Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(117)

Okay, now I just have to make it down a level, find Evie, her mother, whomever, and watch out for a homicidal defense attorney. I tell myself I’ve been in worse situations. But the fire still makes me uneasy. Rocket Langley is right: Flames have a lethal sort of magic all their own.

The door of the room is closed. I have a vague memory from childhood fire safety drills that I should touch the door with the back of my hand first before tugging it open. It’s warm, not hot. I stand behind the door, then yank it open.

Nothing. But beneath me I hear an ominous sound. Sort of a scary cackle, like a witch, or blades of flame, sensing the fresh input of oxygen from above, and greedily changing course.

Quick, I realize. Whatever happens next, it’d better be quick. The fire will give me one shot at this. Then it’s coming up these stairs one way or another. I’ll be out first with whomever I can find, or that will be that.

If I survive this, I find myself thinking, I really should call my mom.

I head down the stairs, keeping my head down as the smoke builds. I’m not even at the bottom before my eyes sting and the smoke feels like a crushing weight against my chest. I rip off my hoodie and tie it around my mouth and nose, though I’m not sure that will help. I just hit the second-story landing when I hear coughing that’s not my own.

My steps quicken, but again, I’m very aware of what D.D. said: If Dick Delaney is in this house, he’s a threat as big as the fire.

Then, before I can move, a person emerges from the smoke down the hall and nearly crashes into me. She is weeping and coughing and … wet. Wet towels, I realize. Her head, her shoulders.

“Evie?” I ask.

“My mom,” she gasps, heaves. “She went after him. Shoved him down the stairs I think.”

“Your lawyer?”

“He killed my father. He killed my husband. Please,” cough cough, “find my mom.”

“Okay, we’re getting you,” short pause for my own hacking fit, “out of here—”

“My mom!”

“Evie! Listen to me. You’re a mom!”

My statement startles her. Immediately her hands drop down to her belly, and I can tell with everything going on, she’d forgotten that fact.

“Your mom did what she had to do for you.” Rasp, wheeze, hack. “Now you’re going to do … what you have to do … for your baby.”

“My mom hates me.”

“No mom hates her daughter, Evie. Some of us just don’t understand one another.” I’m tugging her down the hall. Prattling a little because I need her to be moving and moving fast. I don’t want her to look behind her. I don’t want her to see the column of flame that just figured out there’s an open window upstairs.

I don’t want her to realize that if her mother really ran backward into that … there is nothing Evie or I can do for her now.

“You should meet … my mom,” I rasp out. We can’t go up. Pregnant Evie will never fit through that window. Which leaves us the second-story egress. A room at the end of the hall, I’m guessing. It’s one thing to study a house from the outside. Another to be inside a smoke-filled abyss and still keep a sense of direction.

“She would love you,” I continue. I pass a doorway on the right. Jerk it open. Discover a linen closet. Keep us moving.

“My mom’s a farmer.” I adjust my hoodie over my mouth. The smoke is so thick, cloying, stinging. “Her happy place is … nurturing. a daughter who continuously puts herself in harm’s way … bane of her existence. You … she could feed. Me. So sorry.”

New doorway. Please let this be the one, because I hear a roaring sound now. Nothing good comes from that sound. Not to mention, my eyes are tearing so hard I can’t really see. And the pressure on my lungs …

I falter, go down.

Oxygen. The greedy fire has consumed all the oxygen. We think we have air, but we don’t.

Evie is tugging at me. She still has her wet cloth around her head. Smart girl.

I find myself wondering what it would be like to be an expectant mother. Have a baby to take care of. A life to grow, versus my daily mission of obliteration.

I think I’m going to pass out.

She slaps me. Actually slaps me. I sputter. Try to get myself up. I can’t seem to do it.

“Fire escape,” I manage. “Last bedroom. Window.”

She nods. Then, she looks up, past my shoulder, and I see fear widen her eyes.

It’s coming now, for both of us. But she can still make it.

I think my mother will like her very much.

They will be happy together.

She’s gone. I don’t see her leave as much as I feel her absence. But it’s okay. Because the heat is fierce now. Like a lover, licking at my face.

I think I hear laughing. And I know who is in those flames. Jacob. Walking through the fires of hell himself. Having the time of his afterlife. He always did love pain and suffering.

That, as much as anything, makes me start crawling again. Because I know in my heart of all hearts, no amount of good I’ve done in the past six years will ever be enough. The real reason I don’t sleep, I don’t eat. Because those flames of hell, they are waiting for me, too. Someday, I will join Jacob there. Just as he promised.

But not yet. Not yet.

Then, fresh air. I feel it, gulp it greedily. Evie, she’s opened the window. She’s found the fire escape. She and her baby are going to make it.