by Julie Miller
“I’m going up to the second floor,” she reported, keeping John apprised of her location.
The twin beams of the flashlights mounted on her helmet shimmered in the distortion of overheated air that rose and filled the old building. She quickly eliminated the old freight elevator as a means of transportation to the upper levels. A zigzagging series of ramps and stairways that led up to various loading and storage platforms would lead her back into the heart of the smoke.
That left the wrought-iron ladder that had been mounted directly into the brick facade. She reached for the rung above her head and gave it a solid tug. Dust and mortar bits snowed down on her helmet. When the downpour stopped, she pulled herself up onto the first rung and felt the give of anchor bolts popping out of the wall above her head. She ducked and held her breath. But the ladder settled and clung fast to its shaky mounts, supporting her weight. For once her trim build would work to her advantage. “I’m climbing.”
Hand over hand, foot over foot, she ascended the ladder. Though she was only a slender five-foot-five, she trained hard to maintain peak physical conditioning. What she lacked in strength, she made up for in speed and agility. As long as the fire cooperated and stayed below, she’d have no problem locating the victim and clearing the building with time to spare.
Meghan reached the second floor and swung her legs over onto the platform that ran the length of the dockside wall. Ages ago this building had been used as a storage and distribution facility for large bales of cotton to be shipped on the river. A giant iron hook and rigging attached to a support beam was still in place beside a boarded-up opening.
These days, though, the warehouse was nothing more than a hangout for teens with too much time on their hands and not enough direction in their lives. Or it served as a makeshift shelter for homeless vagrants looking to escape the dog days of August’s summer heat when the local shelters were full.
During some of the blackest moments of her life, Meghan had been a teen in trouble and a homeless runaway. She knew that whoever had come up here to escape the fire was scared to begin with. “I’m here to help,” she shouted, taking note of the smoke creeping into the open corridor below her. “Where are you?”
A plaintive cry answered and she drifted closer to the sound.
At the end of the platform was a boarded-up office. The door behind the crossed one-by-fours was closed. The window beside the door was boarded over. How could someone have gotten in?
She already had a suspicious feeling when she knocked.
The whine became a sharp, piercing bark.
“Oh, no.”
The Kansas City Fire Department made every reasonable effort to save pets and livestock involved in a fire. But extreme means of rescue were reserved for people, not strays.
“John? It’s a dog.” She reported her location and situation. “I’m here. I might as well get him out.”
She knew her partner wouldn’t appreciate endangering herself on behalf of a stray. But he was an innocent victim of this blaze and she didn’t intend to abandon him yet.
“Move it, Meghan. We’ve got fire on the main floor. We’ll lay down water at your end to try to suppress it.” He, too, knew it was too late to argue. “I’ll notify Animal Rescue.”
“You just lucked out, furball.” She spoke through the door to the creature inside, hoping to calm him. “The cavalry’s here.”
Meghan made a quick scan of her escape route and noted the accuracy of John’s report. The floorboards at the base of the ladder were burning now. And while brick didn’t burn, it could become too hot to touch. And the metal itself would conduct heat and soften, making it impossible for the ladder to sustain its own weight, much less hers and a dog’s. She needed to act fast.
“How’d you get in there, boy?” The answering cry from the other side cut straight through to Meghan’s heart.
She squatted and reached beneath the bottom board. But the door had latched and couldn’t be pushed open. “You closed it yourself after you crawled in, didn’t you?” The dog called to her again. “I’ll get you out. Don’t worry.”
Meghan reached behind her and lifted her ax from its shoulder carrier. She wedged the head between the door frame and the middle board and pulled back, using her own body weight as leverage to pry the board loose, then toss it aside.
She removed her insulated glove to check to make sure the door and knob were cool before she reached inside to open it.
A blur of tan and black shot out between her legs. “Whoa.”
Meghan danced to one side as what looked like a pintsize German shepherd dashed toward the ramp he’d undoubtedly followed to get up here in the first place. “Hey, come back. Here, boy.” She whistled. But the dog ignored her. Meghan shook her head. “There’s gratitude for you.”
It was time she made a hasty exit herself. She put on her glove and radioed in. “The pooch is on the loose, John. Let me know if he shows up outside. I don’t want him to get caught in traffic after going through all this.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
“I’m on my way down.”
“Negative.” John’s order halted her from stepping onto the ladder. She shook it, testing its reliability. More mortar disintegrated and blew out in puffs of dust that vanished into the smoke clouds being pushed through the corridor ahead of the hoses. “Visibility is zero from our end. I can’t tell if the floor’s stable.”
While she watched her escape route being gobbled up by the smoke, a sudden movement in the corridor below caught her eye.
“Damn dog.”
Had she risked her life for nothing?
Her stomach clenched into a knot as she fought to control the instinctive response that boosted her pulse into overdrive. Meghan blinked and squinted through the haze. Something dark, darker than the smoke itself, darted back across the opening. “Did you see…?”
It was gone.
It had been little more than an after-image imprinted on her retinas. Had the pooch made it down the stairs that quickly? Though it seemed to have more mass to it than the dog she’d seen, the black shape hadn’t been bulky enough to be a firefighter in full gear. And it had moved so quickly.
But then, the heated air could play tricks on a person’s vision and depth perception. Maybe it had been a comrade-at-arms.
She spoke into her microphone. “Is the corridor clear?”
“Every man’s accounted for,” John replied. “Is there a problem?”
“I thought I saw someone below me.” It had to be the dog. She hoped he found a safe way out. “Never mind. It’s gone.”
“You should be, too.”
The memory of flames shooting up through the floorboards was impetus enough to send her toward the ramp. If the dog had gotten down that way, so could she. Maybe she could still find him down below and rescue him, after all. “I’ve got an alternate route.”
She picked up her ax and trotted toward the billowing rise of smoke at the far end of the platform. She checked her gauge and breathed deeply, verifying her oxygen intake before plunging in.
Going in blind was risky. Though she trailed her hand along the wall to find her path, any misstep could send her flying over the edge of the platform or plummeting through a hole or…
The dog charged out of the smoke, plowing into her shin and knocking her back a step. “Whoa! How’d you do that?”
A loud crack thundered in her ears and the whole floor tipped.
“Meghan!”
She ignored John’s call and braced her back against the wall to reverse course, zeroing in on the sound of the dog’s whine.
What the hell was going on here?
“The secondary escape route’s collapsing.” She panted the words into her mike and started to pray.
The dog charged her legs again, then circled her feet. He barked as he followed his nose toward clear air. Meghan honed in on the sound as if it was an outstretched hand.
Three steps later she was clear.
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br /> She scooped up the dog. “Good boy. I don’t know what miracle you just pulled, but you saved us both.” As she petted the dog, trying to calm its fears and her own, a few things became obvious. She wasn’t the only female fighting for her life in this building. “Sorry. Good girl. Let’s get out of here. John?”
“It’s no good.” She could hear the effort it cost her partner to keep the fear out of his voice. “The floor’s going. There’s no way we can get a ladder to you.”
No ladder. No ramp. No rescue.
The platform tilted another five degrees and Meghan scrambled for balance. If this platform gave way they’d crash through the main floor into the basement. If the fall didn’t kill them outright, the flames would consume them soon enough.
This was not how it was going to end.
When the world left her with no options, she made her own.
She’d coped with her mother’s death and her father’s abandonment.
She’d lived through aunts and uncles who cared and those who couldn’t care less.
She’d cheated death in a car crash one fateful, foolish night.
And she’d survived walking away from the truest man in the whole world.
An image of Gideon Taylor’s seal-brown hair and gentle smile blipped into her mind. She’d hurt him.
She’d never said how sorry she was for hurting him.
“Dammit!” she yelled, startling the dog into an answering bark. This was not her life flashing before her eyes! “We’re not going down without a fight.”
Galvanized by a fiery spirit that wasn’t done living yet, she pushed everything from her mind but thoughts of escape.
The hook and wench. The boarded-up windows.
“Meghan, talk to me!”
She dropped the dog and picked up her ax. She struck the first blow against the rotting wood before responding. “I’m going out the back window, John.”
“The foundation drops off to the river on that side. It’s four stories down. There’s no way to get a truck—”
She swung again. “I know how to swim.”
The first board split in two. She was breathing hard now as she jammed the ax beneath the next board and pried it loose. Sweat lined her brow beneath the tight fit of the mask and dribbled down her face. She blinked the sting of it from her eyes and attacked the next board. The platform groaned and teetered toward the heart of the fire, costing her precious leverage.
The dog barked. “I know. I know.” She scooted the mutt behind her and smashed the window. The sudden rush of shifting air pressures knocked her off balance. She scrambled back to her feet, climbing uphill now to reach the window.
Meghan cleared the glass around the frame, then pulled a rope from the gear on her back. She looped it around the bale rigging.
The floor pitched. The smoke crept up to the second floor and drifted toward her, as if just now discovering its two potential victims upstairs.
She said a nervous prayer while she knotted the ends around her hips and set up a rappelling line. “I gotta see my boys. They’re all I’ve got.” She scooped up the dog, unbuttoned her coat and slipped her inside. “You’d like them, too.”
Lifting her helmet, she peeled off her mask and shrugged out of her gear harness, shedding every excess pound she could before replacing the helmet and hoisting herself up to the window. The platform sank to a forty-five-degree angle, ripping away from the wall and surrendering with a fiery crash to gravity, age and fire.
“Hang on.”
Charcoal smoke gusted out around her head and shoulders.
Meghan held her breath and jumped.
FIRE CAPTAIN Gideon Taylor skirted the crowd in the aftermath of the fire, an unseen extra amid the swarm of uniformed professionals doing their best to secure the site, as well as to accommodate the press and curiosity seekers who had gathered to see the show play out on the long, cloudless afternoon.
He took note of several faces in the crowd, never ceasing to be amazed at how destruction brought people out of the woodwork. Some came to help, others to gawk, a few to give thanks that the tragedy wasn’t happening to them.
An interstate highway carried most people past this old industrial area on the north bank of the Missouri River. But, whatever their reason, plenty of folks had pulled off and gathered around the border of yellow tape that cordoned off the ruins of the old textiles warehouse.
He headed toward the white-and-red SUV that indicated the chief of the fleet of yellow fire engines parked in front of the remaining shell of the old Meyer’s Textile Company. He’d start with the official story from the scene commander, then see what the building itself had to say about the cause of the fire. He ducked beneath the yellow perimeter tape and paused. He’d bet this old girl had plenty to say about her demise.
Gideon adjusted the bill of his black K.C.F.D. cap and tipped his head back to study the outline of the 1920s brick skeleton. Wisps of steam and smoke still puffed up from its central core, though the flames themselves had been put out.
With care and money, this warehouse could have been renovated to its one-time glory and converted to office space or—God forbid—a casino, like the reclaimed-factory-turned-tourist-trap a half mile upriver. Silhouetted against the glare of the August sun, Gideon knew this old beauty would be torn down now. Its bricks would be sold for fireplaces and landscaping, and the land would be transformed into something with considerably less personality, such as a parking lot.
It was his third investigation in as many weeks.
Big fire. Gutted building.
Accidental? Natural? Intentional?
It was his job to determine the cause of the blaze. Now that the hydrants had been shut off and the paramedics had left the scene—now that the fire had died—it was his job to sort through the charred and water-soaked remains to determine its cause.
Arson investigator.
His job promotion following rehab put him in a safer position than life on the frontline had been. Better pay. Better title. A chance to carry a badge in his wallet and arrest the bad guys, just like his brothers who were cops.
He’d trade it all in a heartbeat for another chance to serve beside his comrades.
“Taylor?”
Gideon peered through his dark glasses at the short, muscular man striding toward him. “Chief.”
“You can call me Tom now.” Deputy Chief Bridgerton rested his forearms atop the rolled-down waist of his insulated fire pants and smiled like the grumpy old father figure he was.
“Some habits die hard.” Gideon pulled off his sunglasses and shook hands with his former boss. “Good to see you again. What ya got?”
Old friend or not, Tom Bridgerton understood the urgency of the business at hand. Fire clues could be buried beneath rubble or blown away with the wind. The sooner the investigation started, the better chance Gideon had of pinpointing the cause of the blaze.
The chief turned toward the building and indicated areas with an inclination of his head. “The fire started in the basement. Don’t know how long it was burning before we got a call this morning from Westin’s casino up the road saying they noticed smoke. They knew the place was abandoned and called it in. A few of the casino workers drove over to check it out. They were the only ones on scene when we arrived. One of the police officers took their statement.”
“Any idea if the Meyer family had something stored in the basement?”
“Like a pile of rags?” Bridgerton scratched at the silver hair beside his temple and frowned. “This place hasn’t been used to store textiles since the Meyers moved out in the early eighties. It’s changed hands a couple of times since then. Now it’s owned by a Daniel Kelleher. He’s in real estate.”
“Has he been notified?”
Bridgerton nodded. “I called him out of a meeting. He’s on his way.”
Gideon made a mental note to speak to Kelleher when he arrived. Meanwhile, he’d start nosing around on his own. “City hall says this place was out of use, but
not condemned. Any ideas?”
“The boiler was out of commission, the gas line disconnected.” The chief shrugged. “Maybe one of the vagrants who camps out here was trying to keep warm and lost control of his fire.”
“In this heat?” The summer drought left the air hazy with dust that filtered through the atmosphere from dried-up farms in neighboring counties. The moisture from the river and thick bands of trees caught in the haze, forming a canopy that pushed the heat index up past one hundred for the seventh day in a row. Maybe he should look at this a little less clinically and with a little more heart. “There weren’t any casualties, were there?”
“Just one.” The chief grinned. “She was treated for first-degree burns on her paws and tail and released.”
“A dog?”
“If she saw anything, she’s not talking.”
His brief moment of concern eased and he joined the chief’s laughter.
A round of applause from the crowd, punctuated by a couple of “Woo-hoo!’s,” diverted Gideon’s attention. He turned and noticed the bright lights of press cameras angled toward the gap at the center of the crowd. A crush of reporters, waving microphones and snapping pictures, blocked his view.
He glanced down at the chief. “How come they’re not interviewing you? I count at least three news vans here.”
Bridgerton laughed. “I gave my statement. But it seems they have a real celebrity today from over at Station 16. We had quite a rescue. Channel Ten and the others wanted shots of her instead of me.”
Her? The reporters were interviewing a dog instead of a veteran, command-level firefighter?
The chief slapped him on the shoulder and backed away. “I’d better get back to cleanup duty. Good to see you, Gid.”
“Same here, Ch—” He doffed a two-fingered salute and corrected himself. “Tom.”
“Call us sometime. The guys over at the Twenty-third would love to see you.”
“Yeah.” The chief snagged a young man by the arm and pulled him along with him to take care of the next task at hand.
At thirty-five, Gideon wasn’t—by normal standards—anywhere close to being over the hill. But he was out of touch. A young pup like the one jogging off to do Bridgerton’s bidding probably considered himself invincible.