In Safe Hands (Search and Rescue #4)(86)
Pulling out her phone, she retreated to the living room and then continued all the way up the stairs. She figured it would probably be best to get as far away from the gas leak as possible, since breathing the fumes couldn’t be good. Neither could getting blown up, but she couldn’t start thinking about that, or she’d be too scared to function.
Her fingers shook as she tapped at her phone, but she managed to call Chris on her first try.
“Hey.” Instead of his usual casual friendliness, his tone was warmer, more intimate. If there hadn’t been such a strong likelihood of her house exploding in the immediate future, she would’ve taken a moment to revel in it.
“Hi. How do I stop a gas leak?”
“Gas leak?” The boyfriendy tone changed to his cop voice. “From the stove?”
“I think so. It smells the strongest there.”
“Can you hear it escaping?”
She thought back, but all she remembered hearing was the thunder of her heartbeat. “No. I can just smell it.”
“Have you turned off the main supply valve?”
“I can’t find it.” Her voice shook, and she squeezed her eyes closed, trying to regain her calm—or at least the illusion of it. Hysterics were not going to help the situation.
He swore, making her jump. He hardly ever cursed in front of her, so he had to be freaked out. “It’s probably outside. Okay, Dais. I’m going to relay this to Dispatch. Don’t call anyone else. I don’t want you using your cell.”
Her hand tightened around the phone. She hadn’t thought about her cell triggering an explosion. It suddenly felt like she had a stick of lit dynamite in her hand. Shoving the thought away, she forced herself to focus on what Chris was saying.
“Don’t turn on any lights or start a fire or anything.”
Despite the situation, she gave a strangled laugh. “I’m not going to start any fires, Chris.”
Her sarcasm flew right over his head. “Good. I’m on my way, but I’m at least twenty minutes out. I had to serve papers at a place south of Liverton, and I just left. Open all your windows, and I’ll call this in. Fire will be there in five minutes—less if Ian and Rory are home.”
“I can’t open the windows,” she said quietly, but Chris was already gone. She stared at the phone for a moment, tempted to put it somewhere far away from her body, but she didn’t want to lose her only line of communication with the outside world. Tucking it back in her pocket as gingerly as if it were a bomb, she turned to face her bedroom window.
None of the downstairs ones could open. When her dad had installed the metal grates, she’d asked him to permanently secure the windows as well. It had been just a short time after her mom had been killed, so Gabe had been in a haze of grief and guilt. He’d done what she’d asked.
Although Daisy hadn’t opened a single upstairs window in those eight years since, she was pretty sure it could be done—physically, at least. All she had to do was break through the paralysis that was gluing her feet to the floor.
“Daisy,” she said sharply, glad that no one was there to listen to her give herself a talking-to. “Get your butt over there and do it. If you die before you get to have sex with Chris, all because you were too chicken to open a stupid window, I’ll never forgive you.”
As silly as her self-directed lecture was, it allowed her to move her feet. By the time her knees bumped the window seat, her entire body was shaking, but she was doing it. Her brain refused to focus as she stared at the angled glass that made up the right side of the window. The center portion didn’t open, but both sides did. She just needed to figure out how to make her hands work.
Since talking out loud had helped before, she tried it again. “Okay, Dais. This isn’t rocket science. First, unlock the window.”
Ignoring the very large portion of her mind screaming at her that it was a bad, bad idea to open the window, she reached out a shaking hand and thumbed back the latch. Without allowing herself to pause, afraid that any hesitation would give her fears the chance to take over, she turned the crank that pushed out the vinyl-edged pane.
It resisted at first, before giving way with a harsh creak. Daisy focused on the end of the crank protruding from her clenched fist. If she didn’t look at the gaping window, then she could pretend it wasn’t opening. She kept turning until the crank resisted going any farther, and then she repeated the process on the second side of the window.
Breathing hard, she closed her eyes. Although her legs were going soft at the knees, and she wanted nothing more than to crumple to the floor, there were more windows to open. Plus, firefighters would be banging on her door soon, for the second time in twelve hours. Her laugh came out as a gasp. When had it become a common occurrence for firefighters to come to her house?
“Right.” She opened her eyes, staring straight ahead at the center portion of the window—the one that didn’t open. “Let’s go.” As she turned toward the door, she stifled another strangled laugh. If she survived, she’d probably end up with multiple personalities, judging by the way she was ordering herself around.
Once she was in the upstairs hallway and out of sight of the opened windows, moving was easier. She hurried to Gabe’s bedroom, not letting herself slow, so momentum drove her to the first window. His were flat, latching at the top and sliding upward.