A/N Just a quick chapter really, I've very busy with university work so this will be my only update for at least a week and a half, sorry!
Anyway once again thank you for all your lovely reviews!
CHAPTER SIX.
My father woke me up that morning, this was quite a shock considering the last time I'd woken up with dad in my face was way back when I traveled across America in an SUV.
"Dad it's six AM"I groaned staring at my world animal foundation alarm clock.
"Uh huh but we've got something important to discuss" he said almost bouncing with happiness.
"Dad I'm not going to watch the sun rise with you while dancing in the Winslow's garden, make Gracie do it" I moaned burying myself back into my bedclothes.
"Sunshine we only ever do that on Midsummer's day, this is far more important" he said and he tossed something at my head.
It was the morning newspaper.
"There better be an add in their about a sale at Indian Fox" I shot back glaring at him.
"Read it!" he crowed clapping his hands together and I turned my attention to the newspapers cover.
"McDonald's restaurant set alight, six people injured, one dead, arsonists suspected," I read skimming the front page.
I stopped reading and I dropped the newspaper onto the floor.
"Now my baby girl won't need to slave away for capitalists anymore!" he cried wrapping me up in a bear hug.
"Jill's devastated," Sunny announced as I walked into school still feeling vaguely shaken up.
Six people were injured and one person had died, all because of a fire at my restaurant.
Would the first have started if we'd stayed an extra half an hour? Would we have spotted the arsonist?
I was so distracted by those thoughts that I was nearly late for school, I ended up running out the door wearing Carol's black jacket and I didn't even realize until I reached into the pocket and pulled out a packet of birth control pills.
"Devastated? Are we talking devastated over the season finale of Kim Possible devastated or her dog has just died devastated?" I asked referring to two past incidents, Sunny looked thoughtful.
" The dog one" she finally said.
"Oh crap, you better take me to her" I sighed.
Vista despite preaching a message of tolerance was highly clique rated so when you wanted to cry you better make sure you cried in the right place.
For example only suicidal Goths cried on the roof, this was mainly because it made suicide attempts easier. The shallow plastic girls tended to cry in the nice second floor bathroom so they could throw up their feelings, As for the rest of us, when you wanted to cry you tended to do it in the Sweet Valley High section at the library, no self respecting girl ever read the books so it was generally speaking deserted.
Jill was hunched over "Jessica and the Christmas ghost" tears streaking down her face, everything about her looked miserable.
Even her butterfly barrettes looked depressed.
"Kim and Nick are in the hospital" she choked I placed Crazy Nick instantly but it took me a few moments to realize who Kim was.
"Kim as in the manager? But last night was her night off" I pointed out.
"She tried to kill herself when she heard the news! Apparently she bet the manager of the Palo City McDonald's that we could sell more quarter pounders in one week and now we have no chance" Jill sniffed digging into her purse for her love heart covered hankie.
"That's a stupid reason to commit suicide, I mean it's not like she hypothetically slept with her sisters boyfriend or something" I pointed out.
"The bet was for over sixteen thousand dollars," Jill cried and when she saw our startled look she sighed.
"We were going to win! Every one prefers our McDonald's because junkie's shoot up in the other one! Kim was going to give every one five hundred dollar Christmas bonuses" she admitted.
"And now she's suicidal? What did she do?" I asked.
"When she saw the smoking remains of the restaurant she ran inside before the fire men could stop her, when they found her she'd already drunk four gallons of melted ice cream from the burnt soft serve cone machine, they had to pump her stomach" Jill said and I winced, death by sugared creamed pig fat wasn't pretty.
"And Nick?" I asked and Jill shook her head.
"Second degree burns mostly," Jill said and then she wiped her eyes.
"Maybe we could make them a gift basket," Sunny said.
"One that has a card that reads "sorry McDonalds drove you to suicide?" I asked and Sunny shook her shoulders helplessly.
"I feel like this is all my fault! I should have checked all the grills before I left! Done a complete security check," Jill moaned.
"Jill the newspaper said it was arsonists and you cant control lunatics who decide to torch buildings" I said patting her arm and Sunny gently took away the now tear stained Sweet Valley high book.
"If I'd been there I would have been able to put the fire out Dawn! I should have never left Nick back there alone, we all know what he's like" Jill cried and Sunny sighed.
"That's it we're ditching class and going to the hospital, Jill wont stop crying until that lunatic Nick has reassured her that this wasn't her fault" Sunny said firmly.
"Oh no we cant blow off gym!" Jill cried.
"Jill it's either blowing of Gym or spending all day wallowing with guilt, which do you prefer? Sunny snapped and Jill blew her nose again noisily and seemed to consider her options.
"The first one" she admitted.
I'd always had mixed feelings about our local hospital, people often hate the hospital their friends died in but it's hard to feel that way when you're baby sister was born their as well.
It occurred to me that neither Sunny nor I had come back since her mother had died but the nurses still recognized us.
"Dawn Schafer is that you? God you haven't been here for years!" one of the nurses in reception, a fat black woman named Rhonda said as soon as we approached the front desk.
I recognized Rhonda mainly because she tended to mistake me for Mrs. Winslow's daughter.
"We're here to see Nick Statz, Rhonda, he would have been brought in this morning," I said cutting her off and Sunny glared at her openly.
"Sure he's in room 89B in the Katherine Hepburn ward!" Rhonda said after consulting her computer.
"Remember me Rhonda?" Sunny asked with a small tight smile.
"Aren't you that booty girl from that 50 cent video? The one who was in here last week after you trashed your motorbike?" Rhonda asked thoughtfully.
"Booty girl, what does Sunny have to do with treasure?" Jill mused as I dragged them both away.
Nick was sharing a room with an old man who smelt like urine and a sleeping kid whose leg was in a cast. We both walked past the old man trying to ignore the smell until we reached Nick who was sitting upright on his bed, next to the window.
"Hello Nick, it's Sunny! You know the girl whose legs you keep checking out at work," Sunny said with forced cheerfulness.
Nick said nothing, he was too busy drawing something all over his sheets with a black felt tip pen he'd gotten somewhere.
"We came to visit you Nick" Jill said.
"And we brought you some chocolates" I added and Sunny coughed.
"Carob chocolates" I corrected myself.
Still Nick said nothing, by now he was jabbing the pen into the sheet so violently it was causing ink to seep into the mattress.
I stepped closer to inspect the drawing, it was a symbol drawn over and over again.
The same shape, a sun with a tiny star drawn in the center.
"Nick what happened last night?" Jill asked attentively and Nick finally turned to her wild-eyed.
"I saw her die," he said in a perfectly calm tone of voice and I secretly wished I had a weapon on me, which was odd considering I was a pacifist.
"Saw who die?" Sunny asked and then Nick's hands brush against the drawings on the sheets.
"I don't have to talk to any of you, go away now before I call the nurse," he said and I glared at him.
"We were just trying to be friendly," I pointed out and he growled deep within his throat before throwing the pen at Jill's head.
We took that as our cue to exit.
" I wonder who died" Sunny said as we sat outside the hospital waiting for the 863 bus.
"Probably the person in the newspaper, the article said that there was one death" I muse.
"It's odd that some one actually died, I mean it's not like people were trapped or anything, McDonald's has exits" Jill said and then she trailed off.
"Unless of course the time lock was activated, how many people were injured?" she asked.
"Six" I said from memory and Jill frowned as if thinking about a puppy being abused.
"That's not right, if McDonald's was open there should have been more people," she said and then she got up brushing down her bright pink denim skirt.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"To find a copy of the paper" she called over her shoulder.
Jill explained the situation to us as soon as we got back to school, just in time for lunch.
"The article says here that firemen pulled out six injured McDonald's employee's, and one dead employee," Jill said.
"Ugh gross, what's the point Jill?" Sunny asked.
"It says six uniforms! After Dawn and I left there were only four people working in the restaurant" Jill said putting down the newspaper.
"You're right! Kim never rosters more then four people after midnight, she does it to save money," Sunny who always took the late shift said.
"So that's three employee's who shouldn't have been there, along with one who happens to be dead" I said and Jill slowly nodded.
"Nick wouldn't have noticed if our appearances suddenly changed, the boys completely out of it" Jill said.
"But he would have noticed something, he's not that stupid" I replied thinking of the drawing scrawled all over the sheets.
My mom had once said that I was far too nosy for my own good, and constantly obsessed with seeing criminals and mysteries everywhere.
When she'd told me this right after I'd foiled a ring of dog nappers I'd felt vaguely insulted but now I thought that maybe she was right.
After all fires were in the end just fires and yet I couldn't stop myself from suspecting that something was very wrong.