by Paula Graves
She’d grabbed the metal hasp of the attic door again to give it a tug and found it hot as blazes, making her snatch her hand back with a hiss of pain.
Fire. The house is on fire.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d stood frozen in place after that, trying to think. Long enough to realize there was more than just panic going on. Her brain seemed oddly sluggish, as if it took thoughts a longer time than usual to make it from idea to action.
Had she been drugged? Had he given her something in the chamomile tea? Something to slow her reaction time, to muddy her thinking so that she couldn’t escape his trap?
She needed help. She needed—
She needed her phone. Digging in the pocket of her jeans, she’d expelled a soft sigh of sheer relief at finding it there. But when she tried to make a call, there was no signal.
That’s crazy, she’d thought, trying to quell her rising fear long enough to think past the cottony confusion swirling in her brain. The house was one of the few places in Bitterwood where there was almost never any trouble getting a signal.
Unless, she realized, someone had a jammer.
Paul. Oh, no. It couldn’t be.
Okay, okay. Think. She obviously couldn’t get out the way she’d come in. Smoke already poured into the attic through the narrow seams in the door. Even if Paul hadn’t wedged it shut behind her somehow, the fire would make getting out that way impossible.
But there was another trap door by the window.
She was halfway there before she remembered that Paul had already nailed it shut. Stumbling over the last few steps, she came to a stop against the window frame, sagging in despair.
He’d planned this, she realized. He’d come here today not to protect her but to kill her.
But why? Did he want to run Davenport Trucking so badly that he’d kill her for it? How did that make any sense? He’d never seen the job as anything more than a paycheck. He didn’t even go to Christmas parties or participate in any of the interoffice morale projects.
But his interest had picked up in the past few months, hadn’t it?
Why?
She felt certain the answer was somewhere just beyond the mists in her brain, so close she could almost feel it.
She banged her hand against the wall in frustration. “Paul!” she shouted, wondering if he could hear her over the rising din of crackling flames. “Paul, if you want the CEO job, I’ll give it to you. Right now. In writing. Paul!”
Hell, he was probably nowhere near the house by now. The police knew he’d been there as recently as thirty minutes ago. He was probably already gone, off to set up an alibi for himself.
She turned and looked out the window, staring down the dizzying twenty-five-foot drop to the flagstone patio below.
Paul was gone, and she was trapped in her worst nightmare.
* * *
A DARK SEDAN swept past them on Copperhead Road, traveling in the opposite direction. So intent was Seth on the expanding column of smoking rising ahead of them that he almost ignored the passing motorist.
But a faint flicker of recognition sparked in his brain as the sedan reached them and passed. “That’s Paul Bailey’s car!”
Delilah’s head twisted as the other vehicle passed. She shoved her cell phone at Seth. “Hit the S button. Sutton’s on my speed dial.”
Sutton answered on the first ring. “What?”
“The dark blue Toyota Camry that just passed us going south—that’s Paul Bailey’s car. Go after him.”
A moment later, Ivy’s Jeep pulled a sharp U-turn and headed off after the sedan. Antoine’s department sedan braked and turned, as well. He slowed as they started to pass, and Delilah put on the brakes, rolling down the window at his gesture.
“I’ve called in Fire and Rescue, but they’re across town. It may be up to y’all to get her out.” He gunned the engine and swept off in pursuit of Ivy’s Jeep and Bailey’s Toyota.
Delilah pressed the accelerator to the floor, forcing Seth to grab the dashboard and hang on.
The house almost looked normal at first glance, but smoke was pouring from somewhere on the second floor, rising over the slanted eaves to coil like a slithering snake in the darkening sky. Seth jumped out of the truck before it stopped rolling, racing for the front door at a clip.
Delilah’s footsteps pounded behind him on the flagstone walkway. “You don’t have any protective gear!”
He ignored her, not letting himself think about what lay on the other side of the door. Tried not to smell the smoke or hear the crackle of the fire’s hissing taunts. The heat was greater the closer he got, but he pretended he didn’t feel it, because if he let himself feel it, if he let himself picture the licking flames and skin-searing heat, he wasn’t sure he could do what he had to do.
“Rachel!” he shouted, taking the porch steps two at a time. He reached for the door handle.
“No!” Delilah’s small, compact body slammed into him, knocking him to the floor of the porch. He struggled with her, but she was stronger than he remembered, pinning him against the rough plank floor. “Stop. There could be a back draft if you open the door right now! We have to do this right.”
He stared at her, his heart hammering against his sternum, each thud laced with growing despair. “What if she’s already dead?”
Delilah’s gaze softened. “We’ll find a way in. I promise.”
She let him up, holding out her hand to help him to his feet. He gingerly put his hand on the doorknob and found it sizzling hot to the touch. Fear gripped him, a cold, tight fist squeezing his intestines until he felt light-headed. He could see the flicker of flames already climbing the curtains of the front windows and tried not to collapse into complete panic.
“Maybe the fire hasn’t reached the back,” Delilah said, her hand closing around his arm.
The back. Of course. If the fire hadn’t gotten to the back of the house—
He forced his trembling legs into action, speeding back down the porch steps and around the corner of the house.
The back of the house showed no sign of fire yet. Even if the rest of the house was in flames, if Rachel was holed up somewhere the fire hadn’t reached, he might be able to get her out through the trapdoors in the mudroom and closet.
But to do that, he had to go inside.
Where the fire was.
“Seth!” Delilah caught up with him and grabbed his arm, pointing up.
He followed her gaze and saw a pale face gazing down at him through the open attic window. Smoke slithered out around her, coiling her in its sinister grasp.
“Rachel,” he breathed. She was alive.
“The trapdoor’s nailed...shut...” She swayed forward, grabbing the window frame in time to keep from toppling out. “I think...I’m drugged.”
“We need a ladder,” Delilah said urgently. “A tall one.”
“Rachel, do you have a ladder? A long one?”
“No ladders!” She shook her head, sagging against the window frame. “No ladders. Please, no ladders.” The last came out weakly, and she disappeared from the window.
“She’s terrified of heights,” he told Delilah. “But that may be the only way to get her. Go check the shed over there for a ladder.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked, her dark eyes wide.
“I’m going to see if I can undo whatever Paul did to the trapdoors and get her out that way.” It would still involve ladders, but shorter ones, not a rickety steel nightmare.
He could spare her that much, couldn’t he? Even if it meant facing his own worst nightmare?
“You’re really going into the fire?” Delilah stared at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.
“I have to,” he answered, and put his hand on the back doorknob. It was only mi
ldly warm to the touch. Taking care, he opened the door. Heat billowed out to greet him, but it didn’t trigger any sort of combustion. He looked at his sister. “Go find a ladder, in case I fail.”
She gave him a final, considering look before jogging off to the shed.
He entered the mudroom and tried the trapdoor, surprised but relieved to find it unlocked. He climbed into the second-floor bedroom closet, coughing as smoke seeped in under the bedroom door and burned his lungs.
It was a lot hotter in the closet, but he didn’t let himself think about it. He turned on the closet light, which made the thick cloud of smoke in the small room all the more visible. Covering his mouth with his sleeve, he reached for the ladder to the attic trapdoor and stopped, gazing up in dismay. The door wasn’t just nailed closed. It had been anchored in place with at least two dozen long nails. Even if he had a hammer—which he didn’t—it would take long, precious minutes to pull out all those nails. And the police had confiscated his Swiss Army knife.
Painfully aware of the ticking clock, he reversed course and went back through the mudroom door. The heat here was stronger, pouring around him in slick, greasy waves. The odor of gasoline wafted toward him, and he realized there was an open container sitting right by the back door.
He set it outside quickly and looked toward the shed. The door was open and Delilah was inside, digging around. “I need a hammer!” he called to her. “Can you see a hammer?”
She emerged from the shed a moment later, carrying a large, old-looking claw-head hammer. He met her halfway to get it.
“The fire is spreading,” he told her breathlessly as he took the hammer. “Even if I get up to her, we may not have any choice but to get down by ladder. The sooner the better. I’m not sure we can wait for the fire trucks to arrive. Have you found a ladder?”
“I spotted it in the back. I have to dig for it. You get into the attic. I’ll get the ladder.” She squeezed his arm, encouragement shining in her dark eyes. Warmth spread through his whole body like a booster shot of hope.
“See you on the other side of the window,” he said.
He raced back into the burning house, dismayed to discover that in the few brief seconds he’d been outside, fire had licked closer to the mudroom. He could see flames dancing through the kitchen doorway, spreading inexorably closer. By the time he made it into the attic, the mudroom exit wasn’t likely to be a viable escape route.
It was going to be the ladder or nothing.
The heat in the bedroom closet was oppressive, though the door had not yet become engulfed in flames. Still, eerie yellow light flickered through the narrow slit beneath the door, and smoke pouring through the crack limited visibility in the crowded space to inches.
He pulled down the trapdoor ladder as far as it would go with the door nailed shut and hauled himself up on the rungs, praying the wood was sturdy enough to hold his weight while he worked. So far, the electricity in the house was still on, giving him enough light to see the nails he had to remove.
“Rachel?” he called, wondering if she could hear him on the other side of the trapdoor. Was she even conscious anymore?
“Seth?” Her faint voice sounded remarkably close, as if she was just on the other side.
“I’m right here, sugar. I’m pulling out the nails. But you have to get off the door or you’ll fall through, and I won’t be able to catch you.”
He heard scraping noises above him, then silence.
“Rachel, are you off the door now?”
When her voice came, it was faint. “You have to go. The fire...”
“You think I’m going to leave you up there alone?”
“It was Paul. Paul did this. I think he did everything.”
“That’s right, we know who it is now, so it’s going to be okay. We’ll get him, and then you’ll be safe.”
“You must hate me.”
He smiled at the plaintive tone. “Never.”
“I didn’t listen to you.”
“Yeah, you did,” he said, his voice coming out in a soft grunt as he struggled with a particularly difficult nail. “I told you I was trouble, and you listened. Smart girl.”
“I didn’t believe you—”
“I know. It’s okay.”
“No!” Her voice rose a little, her obvious fear tempered with frustration. “Listen to me. I didn’t believe...you did it.”
His fingers faltered on the hammer, nearly dropping it. “You didn’t?”
“I know you. Who you are when you’re not being a defensive jackass.”
A helpless smile curved his lips. “You do, do you?”
She didn’t answer.
His gut tightened, and he attacked the final nails with fierce determination, so focused that he didn’t realize until the ladder dropped to open the trapdoor that the fire had finally breached the closet door, the crackling flames waiting for him as he dropped. Fire snapped at his pant legs and singed his shoes as he scrambled up the ladder and into the attic.
Rachel lay on her side a few feet away, her eyes closed and her breathing labored. Her face was sooty from the smoke rising through the rough slat flooring into the attic. He crouched beside her, his heart pounding.
Her pale eyes flickered open, and her soot-stained mouth curved into a weak smile. “I knew you were a hero.”
He cradled her smudged face. “Yeah, well, we can debate that later. Right now, we’re going to get you out of here. Okay?” He helped her to her feet and crossed to the open window, praying Delilah had come through.
She was standing below on the flagstone patio, locking the extension ladder into position. Struggling with the unwieldy contraption, she positioned it against the wall beneath the attic window. It didn’t reach the windowsill, ending about five feet beneath.
Damn it. Seth gazed at the gap between himself and freedom.
“You’ll have to climb down to it,” Delilah called. “I’ve seen you monkey your way up a fir tree. You can do it!”
He could do it, but what about Rachel? She’d have to climb out of that window into nothing but her trust in his ability to keep her from falling.
Could she do that?
“Rachel?”
Her eyes fluttered up to meet his, her pupils dark and wide. “What?”
“I have to go out the window to the ladder.”
She shook her head fiercely. “No ladder.”
“We have to go out this way. The closet below is already on fire.”
Her chin lifted. “Then you have to go without me.”
“No,” he said firmly. “We live together or we die together. Your choice. But I’m not going out there without you.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Please, Seth. I can’t do it.” Panic sizzled in Rachel’s veins, driving out anything but fear, as black and deadly as the smoke filling the room at her back. “You go. Now.”
His hands closed around her face, forcing her to look up at him. His face was soot-smudged and dripping sweat, but in his clear green eyes she saw a blaze of emotion that sucked the air right out of her aching lungs.
“I will not go without you.” Each word rang with fierce resolve. His hands clutched her more tightly in place, as if he planned to drag her out the window with him, whatever the consequences.
“Okay.” She peeled his hands from her face and gave him a little push toward the window. “Be careful!” she added with a rush of panic as he hauled himself onto the windowsill.
He disappeared over the side, only his fingers on the windowsill remaining in sight. After a harrowing moment, his face appeared over the sill again. “Okay, sugar. Your turn.”
Terror gripped her gut, and she almost turned around and ran toward the trapdoor, preferring to take her chance with the fire. But his hand snaked over the s
ide, grabbing her wrist as if he’d read the panic in her expression.
“You can do this. I braved the fire. You brave the heights.”
Fly, baby. You can fly. Her mother’s voice rang in her ears, a fierce, mean whisper of madness.
No. I won’t fly.
I’ll climb down like a sane person.
She closed her eyes a moment, mentally working her way through the next few seconds. She’d get settled on the windowsill, get her balance. Seth would be just below. He wouldn’t let her fall.
He’d never let her fall.
She swung one trembling leg over the windowsill, clinging to the frame until she was straddling it, more or less balanced. But her imagination failed her. She couldn’t visualize a way to get her other leg over the sill without plunging out the window.
“Take my hands, Rachel.” Seth’s voice gathered the scattered threads of her unraveling sense and tied them together. “Just take my hands and swing your leg over the edge.”
She caught his hands. Fierce strength seemed to flow through his fingers into hers, and she swung her leg out of the window. She was hunched in an uncomfortable position, but she maintained her balance.
“This is the hardest point. Get this right, and we’re home free.” Seth released one of her hands and braced his against the wall. “I want you to slide off the ledge and onto my arm, turning around to face the wall as you do it. Okay?”
She stared at him. “That’s your plan?”
He grinned up at her. “Take it or leave it.”
She realized, in that scary, crazy moment, that she was helplessly in love with Seth Hammond. Faults and all. Any fire-phobic man who’d haul a drugged, acrophobic basket case out of a burning house was a man in a million. Whatever had driven him in his sin-laden past, he was a hell of a man in the present.
And if he thought he was going to talk her out of what she was feeling, then he had one hell of a surprise coming to him.
“Remember what we did this afternoon?” she asked, sliding her butt off the sill and into the curve of his arm.