“Holy shit,” I said, taking a long, shaky breath and sagging against the wall, every muscle in my body trembling with tension. No wonder the thuds had been so soft—the cat probably weighed about ten pounds. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, the sweat stinging in cuts and scratches left from the glass shards, and then stood up, ready to move on now that I’d courageously driven the cat away.
I found the rest of the house empty, left, and went back out to stand in the yard. Now what? Should I wait to see if someone arrived or continue moving through the list? After a moment’s debate, I chose movement over patience. Joe wouldn’t have been surprised.
The last house on my list was on Newark Avenue, near Trent Park. Like the previous one, it was empty, dark, and still. The back door was locked. Until I kicked it in.
I cleared the lower level and walked for the stairs. This was the darkest house yet, and I didn’t see the steps clearly until I ran into the banister with my shoulder. Like the rest of the house, the steps were wooden and old, and when my weight settled on each one, there was a soft creaking, like farmhouse shutters swinging in a gentle breeze.
At the top, I moved quickly down a short hall and found two closed doors. I opened one and stepped in, cursing the darkness. There wasn’t enough light from the street to help in this house. I felt around the wall until my hand hit a sink. This would be the bathroom. I stepped back into the hall and pulled the door shut, then tried the next one. A bedroom.
Something creaked beneath me, and I tensed up immediately, then relaxed and laughed softly. Hadn’t I learned anything from the cat? No need to overreact. The laugh died fast as I heard more sounds from below and realized that someone had entered the ground floor of the house, walking confidently, without fear of making noise.
I stayed in the bedroom for a minute, listening to the clomping steps beneath me and wondering if the intruder would try to come up the stairs. Then I eased the door open, gently as possible, and stepped back into the hall. My night vision had adapted, and I could see the steps clearly. I moved toward them, my left hand searching the wall for the railing. Just as I found it, I became aware of something that scared me far more than the cat had—a heavy smell of kerosene coming from the ground floor of the house.
Fear is a product of the senses. I’d experienced fear many times, but before it had always been the result of something seen or felt physically. This new sensation, of standing alone in the dark and literally smelling danger, froze me for a moment. I stood on the stairs with my right hand on my gun, my left tight on the railing, feeling like an animal in a cave, sniffing the air for signs of hostility. Then my brain finally kicked my body into gear, and I started down the stairs much faster than I’d come up them. I was no longer worried about proceeding quietly; my only priority now was getting out.
I made it all of four steps before flame touched fuel somewhere below me. There was one loud puff, like a gust of air forced out of a plastic bag, followed quickly by a crackling roar. I reached the landing just as the flames crawled up the walls of the ground floor, and for the first time I saw the dark old house illuminated. The front door was partially obstructed by flames, but I knew that my best chance—my only chance—was to rush through them, hit that door, and pray I could find the lock and turn it quickly.
In the interest of speed, I tried to leap from the middle landing all the way to the bottom of the steps, intending to hit the ground running for the door. I didn’t make it. My leap carried me down about seven of the ten steps, and it turned out to be a poor idea. The old, rotten wood that had creaked so ominously under me on the way up the steps broke with this much greater impact. My left foot slid across the surface, free, but my right foot plunged into the step between the shattered boards and sank up to the ankle. It caught and held as my weight and momentum continued forward, and I went down hard.
I hit the floor with my hands held out to keep me from landing directly on my face, and the Glock slid free and skittered across the floor toward the flames. My kneecap connected with the edge of the bottom step, and a current of pain rode through my leg, followed instantly by a numb sensation. The flames from the walls were spreading across the floor now, toward the stairs, and I was on my stomach, pinned by my ankle.
Rolling away from the flames and lifting my arms to cover my face, I jerked my numb leg, trying to wrench my foot free. One of the broken boards cut a furrow in my flesh, but I didn’t get loose. For the second time in just a few seconds I felt like an animaclass="underline" first smelling danger in the dark, now caught with my foot in a trap.
Something moved to my right. I rolled back onto my left shoulder, sending another wave of pain through my ankle as it twisted against the pressure of the boards that held it, and tried to stretch my hand out for the gun. I couldn’t see anything now because I couldn’t bear to keep my eyes open this close to the searing heat of the fire. All around me was the smell of fuel and burning wood, and an incredible, oppressive heat.
A hand on my leg. Now I shouted and lashed out with my arms, trying to strike. I caught nothing but air. The hand twisted hard against my leg, and then my foot was free and I was sliding all the way to the floor. My hand brushed against my gun, and I’d wrapped my fingers around it and begun to turn back to the steps when I was suddenly lifted easily into the air, turned, and set back on my feet. The flames surged against us, closer now than ever, and I squeezed my eyes shut and began to move, one hand on my gun and the other clutching the shirt of the man who’d freed my foot. I had no idea who he was, but he was moving purposefully through the heat, pulling me along, and right now that was all I needed to know.
We went through the living room, stumbling and staggering, and then the other man pulled up short, leaned into my ear, and said, “Duck!”
He put both hands in the middle of my back as I dipped my chin against my chest and then he shoved me forward with such strength that I felt my feet leave the floor once again as I sailed out through an open door. Cool air rolled over me a half second before I fell forward onto the pavement.
The heat was behind me now but still close, and I got upright quickly and began to stagger away from the house. I opened my eyes again but saw only shadows and flashes of light, and just as I was thinking that I’d better slow down before I hit something, I hit something. My skull clanged against some object of much greater density—wood, stone, steel?—and then I was falling backward into blackness.
CHAPTER 21
Consciousness returned like an abrupt end to a long journey, as if I’d been deep in water swimming upward slowly and easily, then broken the surface without warning. I opened my eyes, but my vision was fading in and out, and the room I found myself in seemed to be on its own axis, spinning fast. Above me the ceiling went on forever into blackness. Two hard blinks later I realized the ceiling was the sky, and I wasn’t in a room at all. I was on my back on pavement.
I started to move upright, but a quick surge of nausea and dizziness stopped me. I dropped back down and rolled on my side, feeling as if I was about to get sick. It was then I noticed the men with the guns.
There were two of them—both in suits, both with automatics in shoulder holsters, no attempt made to cover the weapons with their jackets.