Blind Spot

by Laura Ellen

  “In your car? It’s kind of loud, isn’t it?” I glanced at the others. Greg was glaring at me.

  “Loud? Everyone’s listening, huh? Don’t worry. They won’t see my Vette. I’m parked around the back”—he gave a sarcastic laugh—“in the fire lane.”

  “Zeus having car trouble?” Greg said when I hung up. “His golden chariot get too close to the sun?”

  “I think that was Phaeton who did that,” I said. “Not Zeus.”

  Greg wasn’t amused. “He’s not coming over here, is he?”

  “I didn’t invite him,” Heather said, looking at me.

  “Don’t worry, he’s not. His car’s just acting up a bit.”

  “Your concern is touching.” Greg plopped down on the couch again, shoved a handful of tortilla chips into his mouth, and stared at the blank television screen.

  “Let’s watch a movie,” Heather said. “I’ll make popcorn.”

  Fritz snatched up the remote. “What should we watch?”

  “There’s that new horror spoof,” Heather called from the kitchen. The microwave door slammed. “Or that romantic comedy about the newscaster and a hockey player.”

  Greg snorted. “I’m not watching a hockey movie.”

  I rolled my eyes and looked back outside. What was taking Jonathan so long? He said he was here, around the back.

  I moved to the sliding glass doors to see if I’d have a better view. I didn’t, so I went back to the window and caught a whiff of something burning. “Heather, is the popcorn okay?”

  I heard her yank the microwave open. “It’s not the popcorn. But I smell that too.” She walked back into the living room. “It smells like—”

  “Smoke,” Greg and I said in unison.

  The wail of the fire alarm sliced through the silence. We stared at each other as the siren above Heather’s front door began blinking blue.

  “Oh, my God!” Heather cried. “Fire!”

  In the few seconds we took to register the fire, the air in the room had become hazy. Terror ricocheted through me. What the hell? He had said fire alarm, not fire!

  “Help me get in my chair!” Fritz screamed.

  Greg and I rushed to the couch, where Fritz was desperately trying to drag himself to his wheelchair. I grabbed one side of him while Greg grabbed the other. We slammed him too hard into the chair.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Fine! Let’s go!”

  Greg gripped the handles and propelled Fritz out of the room. I squinted into the haze looking for Heather. She was flipping out, flitting around in shock, not getting anywhere. I grabbed her arm and beelined for the door.

  When we got there, the boys were staring at it. A thick mass of smoke poured from underneath. My eyes started to sting. Heather whimpered next to me.

  “If it’s hot, we shouldn’t open it,” Fritz said.

  I stepped around his chair and pushed my palms on the door. It felt warm, but maybe that was just me. “How hot is too hot?”

  Greg yanked Fritz’s chair out of his way and felt the door. “It’s definitely hot. There might be flames in the hall. Go to the balcony.”

  “We’re three stories up!” I said. “How will we get down?”

  “We wait and hope the firefighters can help us.” Greg turned the chair around and headed to the balcony.

  I didn’t follow. This was crazy. Jonathan wouldn’t have started a fire. It was probably smoke bombs or something for effect. The hall had to be clear. “If we have to climb, Fritz is screwed,” I yelled. “We should take the hall, stay low, and crawl down the stairs. Fritz can do that, right, Fritz? Dellian’s here, he can help us.” I winced.

  That had been the plan.

  Knocking on Dellian’s door in a real panic? That had not been in the plan.

  “Come on!” I flung the door open.

  “Roz, no!” Greg cried.

  Acrid smoke billowed into the room, choking me, knocking me backwards. Heather screamed. Somewhere down below, flames crackled.

  This wasn’t happening! It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Smoke filled my lungs. I gasped for breath and dropped to the ground. Holding my sweatshirt collar over my mouth with one hand, I kicked the door shut with my foot and crawled back into the apartment.

  I felt the panic rising as I realized I couldn’t see through the smoke or my tearing eyes. I don’t need to see, I told myself. With my mental map of the apartment, all I needed was the wall. I crawled sideways until my knee connected with it, and then scooted along knee to wall.

  My hand hit someone’s foot as I turned a corner. I reached up the pant leg. It was Heather. I curled my hand into hers and yanked her down next to me. “Crawl.”

  We clomped our way along in slow, jerky movements.

  The smoke cleared a bit. The open sliding glass doors were ahead, curtains blowing back and forth. We stood and ran.

  “I couldn’t see,” Heather sobbed into Fritz’s lap. “I couldn’t find you.”

  I slid the glass door shut behind me and looked for Greg. He was leaning over the edge, yelling to someone. I moved toward him.

  Dellian balanced on the railing of an apartment one level down and to the left of Heather’s. He was throwing a rope ladder with metal hooks to Greg. Every throw, however, missed Greg’s outstretched arms.

  “Crawl over the side of the rail!” Dellian screamed at him. “Come on!”

  Greg shook his head. “I . . . I can’t.”

  My heart ached at the fear in his voice. I’d done this to him. “I can do it,” I said.

  He turned, eyes wild, face white. “That was stupid! You could’ve killed us!”

  “I know.” This whole thing was stupid, and if I didn’t act fast, my stupidity could still kill us all. “Move, okay?” I gently peeled him away from the ledge.

  I tossed one leg and then the other over the metal railing, rested my butt on the top for a second as I twisted my body around, and then lowered myself to the outside ledge. My toes struggled to find a footing. Barely an inch of cement bordered the outside of the rail.

  Below people were in chaos. Residents running, scattering. Scared.

  I looked away. It was a long way down.

  My heart hammered so hard, I could feel it pulsing through every inch of me, shaking me, threatening my grip. I looped one arm through the posts of the railing and clutched the edge with my elbow.

  When I felt secure, I took a deep breath and turned toward Mr. Dellian. “Okay.”

  He nodded at me. “Good, now bend your knees. Crouch a little when you reach.”

  I did as I was told and leaned forward. He was farther away than I’d thought. My shoulder muscle tore. Pain ripped through my side and back.

  I gritted my teeth and kept reaching. The tips of my fingers brushed the rough edge of the metal rings in Dellian’s outstretched hands. With one last painful push forward, I folded my hand around the metal hook and grabbed the ladder.

  “Good work. Now hang those hooks and throw the ladder down.”

  The hooks clipped easily on the edge. I tossed the ladder down to Dellian and climbed back onto Heather’s balcony. Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Dellian pulled himself over the ledge and moved quickly to Fritz as the fire trucks screamed into the apartments’ entrance. Instead of pulling into the parking lot underneath us, however, they turned right, away from us, and disappeared.

  “They’re leaving!” Heather cried.

  “They went around the back,” Dellian said. “I’m sure they’ll send someone to help us.” We heard more sirens in the distance. Dellian smiled. “See? Now let’s get Mr. Grandman down. Mr. Martin, I’ll need your belt,” Dellian said as he yanked his own belt off.

  Greg fumbled with his buckle, fingers shaking, but managed to get it free and handed it to Mr. Dellian.

  Mr. Dellian frowned at it. “You could stand to gain a few pounds, Mr. Martin.” He attached the belts together and then nodded at us. “I’ll need you all to attach him to me with this
rather narrow strap and then help hold him while I climb over. I hope all those asinine tricks of yours have built some upper-body strength, Mr. Grandman. You’ll need it to hold on.”

  The belts together were barely long enough to go around their bodies. We struggled to fasten the belts around them both, the leather edge cutting deeply into Fritz’s skin. Once the belts were secure, we steadied Fritz as Dellian climbed onto the ladder. They slowly scaled their way down, Fritz’s arms shaking violently with the effort to hold on. Two fire trucks pulled into the parking lot below. Within seconds, a firefighter had helped get Fritz the rest of the way down and carried him to the grassy area on the other side of the lot.

  Dellian returned to the ladder. “You’re okay up there. The fire was small. They’ve put it out. Just stay there!”

  “No way,” Heather said. “I’m not staying.”

  Greg and I watched her scurry down the ladder and run across the lot to Fritz. Things below began to look less chaotic. A few people wandered back into the building. A fire truck left. As a tow truck came into the lot and drove around the back, I realized my body was shaking. I hugged myself to stop trembling. “Did you want to go down?” I asked.

  “I’ll wait. You go if you want.” He was trembling too.

  “I’ll wait with you.” I moved closer until my arms, still hugging my chest, touched his. “Cold?”

  “Just freaked out. Sorry I couldn’t . . .” He dropped his eyes to our arms. I dropped mine too. “I hate heights,” he said. “If you’d fallen . . .” A tiny tearstain appeared on his sweatshirt.

  I made him cry. He was scared and vulnerable and defeated, and I’d done that to him. Me. This was my fault. I had to tell him. “I’m sorry—” I said, fighting against my own tears.

  “No!” He nudged me with his arms. “You were brave! Like that time with Missy’s cat, remember?”

  “PJ Jamma Jamma?” I whispered over the lump in my throat.

  “Yeah, when that bully—what was his name?”

  “Pete Bowls,” I said, still staring at our arms.

  “Pete Bowls,” Greg said. “He stole PJ and put her in a tree. You were only eight, but you scaled that tree as if it were a flight of stairs. A hero. Just like now.”

  I remembered that day. How Missy had praised me, thanked me. That had felt good. This didn’t. This felt wrong. I wasn’t a hero. I was the villain. A monster.

  “Don’t,” I whispered. “I’m not a hero. This is my fault.”

  “No, it’s not.” He unfolded his arms. Pried mine apart. Clasped my hands in his. “I’m sorry I yelled. I almost opened the door too. Anyone could’ve.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” My lips trembled. I couldn’t look at him. “The fire’s my fault.”

  “Don’t be silly. You were nowhere near the fire.”

  There was a loud honking below. Our heads turned automatically toward the noise. A group of people were blocking the back entrance of the apartment building, and someone trying to get through from the fire lane was laying on his horn. We watched as the bystanders moved aside and the tow truck pulled through—a red sports car attached to its tow.

  The air between us thickened. Greg slowly pulled his hands away.

  “Greg, let me explain, please?”

  He backed away from me. His mouth opened and shut, a fish gasping for air.

  “There wasn’t supposed to be a fire, just a false alarm to get everyone out.”

  “Get away from me.” He moved to the edge where the rope ladder was hung.

  “Greg, I never would’ve agreed to help if I’d known this would happen. Never.”

  “What were you helping that asshole do? What was so important that you were willing to use your friends, lose your friends, to achieve?”

  “I was trying to help Tricia.”

  He stared at me. “How exactly does this help Tricia? She’s dead!”

  Nothing I could say would convince him, because nothing I could say now would convince me. I no longer knew how I had thought this plan would help anyone. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “You are.” He gripped the ledge. “You know how humiliating that must’ve been for Fritz? He was strapped to his teacher’s back, dangling three stories aboveground! How could you do that to him? To all of us?” He lifted a leg over the side.

  “Stop! What’re you doing?” I cried. “You hate heights.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He lifted the other leg over and faced me from the other side of the ledge. “But right now, I hate you more.”

  His words punched the life out of me. I wanted to run after him, make him understand, make him take those words back, but I knew I couldn’t. I hated me too.

  I watched him inch his way down the ladder. When he reached the ground, he’d tell them. Then they’d all hate me. How long before the lynch mob came? The firemen? The police?

  I fumbled for my cell phone. The asshole answered on the first ring. “Why’d you set a fire?”

  “Ethan thought—”

  “Ethan? How did Ethan become a part of this? You said a fire alarm—we had it all planned, Jonathan!”

  “Yeah, well, I needed backup in case you screwed things up again—which you did, bringing Loser along. The plan had to change because of him. Ethan said a fire on the stairs would get Dellian out and us in through the glass doors. Can’t deadbolt those puppies—and that way we were covered if Loser tried to carry Lover Boy out himself.”

  “They have names—Greg and Fritz! They’re people, not objects you can just screw around with!” I snapped. “And where are you? Your car got towed—”

  “I couldn’t get back to my Vette—too many people freaking out around the back when we finished in Dellian’s apartment, so we had to bail without it.”

  My head started to hurt. “God, Jonathan,” I said, rubbing my temples, “you could’ve killed someone.”

  “With that fire? Please. Besides, it worked, didn’t it? I just hid in the bushes and slipped right in while D. was rescuing—” He paused. “Cops are calling through; must’ve found my stolen car.” He laughed. “Tell Loser to expect a call from them. I told them he stole it.”

  I stared at the screen as Jonathan disconnected. How could he mess with people’s lives as if they were nothing?

  Slowly I let my breath out.

  How could I?

  Not anymore. I flipped my phone open and called Detective King.

  “You understand,” Detective King said when I’d finished explaining about the fire, “you’re admitting to a crime.”

  “I know.” We were sitting in her office with my mother. “I understand.”

  “Okay, I’m going to go talk to the fire investigator and the officers questioning Jonathan and your friends. Is there anything else before I go?”

  “Greg didn’t steal Jonathan’s car. It was towed from the fire lane. Jonathan knew Greg was there—and he knew the car proved he was at the fire—so he said Greg stole it. But Greg drove his own car to Heather’s—ask Fritz. Greg picked him up.”

  “Okay,” the detective said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Mom glared at me as Detective King left the room. “Every time I turn around, you’re in trouble. A fire, Rozzy? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Mom, I didn’t—”

  “Save it!” She whipped out her phone and started texting. “Now I need to find someone to work for me. God knows how long we’ll be here.”

  Detective King returned fifteen minutes later. “Roswell, you said you didn’t arrive at the apartment building with Jonathan. You took the bus?” When I nodded, she said, “What time did you arrive?”

  “I don’t know. The bus dropped me off at the corner around four thirty, maybe? I walked to Heather’s from there. Greg would know. He commented on how late I was.”

  Detective King frowned. “That’s the problem. He said you arrived a lot later than he’d expected, and that he had offered you a ride, which you refused.”

  I ignored my mother’s sno
rt. “Because we were arguing.”

  “Well, unfortunately Jonathan is not corroborating your story. He claims he was with Ethan Baker at ShopCo when his car was stolen. Now, the report didn’t actually come in until after the fire alarm went off, but—”

  “Because he was there! Ethan too. They set the fire.”

  “No.” Detective King shook her head. “Ethan Baker was working the entire time at ShopCo. His manager confirmed that with his time card. And several people remember seeing Jonathan there too.”

  “He could’ve slipped out without his manager knowing!” I said. “And those could be their friends, or people who remember seeing them before or after the fire, and are assuming they were there the whole time!”

  “Maybe, but no one saw either boy at the apartment building, Roz, just the Corvette.”

  “Well that’s something, right?” I said.

  “It would be if he hadn’t reported it stolen.”

  “After the fire was set,” I said.

  “That only means Jonathan noticed it was stolen at that time. With the witnesses placing both boys in ShopCo during that time frame, it looks as if it could have been stolen and the thief drove it to the apartment building.”

  “So what’re you saying exactly?” Mom asked.

  “I’m saying that while we know Greg Martin did not steal Jonathan’s car, it looks as though it may indeed have been stolen. Which means”—Detective King leaned forward, folding her hands neatly on the desk—“there’s not a shred of evidence that proves those two boys were involved in the fire. Right now, Roz is our only suspect.”

  “But I didn’t start the fire!”

  “But you confessed to being involved, and because you arrived late, alone, after refusing your friend’s offer to drive you, it’s plausible that you set the fire before entering the Torreses’ apartment.”

  “No!” Telling the truth was supposed to set me free; instead I was scrambling to save myself. “Look, I got off the bus and walked to the apartment. It takes at least ten minutes to walk that distance. How could I have had time to set a fire?”

  “Which bus did you take?”

  “The six. I got on at Park and Renton.”

  “That route passes ShopCo, doesn’t it?”