The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(51)

Noah said, “We can’t wait. We’re going to have to jump. Another five or ten minutes and the upstairs will be engulfed as well.”

“You’re right,” Josie said, coughing again.

Noah tore the shower curtain down and twisted one corner of it around his left hand and wrist. “I’m going to hang this out the window and hold onto it. If you slide down it, you can drop to the ground without getting hurt.”

“What about you?” Josie asked.

“I’ll be fine.”

Josie motioned to the window. “No, you won’t. Noah, you’re going to get hurt if you jump.”

“Then I’ll get hurt. Josie, we have to get out of here. Now.”

He pushed her toward the window. Josie climbed out and let her body slide down the siding, her palms hanging onto the window sill. Once she was suspended there, heat and smoke blowing up from beneath her, Noah leaned out, throwing the shower curtain out beside her. Using one hand, Josie grabbed a handful of the vinyl material. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it would be enough for her to slide down and soften her fall. Once she had a firm grip on it with her right hand, she transferred all her weight to the shower curtain and took her left hand from the window sill and wrapped it around the curtain. Above her, Noah’s face reddened and dripped with sweat from exertion. “Go,” he told her.

Little by little, she slid down the curtain until there were only inches left. She had no choice but to let go. With a glance down, she saw that she had gotten much closer to the ground. Maybe only five or six feet separated her feet from the dirt below. With one last look at Noah, she let go, her body sliding down the exterior of the house, and her feet landing hard in the soil below. A shock went through her heels up to her thighs, and her knees buckled, sending her flat on her ass. But she was safe and nothing was broken. The shower curtain flew away from the house, and Noah’s legs appeared in the window—first one, then the other—until he was dangling from the window just as Josie had just been.

She heard the crack of bone breaking as he landed. He writhed on the ground, clutching his leg. Josie knelt beside him, watching his mouth yawn open to scream out in pain, but as he struggled for breath, no sound came. She didn’t know if the fall had knocked the wind out of him, if the pain was making it difficult to take in air or if the toxic smoke they’d inhaled made it hard for him to breathe, but there was nothing she could do but wait for his breath to return. When it did, she helped him up, fitting her body under his left arm. He kept his left foot up off the ground as they hobbled together away from the house. Josie heard sirens in the distance. As she deposited Noah onto the neighbor’s front yard, she glanced around to see many of the street’s residents had turned their lights on and come outside. The fire, now fully engulfing Colette’s home, lit up the entire street. Josie’s eyes tracked the various vehicles parked in driveways. No vehicles were parked along the street. Then she saw a crumpled form in the middle of the road. “Wait here,” she told Noah. “And don’t move.”

Josie unsnapped her holster as she raced toward the figure, but as soon as she got to him, she realized he wasn’t a threat. It was an older man, probably in his seventies, judging by his thinning white hair and wrinkled, age-spotted face. Curled on his side, he groaned. Josie knelt down and touched his shoulder gingerly. “Sir,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“He hit me,” the man rasped. “Son of a bitch hit me.”

Gently, she turned him onto his back. “Where did he hit you?”

Sweat poured off Josie’s brow, and her chest felt heavy. The man pointed to his stomach. “Here,” he gasped. “Hit me hard, too. I went right down.”

“Who hit you?” Josie asked, pressing two fingers against the inside of his wrist to check his pulse, which was strong and steady.

“The guy burning Colette’s house down,” he said. “Help me sit up.”

Josie slid an arm under his shoulders and lifted him to sitting. “You saw someone? What did he look like?”

“Big. Burly. Dressed all in black. He had a ballcap on. I live over there—” He turned slightly and pointed to the house directly across from Colette’s. “I saw Noah come in this morning. Talked to him. I’ve seen you here a few times so when you pulled up, I knew it was okay.”

Josie wondered whether he had been watching Colette’s home this closely before her murder. As if reading her mind, he said, “I only started paying attention after Colette was killed over there. It’s terrible. A terrible thing. These things don’t happen around here.”

Josie glanced back at Colette’s house where two fire trucks and an ambulance had just shown up. She watched as two paramedics rushed over to where Noah lay on his neighbor’s grass. “I know,” she said. “They shouldn’t happen anywhere. What happened? You saw him coming out of the house?”

“I saw him go in. He came walking from down there.” He pointed down the street from Colette’s house. “Then I waited a few minutes. I noticed what looked like fire in the downstairs window. Came out to the end of the driveway. Still wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Heard some commotion in there so I came out here to the street. Then I saw smoke coming out the windows and I knew. I was going to go back inside and call 911, but then he came running out from behind the house, right in my direction.”