Rusty Nail

by J. A. Konrath

  Two legs cut through the smoke and appeared in the doorway, obscured from the knees up. They wore loose jeans and construction boots, unlaced.

  “Police!” I croaked, fumbling for my holster.

  I heard the shot at the same moment I felt it, an explosive BOOM passing the right side of my head. I cleared leather and drew a bead, firing three shots at the center mass of the shooter just as the legs darted back.

  My head rang with a deep resonation that shut out the sounds of the flames. I rolled right, on my stomach, keeping my gun on the doorway. I waited fifteen seconds. Thirty seconds.

  My feet got hot, and I chanced a quick look and saw the fire creeping up behind me. I was about to be engulfed.

  I crawled forward, using my legs and my burned hand, my .38 still trained ahead of me. The smoke had filled the room, hovering so low, it was in my face. I fired once more through the doorway, and then got on my feet and ran through it in a crouch.

  A quick glance around showed me my mistake.

  I’d run right into hell.

  CHAPTER 10

  ALEX FROWNS AT the miscalculation. The front door, the escape route, is an inferno, a giant wall of flame that is impossible to get through. The other two windows facing the street are also blazing.

  There is no way out.

  Alex thinks for a moment, then dashes through the haze and up the stairs. Visibility is poor, and it’s hard to breathe, but Alex remembers that the master bedroom has a window facing the street. A window that opens onto the roof.

  A gunshot, from downstairs. Jack is still alive. Doubtful she will be for long, though.

  Eyes burning and teary, Alex squeezes them closed and feels along the wall, eventually arriving at the bedroom. The latch opens easily, and Alex pulls up the window with enough force to crack the frame.

  The cool Chicago air is like honey. Alex sucks down a breath, wiping away soot from stinging eyes. Walking onto the roof is ridiculously easy, and Alex follows the gutter around to the rear of the house.

  Sirens pierce the night, closing in from all directions. Alex gets down on all fours and scoots to the edge of the roof. The drop is about twenty feet, onto grass, but the gutter looks sturdy.

  Gripping the aluminum, Alex swings over the side and hangs for a moment before falling to the ground.

  Ankles tight together, knees bent, Alex hits the earth hard but unharmed. Alex ponders for a moment—the suitcase is still in the house, but there’s nothing in it that can’t be replaced.

  Jack is also still in the house.

  Not the way Alex had intended for Jack to die, but a fitting way to end the lieutenant’s life. Choking, burning, and panicked. What more could a gal ask for?

  Digging keys from a front pocket, Alex enters the garage, opens the garage door, and hops into the rental car. The sirens are deafening now. Alex starts the car and guns the engine.

  A quick left down the alley proves to be a mistake; there’s an enormous fire engine blocking the exit. Alex checks the rearview and sees another truck, also crammed onto the narrow alley.

  Leaving on foot isn’t an option. There are things in the trunk. Incriminating things.

  Alex jams the accelerator to the floor and the tires screech. Between the fire engine and the building is a small gap. It doesn’t look wide enough to get a car through, but Alex has to try.

  Twenty.

  Thirty.

  At forty miles an hour the car reaches the gap and Alex grips the steering wheel in iron hands. There’s some yelling—firefighters pointing at the car—and a clunking noise as both the driver’s-side and passenger’s-side mirrors tear from the chassis, but Alex makes it through the hole, clips a fireman and sends him spinning into his truck, and then speeds down Hamilton, grinning like the devil himself.

  CHAPTER 11

  LIKE ALL CURIOUS teenagers, I’d tried cigarettes. I decided early on that a nicotine buzz wasn’t worth holding hot smoke in my lungs.

  That popped into my head as I crawled across the smoldering carpet, my head pressed to the floor in an attempt to suck the last bit of oxygen floating at the bottom of the living room.

  The ringing in my head was subsiding, the fire sound coming back. I squinted through the thick smoke, which felt like sandpaper on my eyes, and wondered where I was crawling to. Disorientation had dug its claws in, and I might have been crawling around in circles. I tried to go where there weren’t flames, but there were more flames than not, and they danced and jumped around, igniting more things.

  The heat had officially become unbearable. One time many years ago, in an effort to bake away my clammy white pallor, I’d visited Oak Street beach in July and had forsaken the sunscreen in order to minimize my tan time. I’d fallen asleep, and wound up with a nice case of sun poisoning, my skin so red, it had blistered.

  This hurt worse. Though I wasn’t actually on fire, it was so hot, I felt like I was on fire. The sweat poured out of me in rivulets, but evaporated almost as soon as my pores squeezed it out.

  My knuckles hit something ahead of me. A scorched wall. I followed it, blind and hacking, and it fell away into an opening.

  Stairs.

  Going up is never a smart idea in an emergency situation, but I couldn’t stay where I was. I climbed the stairs on my hands and knees, my .38 still gripped in my fist. Soon it would be too hot to hold. I wondered how stable the rounds were—on top of everything, I didn’t need my bullets exploding in my gun.

  The higher I climbed, the smokier it got, which made sense because smoke rises. When I reached the top of the stairs, I couldn’t see and I couldn’t breathe. My lungs felt like two ashy lumps of charcoal, and I was light-headed and in surround-sound pain. I’d begun to cry between coughing fits.

  The fire was right behind me.

  Not knowing which way to go, I continued on my present course and felt tile under my hands. A bathroom. I got on my knees, felt up the wall, and hit the switch, hoping to turn on the fan to suck away some of the smoke.

  No electricity.

  Frantic and blind, I closed the door behind me and swung my hands wildly around, bumping the sink. I turned on the water, cupping some in my hands, splashing it onto my face to clear my eyes.

  It helped a little, and I could make out the window opposite the sink. A ventilation window. Too small to crawl through, but I sure could use some ventilation right about now.

  I fumbled with the latch, tugged it open, and took big, greedy gulps of cool night air.

  Above the din of the flames, I heard sirens.

  “Help!” I tried to yell. But it only came out as a croak.

  I holstered my gun and felt around for a towel. Holding it tight, I stuck my arm out the window and wagged the towel frantically, like I was signaling to surrender. The window faced one of the narrow spaces between buildings, and all I could see was the side of the duplex next to me.

  Then the heat suddenly kicked up, and I noted with displeasure that the bathroom door I closed moments ago was ablaze.

  I hung the towel on the window latch and then backed away from the door, almost tripping against the bathtub.

  Not a bad idea, a bath.

  Climbing into the tub, I tugged on the faucet and yanked up the little handle to turn on the shower.

  The water came out hot, but it felt wonderful on my face and hands. I stood in the spray, opening my mouth, letting it bathe my scratched throat. Then I bent down and pulled the lever to plug up the bathtub drain, letting the tub fill with water.

  Though the window was open, the flaming door was creating smoke faster than it left the room. I sat down, hugging my knees, watching death descend from the ceiling, inch by inch.

  The firefighters had to be hosing down the building, right?

  It was a brick construction, and that helped, didn’t it?

  Didn’t they see my towel hanging out the window and know I was in here?

  Though it had to be over 110 in that bathroom, my whole body was shivering.

  I was so
aked, so I probably wouldn’t burn to death. The smoke would get me. Or maybe the water would heat up to the point that I’d boil. It felt like it was getting close. I had turned the handle to Cold, but there wasn’t any cold; the fire was heating the water as it came through the pipes.

  It was just a matter of time until they figured out I was in here and rescued me. Two minutes, tops. I could last another two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds. Then I’d be safe.

  I began to count.

  One . . . two . . . three . . .

  I stopped counting at 160.

  The flames leaped from the door to the ceiling, and bits of burning plaster flaked down and sizzled in my tub, a rain of fire. I picked up the bath mat, dunked it in the sooty water, and wound it around my head. The shower slowed to a trickle, and then stopped, with my tub only half filled.

  A calm came over me, possibly induced by oxygen deprivation. I was going to die. I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I knew that I should be fighting somehow, trying to prevent it. But there was nothing else I could do.

  I’d been beaten.

  A small part of me didn’t want to accept it and screamed for me to act. Maybe I could wrap myself in wet towels and charge down the stairs. Maybe I could bust the bathroom window and scream until I was noticed, even though that wall was on fire now too.

  But the larger part of me recognized those options as futile. I’d live a little bit longer if I waited for death, rather than rushed to meet it.

  Once I accepted my fate, I accepted everything that went with it.

  I wouldn’t ever know if Herb had cancer or not.

  I wouldn’t ever know if my mom came out of her coma.

  I wouldn’t ever know if Latham would have called me back.

  I wouldn’t ever know who it was that shot at me downstairs, which seemed like hours ago.

  Lifetimes ago.

  It made me sad.

  The bathroom door burst inward, and the last thing I remembered was a large man in a firefighter uniform reaching out for me.

  CHAPTER 12

  SOME FIRST-DEGREE burns on your left hand, smoke inhalation, and you’ll need stitches in your ear.”

  I took another hit from the oxygen mask, my lungs feeling like they’d been scoured with steel wool. I went on another coughing jag, and spit something black and gross into my tissue.

  “Stitches?” My voice was low and raspy.

  The doctor, whose name tag said Williams, prodded my ear with a wet cotton ball.

  “You’re missing a tiny piece on the top. You probably nicked it on something.”

  I stayed silent. I hadn’t nicked my ear on anything. That bastard in Diane Kork’s house had shot the top of my ear off.

  “Nothing to worry about,” the doctor said. “It won’t even be noticeable after it heals. Well, maybe a bit noticeable. Are you good with makeup?”

  While the doc stitched me up, I used his rubbing alcohol and some cotton pads to clean the soot off of my face. My clothes were a disaster, soaked and scorched and garbage. I currently wore a hospital gown, but one of the shift nurses promised she’d find me some pants and a top.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a local?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The Darvocet I’d been given for the pain in my hand had kicked in, and all I felt in my ear was a slight tugging while he sutured.

  He knotted it off, and I had to fill out some forms before being discharged—against the hospital’s recommendation. A cute male nurse came in and flushed my eyes with something that helped stop the itching, and while he held my head in his strong and capable hands the shift nurse returned with some clothes.

  “Do you think you can squeeze into a size twelve?” she asked.

  “Maybe if I suck in my stomach,” I told her.

  The male nurse offered me a towel and left, and I dressed in a large pair of khakis and a Bulls sweatshirt. The khakis were so large, I had to keep one hand on the waist to hold them up.

  Finally, when I was forcing on my wet shoes, the fireman who’d rescued me poked his head through the curtain.

  “Just wanted to check how you’re doing, ma’am.”

  He was probably half my age, and his boyish face made him look even younger.

  “I’m fine. Thanks again, Peter. You saved my life.”

  “Just doing my job. Smart thing you did, hanging the towel out the window.”

  He looked pleased with himself, and had a right to be. Saving a person’s life is the best natural high there is.

  “Did you find anyone else in the house?”

  “No. You were the only one in there.”

  “No bodies?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You check the basement?”

  “We checked everywhere. House was empty, thank God.”

  I thought about that. I would have bet good money that Diane Kork’s body was somewhere in the house.

  “Did you see anyone running from the house before me? Someone in jeans and work boots?”

  “I didn’t. But someone was in a hurry to get away from there. Tommy got clipped by a car in the alley out back.”

  “Tommy?”

  “Tommy Thurston, guy from my unit. He’s just a couple beds down. Broken leg. Want to meet him?”

  “Yeah, I would.” I squeezed on my second shoe and stood, one hand holding my pants.

  Peter led me down the hall. Tommy lay on his cot, his calf wrapped in a fiberglass cast. His eyes were closed. He looked too young to shave. Where were they getting firemen these days, out of grammar school?

  “Mr. Thurston?”

  “What? Oh, hey. You’re the one we pulled out.”

  I offered a hand. “Lieutenant Jack Daniels. How’s the leg?”

  “Tibia fracture. Not bad.”

  “I heard you were hit by a car.”

  “Damnedest thing. He came screeching out of the alley like Dale Earnhardt. Clipped engine number twelve and the side of a building, and gave me a love tap like I wasn’t even there. Probably didn’t see me.”

  “Did you see the driver?”

  “No. Too dark. Happened too fast.”

  “How about the car?”

  “Dark color. Looked new. Could have been anything. Lots of cars look alike these days, don’t you think? Shouldn’t be hard to find, though.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Guy lost both his side mirrors driving through the gap.”

  I nodded. “Any chance you noticed the license plate?”

  “Actually, right before it hit me, I did notice the plate. Started with D one.”

  “D one? You’re sure?”

  “Uh-huh. I remember because when it was coming right at me I thought, I’m the Dead One. D one. Get it?”

  “I got it. You don’t remember any other numbers?”

  “Nope. There were six or seven of them. Looked like an Illinois plate.” His eyes lit up. “Hey, your name is Jack Daniels?”

  “That’s me. Lightly braised, but in the flesh.”

  “I like that show on TV that you’re in, that Fatal Autonomy. You’re pretty funny. I loved the one where you were screaming and screaming and screaming for help and that private eye guy took off his dirty sock and crammed it in your mouth.”

  I gave him a weak smile. “Yeah. Good episode.”

  Peter chimed in. “My favorite is the one where you tracked down that killer and went to shoot him but you forgot to load your gun.” He slapped his thigh, grinning. “Classic.”

  “That didn’t really happen.”

  “Sure was funny, though.” Peter eyed my outfit. “I think it’s great you’re losing weight. Made my job a lot easier, carrying you.”

  I considered telling him that I wasn’t fat, that was only the actress who played me, but I let discretion be the better part of valor.

  “Excuse me.” I slid past. “Gotta get home and drink my Slim-Fast shake. Thanks again, guys.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Daniels.”

&nbs
p; Since the paramedics had taken me to the hospital, I had to take a cab to my car, still parked on Hamilton. A single fire engine remained on the scene, hosing down Diane Kork’s house. The flames had long since been extinguished, but the heat remained. When the water hit certain spots, it hissed and steamed fiercely.

  I wanted to poke around inside, but now didn’t seem like a good time. Plus, I was exhausted. I did drive around to the back alley, and was rewarded with a nice surprise: two rearview mirrors, broken and lying on the asphalt.

  Evidence. I hoped it would be enough.

  CHAPTER 13

  I MANAGED TO sleep for six whole hours, which was wonderful, but waking up was a Spanish Inquisition interrogation.

  My eyes were glued shut with crust, my nose and throat were raw, my hand felt like I was holding it over a stove burner, and my ear throbbed with my heartbeat. A bad headache was the cherry on top of the pain sundae.

  Good freaking morning.

  I sat up and stared into the indifferent eyes of Mr. Friskers, who perched at the foot of my bed like a gargoyle.

  “What do you want, cat? Food?”

  He meowed.

  I almost did a double take. Mr. Friskers never meowed. His normal method of communication was hissing or yowling.

  “What, are you actually trying to be friendly?”

  The cat meowed again.

  Though my heart was carved from glacier ice, I felt it melt a bit.

  “That’s sweet.” I reached out to pat him on the head, and he hissed and clawed my hand, drawing blood.

  He ran off before I could find my gun and shoot him.

  I glanced at the clock. A little after nine a.m. I had a lot to do, plus that handwriting expert was stopping by the office this afternoon, but I couldn’t comprehend going to work feeling as crummy as I did. The very thought of explaining to Captain Bains what happened last night made my head hurt worse than it already did.