Everywhere she looked, the rooms glowed in blood-red amidst choking black smoke. Flames raged up walls and belched through doorways, consuming everything in sight. She felt the scorching heat on her skin. Even the hair on her arms singed when she got too close to the flames. And she smelled her hair smoldering.
But she forced her mind to focus on her search, despite her growing fear. Another danger posed a problem.
Not knowing what was burning, the closed-in structure made it a real possibility that superheated gases, carbon monoxide or hydrogen cyanide, might build inside the boarded-up house. A rolling structure fire could annihilate an old house in a hurry, but toxic fumes could kill anyone inside long before the fire got to them.
Panic ate at her resolve, but she kept going.
She had gotten through most of the first floor without a sign of Jessie or Alexa. A couple of back rooms were all that remained. With two floors above her, she had to cover ground without wasting time. And until she got upstairs, she had no idea how bad the fire was there.
She pushed herself farther down the hall, making her way to every door, but a loud sound caught her off guard.
“What the hell?” She raised up. “Jessie?”
Sam heard a bang. A series of loud splintering cracks. To her ear it sounded like gunfire, but with the noise reverberating in the house, she couldn’t tell which way it came from. As the heat intensified, she crawled faster and deeper into the old mansion, gagging and coughing. She almost turned back but scrambled toward the last open door. Whoever set the blaze must have done it nearby. The flames were more concentrated toward the rear of the first floor.
And a vaguely familiar medicinal odor was still in the air. She had smelled the odor before, yet couldn’t quite place it.
But as she neared the door, a man came running from the room. Low as she was, he didn’t see her. The man tripped over her, his knee nailing the side of her face. The blow shocked her, and her head snapped back. Shards of pain racked her body as she rolled.
Sam shook her head and blinked, noticing the man had taken a nasty fall. She pulled down the jacket she had covering her nose and mouth. And when her mind cleared enough, she yelled, “Police!”
Ignoring her, he struggled to his feet and turned to run, but the cop in her wouldn’t let him go. She reached a hand for his pant leg and toppled him again. This time when he hit the floor, the man grappled her from behind and choked her with his forearm.
She bucked against the death grip he had on her throat and pummeled him with her fists and elbows. But none of her blows did damage. Her muscles were growing weaker the more she struggled. In seconds, she lost feeling in her arms and legs. And her tongue had swollen, blocking any hope for air.
Sheer panic mixed with deathlike indifference as she thrashed against him. She couldn’t breathe at all now, and her lungs burned from the strain. Her world faded in and out of black, darkness marred only by spiraling pinpoints of light—her final trace of consciousness.
She was dying. And she knew it.
“Quiet!” Alexa cried, yelling at Jake, who had taken to incoherent rants. “I think I hear voices.”
She stepped closer to the doorway, listening. But when the sound faded to nothing, she pounded on the door. And after Jessie retrieved her Colt Python off the floor, she came to help.
“Hey…we’re in here. Help us! PLEASE!” They yelled in unison. To make their point, Alexa reached for her gun again and yelled a warning, “Get down.”
When the others ducked for cover, she fired a few rounds higher on the wooden door, angled toward the ceiling. She didn’t want to hit someone trying to rescue them.
But no one responded. No one was coming.
Alexa wiped her face with a hand. Her head ached as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. They had no more time, and she knew it. In desperation, she shoved her gun into the waistband of her pants and got to the floor on her back. She rammed both feet into the bottom half of the door in a mule kick. Once. Twice. The smoky air was making it harder to breathe, and she panted with the effort. And without a word, Jessie got down next to her and kicked with everything she had.
The door was stronger than she would have imagined and her legs stung with every jarring blow. Soon, the heat and thickening smoke would make it impossible to do much damage. The exertion would be too much.
Her thoughts turned to Garrett and the life he had opened her eyes to. She had only just begun to live the way she wanted—on the edge and without holding back for a tomorrow that might never come. It made her kick harder.
She didn’t want to die like this.
“Sam’s inside.” Ray Garza struggled against two firemen who held him back. “You gotta let me go.”
He and a CPD tactical team had arrived on the scene about the same time as the fire crew. Both teams wanted to take over and do their jobs, but that couldn’t happen. The potential hostage situation with an armed gunman trumped the urgency of the fire—at least for now. That left highly trained firemen frustrated and sitting on the sidelines.
And Ray knew exactly how they felt.
“No one’s going inside.” A third man stepped in front of him, someone in authority dressed in a fire-department uniform. “You won’t be doin’ your friend any good if you die tryin’ to save him.”
Ray glared at the man, letting his words sink in.
“Sam’s a woman. A cop,” he clarified. “She called it in.”
“I’m sorry.” The fireman gripped his shoulder. “Real sorry.”
Ray quit fighting the two men who braced his arms, and they released him. For Sam’s sake, he couldn’t afford to lose it. Normally, the fire department had control of a fire, but under a dangerous hostage situation, tactical would have command. Yet knowing cops had the authority hadn’t made the waiting easier. He had to let the men do their jobs and accept that he wouldn’t be a part of the rescue operation.
He took a deep breath and slumped against the hood of his unmarked police vehicle. Dressed in black BDUs, the tactical team had set up a perimeter to work the scene, but the blaze would dictate everything. A line of firefighters stood to his right. They could only watch as flames ravaged the old Millstone mansion. Each face had a grim expression colored by regret. He understood the anger of being forced to accept defeat before the fight had even begun.
Damn it, Sam! Why didn’t you follow protocol and wait for backup?
Dense black smoke tainted the air, and an intense red glow painted the night sky. Police and fire crews continued to arrive Code Three, with bystanders and news crews gathering at a distance. The scene looked and sounded chaotic, but nothing distracted him from imagining the horror Sam faced inside. He knew the minute he arrived and didn’t find her that she had gone into the burning building in search of her friend.
Now she might pay the price for going in alone, and he could do nothing to save her. Ray shut his eyes and prayed. He only hoped God would hear him.
A splintering crash brought Sam back, and spiraling heat swept past her. In a stupor, she wasn’t sure if she had imagined it. But when her eyes opened, billowing red sparks hung suspended above her head in clouds of swirling black smoke.
The man who’d nearly killed her had let go. And her body had slumped back. A rush of air sucked into her spent lungs, and the effort shocked her already fragile system. Urgent need outweighed the distress of breathing the fiery air. But the act of taking that first breath almost finished the job her assailant had started.
In a coughing jag, she gulped breaths in small measures, her eyes watering. She rolled onto her belly and peered down a murky hallway. The ceiling had collapsed behind her. And the man who had nearly taken her life had made a run for it, but not before he gaped over his shoulder, fixing his gaze on her.