Phone. The phone. She had to get it, call nine-one-one.
A whimper made her pause. Pickle was struggling to rise as well, and Torie scooped her up with a grunt, grabbed her purse, and ran for the back door.
The second explosion threw them through the door and into a heap on the back deck. She saw stars as her head connected with the edge of the concrete planter.
Sirens wailed in the darkness as Torie groaned and tried to get up. Someone had seen the flames. Thank God. Still, she fumbled for her purse. The phone—she had to get to the phone. Wrestling it from her bag, she dialed nine-one-one.
“Philadelphia Dispatch. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“Fire,” Torie croaked, giving her address. “Ambulance. I’m on the back deck. I need my vet.” Pickle was whimpering in pain, her leg at an awkward angle. She managed to stutter out the vet’s name before the pain in her head registered. “Oh, shit,” she mumbled as the dispatcher firmly requested her status. Staring at the red liquid covering her hand. “I’m really bleeding. A lot.” Her vision wavered and her forehead throbbed.
She hated blood.
The roar of sirens and heavy engines filled her ears. Or was that the blood rushing out? How could you tell?
The dispatcher’s voice was getting farther and farther away. Everything narrowed to the blood on her hand. She pressed her head again, and her palm came away wetter and redder.
“Fascinating,” she whispered a moment before she pitched forward onto the deck next to the whimpering dog.
Everything was swimming and swaying. Voices echoed in her head and all around her. She couldn’t identify any of it.
“Wha…” she tried to speak, to sit up.
Firm hands held her down. “Be still, ma’am. We’re taking you to the emergency room now. They’ll check you out, get some stitches in that cut.”
“Cut?”
“Yes, ma’am. You have a pretty serious cut on your forehead.”
“My dog,” Torie struggled to sit up again. “Pickle. My dog. She was hurt.”
“Please, ma’am. Don’t try to sit. I don’t know about the dog, but I’m sure the firefighters got her, and are looking after her.”
The wait was interminable—the wait for the doctor, for the numbing agent to work on her head, the wait for word on Pickle. Waiting for everything.
No one would talk to her about what had happened. Her stomach was in knots, her head was pounding so hard she could hardly see. They wanted to give her a pill to kill the pain, then keep her overnight, but she needed to know about Pickle, and her house. And she needed to know why? Why would anyone set fire to her house?
“Miss?” she called out to a passing nurse. “I’m sorry to bother you, but has anyone from the fire department come or called yet?”
The nurse had pity in her eyes. It was the third time Torie had asked. Every nurse on the floor probably knew about the pitiful woman who was worried about her dog and her house.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse replied, stepping to the side of the bed to fluff the flat pillow. “If you could relax for a bit, I’m sure someone from the police will be along to let you know. We’re going to move you upstairs as soon as we can.” She unclipped the chart and frowned. “Why don’t you go ahead and take the pain medication? We’ll wake you up when the officers arrive.”
Frustrated, Torie shook her head. She regretted the gesture immediately. She moaned as her vision blurred, and her stomach rebelled at the swimming sensation. “Oh, God, I think I’m going to be sick.”
The nurse shoved an emesis basin into her hands, but also pressed the webbing at the juncture of her thumb and forefinger. The relief wasn’t immediate, but the nausea backed off.
Closing her eyes with relief, she relaxed into the flat pillow. The nurse adjusted the bed to support her.
“What did you do? That pressure thing?” Torie managed to ask.
“Acupressure. I learned it when I was pregnant and had constant morning sickness. Sometimes it helps. Luckily, it did for you. It’s no fun to be sick when you’ve got a concussion and an impressive set of stitches in your forehead.”
Torie was beginning to feel the pins-and-needles sensation in her skin as the local anesthetic wore off. The pain medication would be good, but she hated to take it, hated to feel so out of control. She needed to know something, anything, about her house, about what had happened.
Before she completed the thought, she heard several male voices beyond the curtain, and she heard her name.
“There. Finally,” the nurse commented. “You can get your answers, and then get some rest.”
Two men slipped through the curtains. One was short but lean, like a greyhound. The other was tall, a bit on the bulky side. The tall one looked, ironically, like a bulldog, all jowls and attitude.
“Ms. Victoria Hagen?”
“Yes. Can you tell me about my dog? She was out on the deck with me, I asked the dispatcher…”
The short one interrupted. “I’m Battalion Chief Marsden, I’m a fire investigator. The dog was taken to the ASPCA shelter hospital. They’ll take good care of her, I’m sure.”
“The shelter? But they might put her to sleep, or think she’s abandoned,” Torie exclaimed, once again struggling to sit up. Her swimming head warned her to stop. Right now.
She sat still. She had to get her stomach calmed down so she could manage a call to her vet. Now.
Well, maybe when they moved her to a room. She squinted against the light, her head still pounding. There would be a phone in the room. Yes. That’s what she would do. She’d call Karen, the vet, from the room.
“Uh, no, ma’am,” the tall investigator spoke slowly and shook his head as well, as if she couldn’t understand the words he was saying. “They won’t hurt her. They know you’re her owner and what the circumstances are. She’ll be looked after.”
“Do you know if she’s okay?”
“No, ma’am, but I’m sure she is. We need to ask you some questions.”
Of course they did. Her own questions flooded her mind and poured out in a rush. “What about my house? Is it okay? They were able to put the fire out, right? Oh, God,” she managed, when the two men exchanged glances. “My laptop. My photos. Granny’s bible. Oh, God. Did it…did it…burn to the ground?” The words came out in a choked whisper.
“No ma’am. But there is a lot of damage. Our team of arson investigators are there now. The fire’s out, and once the team’s done they’ll do an overhaul and check, but they’ll see to the building tonight. We won’t know till morning the extent of the damage. You’ll need to call your insurance company right away, of course.”
“Uh, didn’t look like a total loss, ma’am,” the shorter man, Chief Marsden interjected.
“Not a total loss,” Torie managed weakly. Squeezing her eyes shut to block the glare, she imagined the devastation. Not a total loss left a lot of room for destruction.
“Please Ms. Hagen, the doctor has restricted our time with you, and we do need the information while it’s fresh in your mind.”
Oh, it was fresh all right. The smell of fire and blood lingered in her hair. She could even smell it on her skin.
Fear. She smelled that, too. Her own fear. How many times would her life be turned upside down?
“Ms. Hagen?”
“Yes. What do you need to know, Detective…?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m Investigator Sorrels. Walk us through what happened. Tell us everything you remember.”
Step by step, she took them through the events. They wanted to know about her day, the time leading up to when she got home.
“I left work late. Grabbed a…drink with a friend.” No need to tell the police what else she and Pam had grabbed. She needed to call Pam. Shit, when was she going to do that? “Um, I, um, stopped and got some groceries. Came home.”