking her nonresponse as consent, I drive her to my low-rise condo building and show her up to my unit. Robin uses the bathroom, drinks another bottle of water, and curls up on the spare room bed. I sit in the armchair beside the bed. After she drifts off to sleep, I go to my home office and use the time to get someworkdone.
Leo phones me for an update, and I keep up with emails and other tasks I can handle from home. I check her room every so often, but with the exception of bathroom pit stops, Robin doesn’t move from that bed for the entire rest of the day, evening andnight.
