[Elizabeth McClaine 03.0] A Stolen Woman

by Catherine Lea

  “Everyone ran when the building shook,” one man said. “We couldn’t leave him here.”

  “You two go that side. You,” Wendy told the second man as she searched the room, “come help me on this side. The fire’s going up the east side of the building. It’s moving fast and everything on that side of the building’s going up. We have to be quick. Ready?”

  “Ready? Go,” said Elizabeth.

  Each of them threw their shoulder to the pillar. It felt like lifting a ten-ton truck. Finally, Elizabeth felt it move. She readjusted her grip, grimaced, and let out a guttural howl of determination until she felt it lift.

  The physical strain and the choking heat tightened Wendy’s throat to a growl. “We’ll hold it. You pull him out.”

  Dropping the skirt, Elizabeth held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut as she hooked the fallen man under the arms. Leaning back and scrabbling under the weight, she wrenched with all her might while the man pedaled backward. The second he was clear, the three of them dropped the pillar with a thud, then grabbed the injured man by the arms, jerking him clear. A blast of adrenaline surged as Elizabeth snatched up the skirt again, this time wrapping her face to just below her eyes and tying it roughly at the back while the man staggered, then stood.

  “Can you walk?”

  With his two companions on either side of him, he hobbled a couple of steps. “I think so.”

  “This way.”

  They dragged him to the smoke door and shouldered their way through, Wendy swiveling in through the doorway first and holding it as Elizabeth and the three men followed. In the stairwell the air was clearer, but smoke had billowed out after them and was now rushing upwards, carried on a scorching blast of air from somewhere below.

  “Is there anyone else down here?” Wendy shouted as they hurried to the third floor.

  “They all ran. Soon as they saw the smoke. The explosion tipped everything over and I couldn’t get out,” the man wailed.

  This time, Elizabeth shouted. “Where are the girls?”

  He swallowed back the grit in his mouth and grimaced. “On the seventeenth floor. But there’s one girl on the sixth—Katarina. Please help her.”

  “We will. Can you walk?”

  The guy nodded.

  “You go with them, Mrs. McClaine,” Wendy said. “Get them all up to the twentieth.”

  At that moment, the wail of sirens filtered through the sound of sirens from the street below.

  “Fire trucks. It’ll take them awhile to assess the situation and get in,” Wendy said. “Just go.”

  “What about you?”

  She signaled for Elizabeth and the men to move ahead. “I’m searching the sixth.”

  Suddenly, the screech of alarms ceased, and the building fell into a splintering silence, the only sound the crackle of the raging fire and the odd creak of falling fixtures.

  Elizabeth turned to Wendy. “The fire crew must have entered the building. I’m searching the upper floors with you. Are you okay to go on your own?” Elizabeth asked the men.

  “We’ll be okay.” With that, they started on ahead. “Please be careful,” one man called back.

  “Just go,” Elizabeth told him. “Find the girls on the seventeenth floor and take them with you. Don’t wait for us. Just get them to the roof.”

  They watched the three men disappear up the next flight of stairs. Then Wendy said, “Okay, let’s do this. Ready?”

  “I’m ready,” said Elizabeth.

  ***

  The Associate

  Acid boiled up from his gut and burned in his chest. His muscles in his legs screamed for respite, and his head throbbed as he clambered down the next two flights. But he couldn’t stop now.

  Soon, very soon, he’d see her. That thought was the only thing driving him on. So he ignored the pain, swallowed back the bile, and pushed himself onward. Hands gripping the hot rail, he merely guided his feet as they stumbled from one step down to the next. When he reached the seventh floor, he leaned over the railing. Below, he could hear the distant sound of women’s voices and the clatter of footsteps.

  Can it be Katarina? Oh please, God. Let it be Katarina.

  “Hello!” he called.

  “Hello!” A man’s voice. “Who’s down there?”

  “Is that you, sir?”

  Shocked by the familiarity of the voice, he shouted, “Miguel! It’s me. Who’s down there?”

  He ducked back, and more rapid footsteps echoed up until the croupier appeared on the landing below, supported by two men, one on each side, all clambering up towards him.

  “Wendy. She’s searching for survivors. She’s with a lady named Mrs. McClaine.”

  The words hit him like a hammer to the chest. “Elizabeth? But what’s she…? How long has…? Never mind. You get upstairs. The fire’s taken hold downstairs. The fire crew won’t get in for some time. The internal structure will hold, but there’s no way out down there. Our only hope is the roof.”

  He sent up a silent prayer that was true.

  “But—”

  “Just go,” he ordered.

  Miguel broke from the grip of his compatriots and scampered up the steps, touching a hand to his forearm as the two others passed. A gesture of friendship. A mark of respect.

  Respect I don’t deserve. Respect that the man before you has yet to earn, he thought bitterly. He clapped a hand over Miguel’s, squeezed momentarily, then pointed upward. “Go.”

  As soon as the three men disappeared up onto the next floor, he launched himself with renewed vigor at the stairway below, his feet falling down each step, the shock of each footfall jarring throughout his old frame, his breath burning in his chest. He’d seen the original blueprints of this building when Westrum first bought it. He knew the structure inside out. The way he’d set the fire meant it would take root in the east side of the building, then move to the south driven by the outside prevailing wind. That should have given him his escape. That was before he’d discovered she was in here.

  Only a short distance now. His beloved Katarina was almost within his reach. At the next floor landing, he leaned hard against the upper panel of the sixth-floor smoke door, breath wheezing in his chest from the exertion. Already the heat from the fire had scorched the wood, causing small bubbles to erupt in the paintwork. He grabbed the handle, ready to force his way in, when he heard a door slam from somewhere below, and the sound of a voice he recognized.

  She was heading up toward him, shouting, “Come on. The smoke’s getting too thick. We have to move.”

  What was he to do now?

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  DAY THREE—7:59 PM—ELIZABETH

  Once again, Elizabeth followed Wendy to the next floor, then stopped short at the sight of the man on the sixth-floor landing—Kyle Hendry, Charles McClaine’s long-time friend and financial advisor. His face was ashen, the remains of one shirtsleeve hanging from one shoulder. Soot and grease had merged with sweat to run down his face, and the dirt-stained fabric of his shirt showed damp rings across his chest and under his arms.

  The second she saw him, her heart just about stopped. In that one clanging moment, everything came together: Gate Westrum’s meeting at her party. It was Kyle he’d been talking to. Could he have been involved in the body of the young woman in the cemetery? Or Velma Stanford’s murder? Was Kyle the man who had fallen in love with Katarina, and hidden her at Sunny Springs? So many unanswered questions, so many loose connections yet to be made.

  But this wasn’t the time.

  “Elizabeth, let me explain…” he began, as if desperate to explain his presence there.

  Angry and confused, she said, “Not now, Kyle. Where’s Laney Donohue?”

  His features flinched, as if the very question bought him physical pain.

  “She’s upstairs. She’s safe for now.”

  Elizabeth glowered at him. “And what about Katarina?”

  Still reeling from his admissions, he turned his attention to the smoke doo
r leading to the sixth floor. “I can’t find her anywhere else. I’m praying she’s in here.”

  Wendy pushed past Elizabeth and went for the door, covering her nose and mouth with the jacket as she leaned her shoulder to the metal panel.

  “Where are the rest of the girls?” she demanded of him.

  “Upstairs. On the seventeenth floor,” he said. “They’re safe.”

  “They won’t be for long. The fire’s spreading fast,” Wendy said. “You ready?” she asked Elizabeth.

  “I’m right behind you,” she replied, darting Kyle a stinging look.

  Wendy jerked down the handle and shouldered her way from the landing in through the doorway. Elizabeth followed, peeling off to the right-hand side of a hallway once tastefully decorated with potted palms and wood paneling. The temperature in here was like a furnace, hot drafts blasting from the air ducts, wilting the potted plants and lifting the wallpaper at the corners. A shroud of black smoke had gathered along the hallway ceiling, twisting and undulating like a Chinese dragon. And now it was rolling down the walls, sending wisps like fingers, searching for escape and filling the hallway.

  With Kyle following Elizabeth on one side, Wendy on the other, they hunched to escape the thickening cloud and hurried from room to room, banging on doors and peering into rooms, shouting for survivors before moving to the next. “Is anybody here?” they called in turn until Elizabeth came to a locked door.

  She rattled the handle and pounded on the upper panel. “Is anyone in there?” she yelled.

  Kyle, who had hurried on ahead, turned and came back with his remaining shirtsleeve pressed to his face. “It is her? Is it Katarina?”

  A tiny voice replied. “Help me. Please, help me.”

  He pushed past her, shoulder to the door. “It’s her,” he told Elizabeth in desperation. “That’s Katarina.”

  “She’s in here!” Elizabeth shouted.

  Wendy abandoned the storeroom closet she’d just opened, and rushed over.

  “Katarina! Is that you?” she shouted.

  “Kyle, help me. Please help me.”

  He angled himself around and slammed one shoulder into the door panel.

  “It’s locked!” Wendy barked at him in frustration. “The doors are reinforced. You’ll never break it down.”

  Anger and hardened resolve flashed in his eyes. “Katarina’s in there. I’m not leaving her.”

  “What about the locks? Can we bypass them?” asked Elizabeth.

  Wendy shot a fevered look at the gathering smoke overhead. “Electronic. You can’t pick them. Wait here,” she said and hurried back to the storeroom and searched the shelves. She dragged spare blankets and sheets from the stacks, yanking out boxes of soaps and shampoos, condoms and oils unpacked in cartons, leaving them in a heap. She was about to give up when she dived down behind a trolley set with towels and came up with what she was searching for—an electrical cable. She tugged the power cable from where it was plugged into the wall and returned to the locked door.

  “Stand back.” She jammed the pins of the power lead over the handle so it clung to it like a set of jaws. Then she shoved a potted palm aside and plugged the end into the wall socket.

  “Katarina! Stay back from the door!” Kyle yelled.

  “Ready?” Wendy asked. They nodded so she hit the switch.

  A crack of electricity was followed by the snick of the lock. Wendy pulled the cable from the socket. “Try it now.”

  Kyle ripped the cable from the handle, shoved past Elizabeth, and plunged into the smoke-filled room.

  Elizabeth stood in the open doorway, waving back the black clouds rolling out to find Kyle inside with a young woman enfolded in his arms. He kissed the top of her head with a tenderness that sent a crack through Elizabeth’s heart, and now she knew what all this had been about. The love of a man for a woman. The strength of his commitment to her. Something she’d almost forgotten.

  “We have to go,” Wendy yelled.

  Elizabeth stood aside to let Kyle usher the girl out, his arm protectively around her. Despite the soot on her cheeks and her disheveled hair, her beauty radiated.

  But they had to get out. And she had yet to find Laney Donohue.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  DAY THREE—8:32 PM—ELIZABETH

  By the time they hit the tenth floor, Elizabeth’s muscles burned and the heat and fumes caught in her throat. She clamped the skirt to her throat but couldn’t fight off the coughing fit that folded her over with her eyes watering and her lungs wringing.

  “Keep going,” Wendy yelled at Kyle, who was now leaning heavily on Katarina as they trudged from one floor to the next.

  Unable to speak through the spasms in her throat, Elizabeth motioned for them to go on, but Wendy scampered back down the stairs to her, hoisted her under one arm, and dragged her up the next flight.

  When she finally regained control, she gasped a thank you, and stumbled on.

  “Go, go!” Wendy shouted up the stairway at Kyle and Katarina, who had paused to look back after them. “Keep going up!”

  “How far now?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Eight,” Wendy replied apologetically. “We’ll get there.”

  Elizabeth swallowed back the grit in her mouth, straightened out of Wendy’s grip, and forced herself onwards. “I need to find Laney. I won’t go home without her.”

  They clambered up two more floors, pulling themselves up on the railing, mouths and noses covered until a crash below them was followed by the FWOOM of escaping flame. Elizabeth paused to dash a look back, but the burst of heat from below told them everything—the fire had burst through one of the smoke doors and was now pursuing them up the fire escape.

  Wendy hiked a shoulder up under Elizabeth’s arm, and drew her up the next few stairs. “Hurry! We have to keep going.”

  With a second surge of searing heat, Elizabeth felt as if the very gates of hell were on her tail. “I am, I am.” When she glanced back, already she could see the glow of the flames reflected on the walls behind them. Once again, a blast of adrenaline surged through her veins and renewed her energy. She put her head down and scampered up another flight until she rounded onto the next floor to find Kyle slumped on the landing.

  “Help me,” pleaded Katarina. “I can’t lift him.”

  Kyle’s face was twisted in pain, his hand clutched to his chest.

  “Kyle,” Elizabeth shouted and rushed to him.

  “You,” Wendy ordered, pointing to Katarina, “keep going. Leave him to me. And you,” she told Elizabeth, “make sure she gets to the roof.”

  Elizabeth said, “I’m not leaving you—”

  But Wendy cut her off. “Go! Now!” Then she turned her attention to Kyle.

  Seeing the determination in her eye, Elizabeth hooked Katarina under the arm, but the girl slipped free and scurried back to kneel beside Kyle, weeping openly.

  “Kyle. Don’t leave me.”

  He clutched her hand, drew it to his lips and kissed it. “Go.”

  “I won’t. I won’t leave you here.”

  His face squeezed in agony.

  Wendy grabbed him by the wrist and jerked him to his feet. “Get up, or die here. That’s your choice.” With another heave, she angled sharply into his side, shoulder wedged under his arm. “Go, go, go.” She motioned forward like a cavalry officer.

  Again, they lurched forward from floor to floor until they came to the seventeenth floor.

  Kyle pulled free of Wendy, and staggered up the next flight to lean his shoulder to the smoke door of the eighteenth floor. “You go. I’ll get Laney.”

  “You’re dead on your feet,” Wendy said. “I’ll go.”

  But fury flared in his eyes. He stabbed himself in the chest with his thumb. “I’m the reason she’s here. Me. I’m the one who left her to die, and I’m damned if I’m leaving her again.”

  “Then I’m staying to help,” Elizabeth told Wendy.

  “No. You go. Get Katarina to safety.”


  Elizabeth responded sharply. “I’m the reason Laney came looking for this girl in the first place. I’m not leaving any of you.”

  But Kyle had already shoved open the door and disappeared inside.

  “Will somebody help me, for cryin’ out loud,” Laney’s voice echoed out of the open freezer door.

  “Laney?” Relief flooded her. She shared a joyous though somewhat dubious look with Wendy.

  “Sounds like she’s alive and well,” Wendy said, also with palpable relief.

  “Thank God.”

  They filed into the room to find Kyle scooping up the cutters where Westrum had dropped them, then making for Laney, who was manacled to the wall. He angled the cutter onto the restraints on Laney’s left wrist just as another blast of hot air burst from the stairwell behind them.

  Laney’s face glowed scarlet, sweat running down her temples. She glared at Kyle who worked to free her. “Who the hell are you? Why didn’t you let me go earlier, you asshole?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll explain later,” he told her brusquely.

  “Laney,” called Elizabeth as she rushed over. “Are you okay?”

  “What are you doing here? What the hell is going on?”

  Wendy responded, saying, “You’ll be told everything later. Right now we have to get out. The building’s on fire.”

  “No shit,” Laney snapped back, massaging the welts on her wrists left by the restraints.

  “This way,” Elizabeth said, and made for the door with Laney right behind her. Striding towards the stairs again she glanced back to find Laney heading for the elevator.

  “You can’t,” she called after her, pointing. We’re going up to the roof.”

  Laney spread her hands wide. “Why the roof? Shouldn’t we be going down?”

  Wendy jumped in, answering as she ushered Kyle from the Studio. “I have a chopper up there. Now, everyone out. Get to the roof.” Taking up Elizabeth’s position at the doorway, she ushered Laney, then Katarina past her and up to the next floor. When she came to Kyle, he paused next to her.

  “I’m so sorry. I never meant to—”

  “Just go.”