Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
The alarm in the hall comes alive, overlapping with the first one, making it hard to think. For a split second, I consider solutions like water, the fire extinguisher, and blankets, but as smoke billows out of the den and spills into the living room, my priority becomes clear.
In T.J.’s room, I flip on the light and focus on the shape of my child under the blanket. “T.J., wake up!”
He blinks as he answers me in a voice thick with sleep.
“Buddy, up. Now. There’s a fire. We’re leaving.” I keep my voice low and calm. “Let’s go.”
My eyes are watering, and my fingers are clumsy with adrenaline as I reach for T.J. He grabs his stuffed frog, and I lead him up and out of his room, picking up his hoodie on the way out.
The den is too close to the front door for that to be a safe exit. With my hand clamped around T.J.’s wrist, I tell him to stay low. Heads ducked, we quickly head toward the back of the house, through the kitchen, into the small mudroom, then finally, out the back door.
I suck in deep lungfuls of the cold night air and cough out smoke as I lead my son away from the house. He’s trembling beside me, his feet only in socks, and his eyes huge in the dark.
It’s not until we’re at the back of the small yard, as far from the fire as we can get, that I pull my phone from my pocket with shaking hands and dial 9-1-1.
CHAPTER 6
BUCK
I already know what to expect when I arrive at Elena’s in the early hours of the morning, but I’m not prepared for the physical response I have when I see the emergency vehicles surrounding her house.
Ignoring the heavy ache in my chest, I park and find Elena standing next to a patrol car talking to Officer Hanks. The back door of the cruiser is open, and T.J.’s sitting inside, wrapped in a blanket and clutching a stuffed animal, his eyes wide as he watches men going in and out of the house.
Elena’s wearing a coat, obviously given to her by one of the firefighters, that’s so large it covers the top half of her pajama pants. There are rubber boots on her feet that also look like they came from the crew.
I give Elena and Hanks a nod, but don’t interrupt. Instead, I crouch down next to T.J. “Hey, I’m Marshal Brennan. How’re you doing, buddy?”
He stares back at me for a few seconds, then says, “I’m okay.”
“Does your throat hurt?”
The boy shakes his head. “The firemen asked me that. I feel all right. Mom was coughing, but she’s better now.”
“What’s your friend’s name?” I tip my head toward the stuffed toy.
A pause. “Hopper.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Hopper. I heard you both did a great job getting out of the house quickly. Are you warm enough?”
The boy nods again as his eyes focus behind me, where one of the guys is rolling up a hose.
With T.J. secure and Elena still answering questions, I straighten and head to the house.
The porch is slick with frost, and the air is clean and cold, but inside, it’s warm and damp with a sour chemical tang that clings to the back of my throat.
Water tracks across the hardwood in the living room, and the furniture where I’d sat just two days ago is speckled with soot.
Smoke has put a film on everything, as if the house was dipped in dirty water. The den is the worst of it, a blackened mess of collapsed shelving, charred boxes, and glossy melted plastic fused to wood.
There’s one man still in the house and another who follows me in. “Stay out of the den unless you need to,” I tell them. “If something looks staged, don’t touch it.”
They both give me quick nods.
From the doorway of the den, my gaze catches on things that didn’t burn like they should have, items pushed aside in a clear lane, as if someone made space to do something precise. I think back to Elena’s crumbled folder in the school administrative building, and the hair on my arms lifts.
I move deeper into the house, but only along the clean edges, and just enough to read the access and how the smoke traveled. I’ll come back with a camera before I put a boot in the origin area.
The bedroom wing is clear, but the smoke line high on the walls sends a chill through me.
At the back of the house, the kitchen floor is gritty with soot, where the crew tracked through, and the trail gets thicker in the mudroom. On the outside of the back door, there are fresh scratches around the lock, and the deadbolt plate is bent in a way that makes my molars grind.