Hey, he could make that work.
Grabbing the bacon and eggs, he turned toward the stove, shutting the refrigerator door with a nudge of his arm.
“You like bacon and eggs?” Setting the food down on the counter beside the stove, he fished a frying pan out of the cabinet where they were kept, set it on the stove, and started making breakfast.
“You can’t tell my dad! Especially about the truck.”
“Oh, that’s the part that’s going to make him mad, is it?” If that was true, Ryan needed to rethink some things. “Not the beer or the pot? How about taking your friends to your grandpa’s empty house to party? And let’s not forget breaking in.”
“We didn’t break in. There’s a key on the truck’s key ring.”
“So, you beat one count. Good for you.” The smell of the frying bacon made Scott’s mouth water. Come to think of it, he’d missed lunch.
“What do you want from me?”
Turning the sizzling bacon with a fork, Scott glanced at Chase over his shoulder. Perched on the counter by the sink, the kid looked tense and pale.
“I want you to wise up.” Scott was surprised to find that this was true. “I want you to take a good, hard look at the path you’re heading down and see where it leads. I want you to stay out of trouble, get yourself through school, and make something of yourself. Be a healthy, happy, successful adult.”
“Like you?” Chase sneered. “My dad says you’re a sanctimonious prick.”
Scott succumbed to a half-smile. “Yeah, well, I won’t bother to tell you all the things I’ve called him over the years.”
Grabbing two paper plates from the cabinet, he split the bacon between them, then cracked four eggs—there were only four left in the carton—into the hot grease. A little salt, a little pepper, four slices of bread into the toaster, and the meal was well on its way to being done.
“Could you please not tell him about this?” That was the humblest Chase had sounded since they’d first locked eyes in the living room.
“He beat you up?” Keeping his tone carefully casual and busying himself with scooping eggs onto the plates along with the toast that had just popped up, Scott probed for information. He didn’t really want to know this about his brother if the answer was yes, but for the kid’s sake he needed to.
“N-no.” Chase sounded doubtful. “Last time I made him mad, he backhanded me across the face. Course, I called him a son of a bitch and a hillbilly loser and spit at him first.”
“Definitely a mitigating factor.” Relieved to know that his brother hadn’t quite sunk to their father’s depths, Scott plopped the plates and a couple of forks down on the table, then grabbed two glasses and filled them at the sink. “Sit down and eat.”
“I told you, I’m not hungry.” Chase slid off the counter and approached the table. Scott, already seated, forked egg into his mouth.
“Eat anyway.”
“Look, I’ll make you a deal.” Chase sat across from him, looking at him earnestly from beneath his blond fringe of hair. “If you don’t tell my dad about this, I’ll make sure my friends all show up in your office tomorrow morning like you want, and we’ll all do whatever it is you want us to do.”
“You think they won’t show up otherwise?” Scott kept eating. Absently, Chase picked up a piece of bacon and started munching.
“I don’t know. Probably not Austin. Maybe not Matt. You should’ve threatened to call his coach if you wanted to make sure he came. And Noah gave you the wrong phone number.”
Scott smiled. “Did he? Well, I don’t imagine finding the right one will be that hard.”
“I’ll get them all there and promise not to drink or smoke pot or whatever—”
“Steal your dad’s truck.” Scott was on his second egg. Having polished off the first piece of bacon, Chase was tackling an egg, too. “Or drive any vehicle before you get your license.”
“Okay, that, too. All of it. But I got to get me and the truck back before my dad misses us, and you got to not tell him about this.”
“Your word good?”
Chase flushed. “Yes.”
“Then we got a deal. Eat up. I need to get some sleep. And we’re getting up early.” He wondered how Lisa would react to a six a.m. wake-up call. Seeing as it was him making it, probably not well. On the other hand, she was getting a reliable vehicle to drive to work in.
“He’s got an alarm that goes off at eight. He might not wake up, but . . .”
“You—and the truck—will be home before then. I have to be at work at eight, so I’ll be dropping you off well before that.” Scott finished his meal, waited for Chase to finish, then carried the paper plates to the trash can in the corner. Knowing there wouldn’t be anyone in the house for a while to see to the garbage, he pulled the black plastic bag lining it out and knotted it with the intention of taking it out as he left in the morning. In the meantime, Chase, as he saw when he turned around, was washing the frying pan and silverware. The kid was standing at the sink because there was no dishwasher, and he was wrist-deep in soapy water.
Scott smiled inwardly. How bad could a kid who did the dishes without being asked be?
“Hey, Scott. Come look at this.” Chase was frowning at something he was seeing through the window.
Scott came up behind him. He saw it instantly, without Chase having to say a word. A faint reddish glow with a kind of pulse to it lit up a small piece of the dark sky to the south. What the hell? He frowned as it took him a second or two to make sense of what he was seeing.
“Shit!” His heart gave a great leap as all of a sudden he knew. Pivoting, he ran for the front door.
“What?” Sounding bewildered, Chase ran after him.
Wrenching open the front door, Scott raced toward the Jeep even as he snatched his phone from his pocket.
“Grayson Springs is on fire,” he threw over his shoulder at his nephew while he punched in 911. Snatching open the door to the Jeep, he threw himself behind the wheel as the emergency number rang fruitlessly and Chase scrambled into the passenger seat behind him.
9
“Nine-one-one emergency,” the operator answered, her voice the maddening epitome of untroubled calm. Having hurtled down the lane like a rocket off a launching pad, the Jeep was just going airborne over the last rise before hunkering down to race between the double row of giant oaks that led to the house.
“Send the fire department. There’s a house on fire. People may be inside.” Keeping his voice even was an effort. Scott wanted to shout down the phone. “It’s Grayson Springs.” The whereabouts of the famous horse farm was presumably known to everyone within a fifty-mile radius, but at the operator’s request, even as his sweaty palms clamped around the phone and the wheel and his heart pounded and his pulse raced, he gave the address. And repeated it for her, too.
All without outwardly losing his cool.
Suddenly the house’s white façade popped into view, ghostlike in the moonlit darkness. In that instant before the trees swallowed the Jeep again, he could see the dark windows shining like countless staring eyes, the tall columns as stately as always, the pale sweep of the driveway curving up to the porte cochere—and the licking flames and billowing smoke rising from the roof. Of the north wing. Where Lisa slept. Where she had always slept.
His gut clenched. His breathing suspended.
“Damn.” Chase sounded awed.
There were people on the lawn, Scott was relieved to see, as the Jeep shot out from beneath the avenue of trees. No more than gray shapes against the inky grass at that distance, their identities were impossible to determine.
She’s there. Of course she is.
But telling himself that, and knowing it for a fact, were two different things. Slamming on the brakes as the Jeep drew even with them, throwing the transmission into park, he turned off the ignition, leaped out of the car, and ran across the manicured lawn toward where they were gathered, a distance of perhaps some two hundred yards from the driveway
. He counted heads as he ran: Miss Martha, stretched out on her back on the grass, eyes closed, ghostly white as the house itself. He would have been afraid she was dead, except a woman he didn’t know knelt beside her, seemingly providing some sort of first aid, and you wouldn’t give first aid to a dead woman, would you? Mr. Frye was next to her, on his knees, bent over, coughing and wheezing violently. Her hand on his shoulder, Mrs. Baker leaned over him, saying something, her posture one of concern.
Scott went cold all over as he realized who he didn’t see.
“Where’s Lisa?” he yelled as he drew close enough. The smell of smoke was strong. The roar of the fire was loud enough to drown out all other night sounds—and presumably his voice as well, because no one answered. The flames cast an eerie flickering light over all.
Jesus, the fire’s spreading fast. His heart hammered at the realization.
“Where’s Lisa?” he yelled again, urgently, as, thanks to the dew-slick grass, he all but skidded to a stop behind Mrs. Baker. He grabbed her by the shoulder. “Where’s Lisa?”
Jumping in surprise, her eyes wild as they met his, Mrs. Baker pointed toward the house.
“We think she’s still inside! She was in her bedroom. Andy tried, but he couldn’t get to her.”
For a moment, the whole world seemed to shift into a slower gear. Then adrenaline kicked in. He could feel it rush like speed through his veins.
“Go up—the back.” Mr. Frye, still coughing, raised his head and looked around at him. “Front’s blocked.”
“Stay here,” Scott barked over his shoulder at Chase. The kid didn’t listen. Of course the damned kid didn’t listen. Scott was aware of him pounding behind him as he raced toward the far side of the house and the side entrance that opened onto, among other things, the back staircase that Andy had been referring to, but he had no time to do anything about it. No sound of sirens yet, he registered, as he leaped the low stone wall that edged a small side patio and, dodging wrought-iron furniture, crossed the stone pavers in two bounds. Where the hell was the fire department? How long did it take?
The bitter truth was that the closest fire station was in Versailles. And getting them there could take up to fifteen minutes. On a good night. He prayed this was a good night.
The red glare of the fire was growing brighter. Bright enough so that this slightly overgrown section of yard where lilies on swaying stalks surrounded the trees and flowering bushes abounded had taken on the look of a garden in hell. This close, he could feel the fire’s heat, hear its sharp crackle. At the thought that Lisa was trapped in there, a hard shiver shot down his spine.
God, let her be all right.
“You come one step inside this house and I’ll tell your dad everything that’s gone down tonight, you hear?”
He was at the side door as he growled the threat at Chase, who stopped, panting, beside him. A quick twist of the smooth brass knob confirmed Scott’s fear: It was locked. A faint hope that Lisa might have exited this way died. She would never have stopped to lock it behind her. His every instinct urged him to kick the damned door down. But calm reason prevailed. With no time to do more than underline his words with a glare at Chase, he whipped his wallet out of his pocket, pulled out a credit card, and dropped the rest. He knew that door; he knew that lock. The door was solid wood in the way that hundred-year-old doors were solid wood; kicking it down would take some time. But the lock was modern. The lock was a simple pushbutton. The lock he could open with a credit card.
Sweating bullets and clenching his teeth in an effort to keep panic at bay, he gently slid the credit card between the doorjamb and the lock and jiggled it.
“Maybe she got out some other way.” Chase was still breathing irregularly.
Maybe. Intent on what he was doing, he thought it without giving voice to the reply. But was he willing to take the time to run all over the damn huge grounds, checking to see if she was out there somewhere?
If he did and Lisa was inside, she could die.
To his great relief, the lock yielded with a click.
“Stay fucking here,” he ordered Chase fiercely over his shoulder as he shoved the door open. “I mean it. If I’m not back by the time the firefighters get here, tell them where I went.”
For just a second after he entered he was disoriented and had to stop to look around him. He hadn’t been in this part of the house for at least ten years. The back hall was shaped like a capital T, opening straight ahead into the wider hall that bisected the ground floor of the north wing. To his right, the hall ended in a bathroom, he recalled. To his left was the door that led to the narrow chute of stairs that was his goal. The memory came to him in a flash, and he turned left and ran.
With only the moonlight pouring through the open door behind him for illumination, he reached the end of the hall and jerked open the door to the staircase. A plume of smoke greeted him even before his foot hit the stairs. The crackle and pop of the fire was suddenly much louder. The smell of burning was strong.
“Lisa!” he bellowed. Ducking to avoid the smoke that was thick enough at the higher elevation to sting his eyes, he leaped up the stairs two at a time.
And thought—wasn’t sure but thought—he heard a faint answering cry.
“Help!” Lisa cried again, weakly, then succumbed to a fit of coughing so deep it felt like claws tearing at her lungs. Her head drooped as she gasped for breath. It felt heavy as a boulder, far too heavy for her neck to support. Her temples pounded. She felt dizzy, sick. There was a terrible metallic taste on her tongue.
If I could only lie down for a moment and rest. . . .
Probably she shouldn’t waste her energy calling out anymore. Her voice was now so hoarse that she doubted it could be heard beyond a few feet away. Certainly if no one had heard her first terrified screams, they wouldn’t hear her now. Her mother, Robin, Andy—where were they? Had they escaped? Or were they trapped, too?
Terror grabbed her heart at the thought. But there was nothing she could do for them. She was beginning to doubt that she was even going to be able to save herself.
I have to keep going. I have to get out.
Biting her lip in an effort to stay focused, she forced herself to keep moving, crawling like a baby down the hallway toward the back staircase at the far end of the north wing, the hardwood floor hurting her bare knees, the increasing heat of it beneath her hands scaring her. Smoke was thick overhead, so thick it had choked her when, upon first leaving her room, she’d tried to run through it, tried to escape in the opposite direction. The smoke had clogged her nostrils, burned her throat, filled her lungs, until she’d remembered that she needed to stay low. Bending double, she’d almost made it to front stairs, the big central staircase that wound up to the glass atrium and down to the first floor, when part of the ceiling collapsed in front of her. Just collapsed with no warning at all other than a whoosh of flames and the crash of falling timbers. Screaming, she’d barely managed to jump back in time. Sparks had showered her. Fire had roared up toward the hole that had opened in the roof.
I can’t get to the stairs.
Panic had exploded through her veins even as she reeled away from the fiery wall that leaped to life in front of her. The smoke was so thick now that she could feel its oily texture against her skin, feel the weight of it as she sucked it into her lungs. Coughing, gasping for air, so fuzzy-headed she could barely think, she’d once again remembered that to escape smoke you stayed low, and so she turned and dropped to her hands and knees and crawled frantically away. The air was better near the floor. Hot and thick and faintly sulfurous but breathable. She hugged the wall on her left because heat radiated through the wall on her right, and she feared that at any minute more flames might burst through the plaster. Behind her, the ominous crackling noise filled her with terror. Her stomach knotted. Her pulse raced. She could feel the blazing heat on the soles of her bare feet, on the backs of her thighs. The fire was chasing her. If it caught up she would die. The fifty or so feet tha
t she still had to go before she reached the stairs felt like fifty miles.
What if more of the roof collapses? Or even the floor?
The thought brought another wave of panic with it. Forcing it back, she willed herself onward, despite an alarming lethargy that was beginning to steal her will along with the strength from her muscles.
What she wanted most of all, beyond anything, was to just lie down.
I’m so tired.
Having been awakened by a loud boom, she’d still been groggy with sleep and had lain in bed, blinking into the darkness, trying to think what the sound could have been for the moment or two that, she realized now, had constituted her best chance for escape. She’d even contemplated going back to sleep—until she realized that her room smelled of smoke. Then several other things clicked simultaneously: a strange rumbling sound, an acrid taste in her mouth, the sense that something was wrong.
Realization, when it came, was horrifying: The house is on fire.
If something happens to me, it will kill Mother, she told herself now as her blood hammered against her temples and she coughed up what felt like another section of lung and her limbs seemed to weaken still more. The knowledge gave her the impetus she needed to keep moving.
You know where the back stairs are. Just a little farther . . .
Eyes burning, gagging on low-riding fingers of smoke that she couldn’t help but inhale, heart pounding like it wanted to beat its way out of her chest, she crawled desperately toward the darkness at the end of the hall. The door there opened onto what had once been a servants’ staircase, a narrow, steep flight of unadorned wooden steps that led up from the first floor.
The closed door was still maybe thirty feet away.
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