Thump, thump, thump. The sound intruded into Peter Belden’s dreams, drawing him reluctantly into consciousness. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Through the fuzziness of sleep, the realisation arrived that someone was pounding on the front door. He let out a groan as he rolled out of bed and onto his feet. Eyes still tightly closed, he did not notice that his wife was not beside him.

“Coming,” Peter called, as he trudged down the stairs towards the insistent knocking. The door swung open under his touch and he found himself confronted by Sergeant Molinson. Behind him, waiting, were a number of other officers.

“May we come in?” the sergeant requested. He held out a document, which Peter strained to read in the dim light from the porch. “This is a warrant to search these premises. Also, I would like to speak to your wife.”

“She’s upstairs,” Peter replied, waving the officers inside. “I’ll fetch her.”

He found his daughter watching from the top of the stairs, her eyes asking a question to which he did not know the answer. The search team had fanned out across the lower level of the house and a pair preceded him as he headed up the stairs. They were right beside him as he entered the bedroom, only to find it empty.

“Helen?” he called. There was no answer. He began to move from room to room, calling her name. All of his children were awake now and wandering around in confusion. There seemed to be police in every corner of the house, but his wife was nowhere to be found.

Sergeant Molinson was surrounded by papers in the downstairs study when Peter eventually found him. “I’m sorry, sergeant,” he told him. “I can’t find Helen anywhere.”

The other man did not seem surprised. “They’re searching outside, too. We know she was here when we arrived. She can’t get far.”

Footsteps sounded from behind them and a throat was cleared. Peter turned to see his eldest son, evidently the delegated representative of the younger generation, standing in the doorway.

“Dad, Sergeant Molinson,” he began, in steady tones, “we’d like to know what’s going on.”

Peter turned to the sergeant. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. Would you care to explain?”

The officer stiffened slightly, becoming somehow more official. His voice, when he spoke, sounded as if he was reading from a report. “Over the last three years, a police task force has been investigating the alleged distribution of stolen goods in Sleepyside. Recently, it has been established that the trade originates from this address. At nine forty-seven p.m., a significant transaction took place. The surveillance unit attached to the task force identified the perpetrator as Helen Margaret Belden.”

“What?” demanded Trixie’s voice, from somewhere just out of sight. “No! Moms wouldn’t do that!”

“Trixie!” Brian chastised. “You and Mart were supposed to be keeping Bobby away from here. You chose me to do this; you should have trusted me to do my part.”

“He’s fine,” Mart disagreed. “He’s ‘holping’ some officers search the attic. And I’m with Trixie: Moms wouldn’t do that. There must be some mistake.”

“We need to find her, so she can prove that it’s not true,” Trixie continued, ignoring her brothers. “I bet there’s some gang operating here, just making it look like Moms is involved, when really it’s part of a plot to discredit the Bob-Whites and dominate Sleepyside’s criminals.”

“Why would someone set up Moms if they wanted to discredit us?” Mart demanded. He gave his sister a pompous look. “Verily, our illustrious assemblage imperils the livelihood of the miscreants of our vicinity, but to implicate our maternal forebear is excessive!”

“They’re criminals,” his sister objected. “That’s the kind of thing that criminals do.”

“I stand by my earlier assessment–”

“What’s that smell?” Brian interrupted, as his siblings’ argument began to get out of hand. “I think I can smell something burning.”

The sergeant jumped up and raced for the back door, followed by the four Beldens. He threw it open and stared out into the night. Large lights had been set up to aid in the outdoor search, but he called to one of the officers to have them turned off. A few minutes elapsed before the task was completed. All the while, the smell became stronger.

Suddenly, the yard was thrown into darkness. Peter, along with the rest of the crowd, found himself unable to make out anything at all for a few moments. His daughter’s shocked voice echoed in his ear: “Look! Towards Ten Acres! Something’s on fire. You can see a kind of glow.”

Horror washed over Peter as he remembered the recent run of dry weather. The brook had been near-empty for weeks now and the landscape had become parched. A huge amount of potential fuel for a fire lay between the house and those distant, hungry flames.

“Get those lights back on! Call the fire brigade!” ordered the sergeant, as men began to scurry in all directions. “You two, go and investigate. The rest of you, keep searching.”

The sergeant seemed driven, now. He pushed his men to work, even as smoke wafted across the yard. A siren sounded in the distance. Several people began to cough as the smoke thickened. The glow became visible, even while the lights were on.

“Evacuate the area,” Molinson ordered, as flames appeared over a nearby ridge. “Everybody out!”

Men began rushing for their cars. Peter, in high alarm, started searching for his family. “Trixie? Brian? Helen!” None of them seemed to be around. “Mart? Bobby?” A vague remembrance of a comment about the attic sent him upstairs to investigate. From outside, he could hear the sound of Brian’s car. Trixie rushed past him, arms filled with her own treasures.

“Bobby?” Peter called, peering up the narrow staircase that led to the attic. “Are you up there?” Next, he tried the boy’s own room. One small, bare foot was visible under the bed. “Come out, Bobby. We need to get going.”

A muffled reply reached his ears, but made little sense. When the boy’s head emerged, his voice became clearer. “I gotta find ‘em before we can go. I just gotta.”

“There’s no time, son,” he soothed, wishing that he could make things better for the little boy. “Just grab what you can fit in this bag.”

“I really, really need this,” Bobby muttered, as he packed. “An’ this, an’ this, an’ this.”

His father found a pair of slippers and tried to force them onto the bare feet while the boy worked. The bag was stuffed to capacity before he managed the task. His thoughts were turning to other things that needed to be rescued – important documents, family heirlooms, valuables – even as he tried to hurry Bobby out of the room.

“Dad!” Trixie’s voice, reaching them from downstairs, held an element of panic. “Bobby! Come now! The garage is on fire!”

Peter scooped up his son and raced with him down the stairs. He found his daughter waiting at the front door with tears running down her soot-streaked face. “I’m sorry, Dad. We didn’t get your car out in time We’ll have to all go in Brian’s.” She hustled the pair outside and they crowded together into the back seat.

Sparks were raining down as they headed down the driveway at the maximum speed that Brian could manage. Peter turned to look at his home as the flames surrounded it. “What about your mother?” he demanded. “Where is she? We can’t leave without her.”

The uncomfortable silence was broken by Brian, just as he turned the car onto Glen Road. “She’s gone ahead in a police car.” The unspoken implication was all too clear from the carefully worded sentence: she had been arrested, but the three teens had decided not to let their little brother know.

At the foot of the Manor House drive, Brian slowed as if to make the turn. “Keep going, son,” his father directed. “There’s no point in stopping here.” His heart froze in his chest as he watched his three older children glance back and see their home in flames. “It will be here soon enough.”

“We need to warn them!” Trixie cried, trying to force her way out of the moving vehicle. “Stop! Please, Brian!”

“They know,” he replied, pointing out the activity at the top of the hill. Already, a car was moving down the drive. Regan was dealing with the horses and other members of the household could be seen rushing to and fro.

Moments later, the Manor House was out of sight. A cluster of police cars appeared around the next bend, partly blocking the road. To one side, an ambulance stood with its doors open. Peter covered his youngest son’s eyes as he realised that the paramedics were feverishly working on a patient. A police officer flagged them down and leant to speak to Brian through the driver’s window.

“Is Mr. Peter Belden in this vehicle?” the officer asked.

“I’m here,” Peter replied from the back seat. He stepped out of the car, as the officer requested, and waited for the man to speak as his son drove away. Despite himself, he took a glance at the patient who was being loaded into the ambulance. His gaze was drawn to a head of blonde curls. “My wife?” he asked, heading towards her at a run.

“Sir! Please, you can’t go in there.” The officer caught him in a surprisingly strong grip and led him to one of the waiting cars. “If you will come with me, we will escort you to the hospital.”

The doors of the ambulance were slammed shut and it drew away with sirens blaring, leaving him with no option than to obey the officer. He was established in the back seat of a police car, in which Sergeant Molinson was the front seat passenger. As the other officer steered them towards Sleepyside, the sergeant explained.

“It appears,” he said, in a very formal tone, “that there has been an accidental discharge of a firearm in the presence of your wife.”

“Helen’s been shot?” His voice was so hoarse that he could hardly believe it was his own.

“She made a bid to escape,” the other man agreed with a stiff nod. “The officer in question reports that there was something of a struggle.”

Peter shook his head in disbelief. It seemed so unlike Helen to do something illegal, let alone try to escape police custody. For the first time in many years, Peter was at a complete loss. The foundations of his life were crumbling beneath him. Not trusting his voice, he remained silent for the rest of the journey.

An hour later, in a dingy hospital waiting room, the gentle tones of the doctor told him that their fight for Helen’s life had been in vain. The love of his life was dead. Feeling empty and forlorn, Peter wandered the corridors towards the exit, wondering where his children had gone and how he could find them to tell them the bad news. As he neared the doorway, he came upon Sergeant Molinson and a slew of questions entered his mind for the first time. He called out and the other man turned.

“I was wondering,” Peter began, suddenly afraid of the answer, “whether there was any doubt – even the slightest amount – as to the veracity of the allegations.”

There was a pause, as the sergeant considered his answer. Slowly, he shook his head. “She was burning the evidence,” he explained, “but we already had almost enough to prosecute. Between you and me, we held out so long because I couldn’t believe it was true.”

Peter nodded and wandered out into the night. He had not gone far when he found Mart and Trixie. “You are here,” Trixie announced, as he approached. “We were wondering if this was where we’d find you, but we didn’t really…” Her voice trailed away as she took in the expression that Peter knew must be on his face.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “There’s very bad news.” He paused, wondering if he should continue, or wait until all four of his kids were together. “Where are Brian and Bobby?”

“We got a motel room,” Mart explained, at speed. “Bobby’s asleep. What’s happened?”

Afterwards, Peter could not remember the words he had used to explain. He remembered the tears and the denials, Trixie’s demand for explanations and the insistence they both displayed in taking him back to the room where Brian waited. He did not need to repeat the news, for his two middle offspring blurted it out to their older brother before he had a chance. The commotion woke Bobby, whose tearful questions were answered by his sister.

As morning approached, the five settled into a fretful silence. Bobby was soothed back to sleep by his siblings; Mart took a position by the window and stared unseeingly at the world; Trixie paced. Brian found the only reading matter in the room – a Gideon Bible – and used it to occupy his mind. Peter lay upon the second bed and closed his eyes against the lamplight.

At daybreak, Peter gave up on any attempt to sleep, deciding to take a walk. His aimless wanderings soon brought him past a store displaying a pile of copies of the Sleepyside Sun, its usual front page covered by an extra sheet with the latest news. The headline caught his eye: THREE DEAD IN FOREST FIRE. Hands shaking, he found enough change to purchase a copy and scanned the story on the spot.

Folding the paper carefully, he returned to the motel with rapid steps. Outside the room, he found Brian sitting with his back against the wall. “Dad,” he said, in measured tones. “What is it?”

Peter dropped the paper into his son’s lap. “Two others gone. No names released, but it’s fairly clear who they must be. A single male in his early twenties, killed by a falling tree while moving some horses to safety. A single man in his seventies, who suffered a heart attack deep in the Preserve and could not reach medical attention. The third is your mother, of course.”

“Regan and Mr. Maypenny,” Brian whispered. His father gave a nod. A silence fell which neither felt willing to break.

“Brian?” Peter asked, a few hours later. “May I borrow your car, please?”

“Of course, Dad,” he replied, fishing the keys out of his pocket.

“Thanks. Look after your brothers and sister, please, while I’m away. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

Brian nodded. Without another word, Peter headed for the parking lot. He started the car on the third attempt and started towards Glen Road. Along the way, he encountered little resistance. A few sightseers had ventured out to see the damage, but most disappeared when they saw him approaching. He reached the site of his home and parked the car.

Everything was gone. Every building on the property was destroyed. Up the hill, the remains of Manor House still smouldered, while fire fighters kept the area under surveillance. Peter walked up the place where he knew the drive should be, though it was near-indistinguishable under the scorching, and approached the ruin. Everything was utterly destroyed. He felt it was a symbol of his life.

The End

Author's notes: A big thank you to Dianafan (Mary N.), who was lightning fast at last-minute editing. (Yes, I'm disorganised. Why do you ask?) Another big thank you to Kaye KL and Robin, who challenged me to come up with a story on the theme of 'The Late-Night Knock on the Door'. For some reason, the only people I could think of who would want to knock on the door late at night were the police. *shrug*

I hope you have enjoyed this little exploration of what-if. I'm so pleased with it that I'm seriously considering retiring The Long Way Home and taking this up as a universe instead. If you have not enjoyed it, I'd ask you to consider the date this story was posted. ;)

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