There was some consolation. She probably wouldn't burn to death. She wouldn't last that long.
The room was dark with smoke now. The overhead light was vanishing behind a sooty haze. Because Wolper had disconnected the smoke detectors, no alarm would sound until the smoke escaped into the hallway. It would take a long time for the fumes to seep through the door to her waiting room and the door to the hall. By then she would be dead.
Already she was coughingthe MBI current did not inhibit autonomic reactions like bronchial spasmand her head pounded, and her eyes were watering from heat and toxic vapors. Soon her respiration would become troubled.
She would experience shortness of breath. She might begin to hyperventilate, an instinctive response that would only aggravate the problem. She would become light-headed, disoriented. Her eyesight would fail. She might go into convulsions, or slip into a coma, or drift off to sleep. That would be best. Dreamless sleep.
She was sleepy now. Even as the coughing grew worse, she seemed to distance herself from it. She might be leaving her body, a near-death experienceshe'd read of those, had even talked to some critically ill patients who'd had such adventures. They had come back. She wouldn't. So it was not a near-death experience, was it? Just a death experience, that's all. What was it they always said? Go into the light. The light
Darkness.
She blinked, coming back to herself. Everything was the samesmoke and heat, coughs racking her chestyet everything was somehow different.
The overhead light. It was out. The clicking of the coils had stopped.
And she could move.
She leaned forward in the chair, testing her muscles, unsure what had happened, and then she was scrabbling at the appliance, pulling it off her head, letting it fall to the floor as she pitched headlong onto the carpet, climbed to one knee, and collapsed.
A new smell, burned rubber, filled the air. The insulation on the office wiring. The fire had burned through the wall, shorted out the wires, killing power to the lights and to the MBI gear. No power, no currentno current, no inhibition of her motor control, no paralysis. She could move again.
Couldn't walk, though. Lacked the strength.
Her coughs were savage, torturous. She spat up something like black goo. Mucus from her respiratory tract, dyed with soot.
She could barely see. Smoke everywhere and an orange flickering at the corners of her vision, the rise and fall of flames progressing around the perimeter of the room, inexorably sealing her in.
Her groping hands discovered her purse on the floor. It had been in her lap, must have been flung forward when she fell. Her cell phone was inside the purse, but she had no strength or voice to use it, and help could never arrive fast enough.
Still, the purse might help her. She unclasped it and thrust it over her nose and mouth, a makeshift mask. The air in the purse was stale but uncontaminated. She drew a deep breath, felt a little stronger.
With one hand pressing the purse to her face, she crawled forward. She reached the door to the anteroom. Raised her arm, searching for the knob, which seemed high, so high above her head, and slippery when she grasped it, the smooth metal resisting her efforts to turn it, until finally it yielded and she swayed backward, pulling the door open.
The lights in the waiting room were still on. That circuit hadn't failed. The room looked almost clear of smokea haven, a refuge. If she could get in there, cross the threshold, then she would be okay. She had to do it, even though her body insisted that it was time to curl up and rest, just rest. She had to keep going, for Megfor Meg, for Megher mantra, her focusfor Meg.
She struggled across the threshold into the waiting room, fighting to catch her breath, recovering slightly. But already the smoke, a tenacious adversary, was crowding into the smaller room. She inched forward and encountered something dark and tacky on the carpetbloodthe deputy's blood. What was his name? Rains, Rivers? It seemed wrong that she couldn't remember.
She tried pushing herself to her feet, but her legs wouldn't carry her. Helplessly she fell onto the couch where her patients waited before sessions. A long spool of mucus, black and heavy, unreeled from her mouth onto the sofa cushion as she hacked out another series of deep coughs.
Her hands amp; she could see them gripping the arm of the couchthe fingers so pale, almost bluish. Cyanotic. Insufficient oxygen to the extremities.
It was happeningdeath by asphyxiation, just as Wolper had said. She'd come this far. No farther. And Meg amp; she couldn't help Megcouldn't do anything except cough and spit up black gunk and gasp out shallow, useless breaths and die amp;
"Fuck, Doc Robin. You're a mess."
A hand on hers. Strength lifting her. Arm around her waist, propping her up.
Justin.
He hustled her out of the waiting room, into the hall, and laid her down on the floor, where she endured a final stint of bronchospasms that cleared out the last of the mucus. She was breathing again, pulling in oxygen and feeling it work. Her eyes focused. Her mind cleared.
"What are you amp;? How amp;?" Her voice was hoarse, every word a separate pain.
"It's the cavalry to the rescue, Doc. Just like in the movies, only I don't use no stuntman. Now let's get you outside."
He lifted her again. As she stood upright, she remembered the last clear thought she'd had.
"Meg amp;"
"What about her?"
"I know where she is."
"Yeah. Where's that?"
"Take you amp; I'll take amp;"
"Okay, we'll find her. No sweat. I'm on the job."
"Now. She's in trouble. It may already be too late."
"Then let's you and me get a move on."
Somehow she still had the purse in her hand. She used her key to open the rear door. Gray led her into the parking lot. She wondered how they would get out through the gate, which was locked at night, then saw that it wouldn't be a problem. On his arrival. Gray had rammed the gate with his car and popped it open.
He hustled her into the Volkswagen on the passenger side, then got behind the wheel and pulled away with a howl of tires.
The little car rattled, the hood loose after the collision with the gate. The VW must have been stolen, but right now Robin didn't care.
She noticed Gray watching her. "You okay, Doc?"
"I'm better. I'm all right."
"So where are we headed?"
"It's a factory on South Central Avenue. An old bottling plant."
"Wolper tell you that?"
"How did you know about Wolper?"
"Sergeant Brand told me. Right before he had an accident."
"Brand is dead?"
"Chill, Doc. It was self-defense. He pulled a piece on me. But only after he told me most of what I needed to know."
"But how did you put any of it together?"
"I'm smart, Doc. Not book-smart like you. People-smart. When a thing needs doing, I know how to get it done. Now what's the name of this factory?"
"He didn't tell me the name."
"What's the cross street?"
"He didn't say that, either."
"That ain't a lot to work with."
Robin moaned. "You mean we can't find it?"
"Hey, hey, keep it together. We'll ride south on Central Avenue till we spot the place, is all. Then we'll go in the same way the bad guys did."
"The bad guys." Robin looked at him, a new awareness taking shape. "You're not one of them anymore. You've changed."
"Changed my clothes, for sure. Changed cars a couple times too."
"Wolper said you would never change. He said a leopard doesn't change its spots."
"Cynical dude."
"Knowing we made a difference in our work together amp; it means a lot, Justin."
"Don't get all weepy on me, now."