by Pam Crooks
Screams from terrified workers met her in the narrow stairwell, barely the breadth of a strong man’s shoulders, yet the workers stumbled down two and three abreast. Gina flattened herself against the wall and forced her way up against the downward rush, her body pummeled, pushed, kicked. She prayed she wouldn’t lose her footing and be knocked down in the exodus.
At last, she made it to the ninth floor. The windows here, too, had been shattered, and the openings sucked flames in from the outside. The monstrous fire ignited stacks of packing crates and bales of finished waists. Burning pieces of tissue blew and floated along the floor, in the air, up to the ceiling. Panicked seamstresses jumped from tabletop to tabletop, over rows of sewing machines and piles of cotton, looking for a way to escape.
The inferno raged. And raged.
“Mama!” Gina screamed, her gaze searching countless panicked faces. Her mother had to be here. She wouldn’t have left without Gina. “Mama!”
Suddenly, miraculously, there she was, sobbing, reaching. Gina, sobbing, too, fell into her arms.
“Thank God I found you.” Gina shuddered in violent relief and forced herself to think. She took firm hold of Mama’s hand and pulled her toward a door only Mr. Silverstein ever used, the one leading to his office and another set of elevators.
“The door is already locked for the weekend.” Mama gasped and tugged her to a stop. “We cannot get out that way. Many people have already tried. All that is left is the freight elevator and stairs, and they are both too crowded. Oh, Gina, so many people. We will never get out of here.”
“We will, Mama. We have to.”
She abandoned Mr. Silverstein’s exit and headed for the freight elevator instead. Distraught employees pounded on the closed doors, but Gina knew Leon wasn’t this high. She had just seen him on the floor below, and he would’ve filled his car with workers from there and taken them to the ground level.
Please. Let him come back for us.
“The roof!” someone cried, and part of the crowd shifted to this new avenue of escape, but Gina wavered with indecision. What if the fire burned through the ceiling, clear through to the roof? What would they do then?
And then, before her very eyes, the elevator came up, the doors opened, and there was Leon, his car blessedly empty. The crowd surged forward, nearly lifting Gina from her feet and carrying her with them.
“Oh, mio Dio! Our pay envelopes, Gina! They are in my purse!” Mama yanked at the death grip Gina held on her hand. “We cannot leave them behind!”
“No! Forget the money!”
She fought to keep Mama’s hand clutched in her own, but her mother pulled free. Gina was helpless to go after her, not when the other women held her fast, pressing her into the elevator with them. Their bodies crushed her against the back of the car. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
The doors began to close. Her panic rising, Gina strained to see into the hellish shroud of smoke and flames between them.
But Mama was gone.
Creed and Graham ran into the factory entrance nearest the fire. The vestibule was deserted, but from somewhere, a stairwell, maybe, Creed detected the faint, chilling sound of people screaming.
“Run to the building next to this one,” he ordered, noting the close proximity between the two structures. “Enlist some help to get the workers to safety by way of the roofs.”
“Yes, sir.”
Graham took off again, yelling at several policemen hustling toward him. Creed sprinted to a stairway, his blood turning cold as he thought of the horrors that awaited him on the top floors.
A low hum behind him announced the arrival of an elevator. He swung toward it. The car slid to a stop, the doors opened, and a couple dozen crying women tumbled out. How the small cubicle managed to hold so many, Creed would never know. The cable should’ve snapped from their weight.
The elevator emptied except for one.
“Go with them, Gina,” the operator pleaded, pointing to the workers scattering out of the vestibule and into the street. “Save yourself while you can.”
“I must find my mother, Leon. Please, pull the car up to the ninth floor again. Hurry!”
Even in her anguish, she was beautiful. Black eyes. Olive skin. Hair, thick and gleaming, the color of rich sable.
But it was her anguish which clawed at Creed most. How it contorted her thinking and defied her logic. She had to know the severity of the fire, the dangers of going back up. That she might not make it down again—alive.
And he’d have none of it. He strode toward her.
“You’re getting out,” he ordered.
Her gaze jumped to him. “I will not.”
“It’s real bad up there, mister,” Leon said. “Not sure I can make a trip back. The heat. It’s too much. Could bend the rails.” He swiped at the sweat on his cheek. “But I got to try. Those girls aren’t going to make it down if I don’t. And Gina here needs to find her mother real bad.”
“Please go, Leon!” she said, grasping his arm in desperation. “Hurry!”
“Then I’m going up with you.” Creed stepped into the car. Where was that damn fire department? “We’ll do what we can until help gets here.”
Leon levered the door closed, lifted his arm and tugged on the cable. Nothing happened. He tugged again, to no avail. He swung his head back, as if he could see nine floors up.
“The fire’s in the shaft,” he choked. “It’s burned the cable. We’re not going anywhere.”
The woman, Gina, made a sound of dismay and flung herself at the lever that kept the doors together. She yanked them open and bolted into the vestibule.
Creed swore and bolted out, too. He caught up with her, halfway to the second floor. Grabbing her elbow, he pulled her against the wall of the narrow stairwell.
“You crazy fool. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“Let me go!” She pushed against his chest, but he didn’t budge. “I must get to the ninth floor!”
“You can’t! You know you can’t!”
“I must find my mother. She is there! I have to help her. Let go of me!” She planted both hands on his chest again. Her strength caught him by surprise, and he took a fast step back to keep his balance.
She raced up the stairs once more, toward the third floor, Creed right behind her. He snaked his arm around her waist and hauled her back against him, lifting her clear off her feet and keeping her there.
“Listen to me, Gina. That’s your name isn’t it? Gina?”
“Yes. Gina Briganti,” she said, an automatic response, he suspected, considering how much she was squirming against him. “Put me down!”
“Five seconds.” He hissed the words in her ear, his chin and cheek pressed against that silky mass of hair of hers. “That’s all I’m asking. Five lousy seconds to hear what I have to say.”
She didn’t respond, just kept squirming, kicking, clawing.
“I’m stronger than you are,” he grated. “I can hold you a long time. The more you fight me, the longer it’ll take before we start looking for your mother.”
Instantly, she stopped. Her bosom heaved. Creed put her down, and she whirled toward him, black eyes flashing.
“Talk!” she snapped.
“My name’s Creed Sherman.” He didn’t know if she cared who he was or not, but telling her his name was a start in getting her to trust him. “I’ll do all I can to help you, but we’re going to do it my way, you hear?”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What way?”
“The safe way.” He pointed up the stairs. “I’ll go ahead of you to find the best way to get to the ninth floor if there is one. If not, we head back down. Understand?”
Footsteps sounded above them. The stairwell was narrow. Wouldn’t be room for the both of them if a herd of people came clamoring down.
Gina cried out something in Italian and clutched his shirt front, pulling him flat against her.
Hysterical women, coughing, crying, the
ir hair and clothes singed from fire, stumbled down the steps. Each one bumped into him, as if they couldn’t see he was there. Or didn’t care if they did. Just when Creed thought they were all past, one more appeared.
“Serafina!” Gina gasped, staring at her over his shoulder. “Oh, Serafina! Have you seen Mama?”
Creed stepped back, and the woman blinked, her eyes red and dazed. “Gina?”
Gina pushed him aside, and the two women collapsed into each other’s arms.
Serafina cried loudly. “You do not find Louisa?” She pulled back, grief-stricken, her cheeks streaked with smoke and tears. “Mother in Heaven, she is lost to us. The fire—it is so terrible. No one can survive it.”
“Lost to us?” Gina pressed her fingers to her mouth in horror, and Creed’s gut tightened.
“We’ll keep looking,” he said fiercely.
“Do not go up there.” Serafina trembled and made the Sign of the Cross. “The fire is everywhere. No one can escape. Not anymore.”
“But you made it, Serafina. Maybe Mama is coming still.”
“No. We come from the sixth-floor fire escape before it breaks. It is not strong enough to hold so many. We saved ourselves by climbing in a window. And those that could not—” she clutched a handkerchief and sobbed into it, her plump shoulders shaking “—Louisa was not with us. Oh, Mother in Heaven, she is lost.” Sobbing all over again, she hurried away.
Wide-eyed, Gina stared after her. She dragged her stare back to Creed and sucked in a whimpering breath. Suddenly, she pivoted, lifted her skirt hem, and rushed up the stairs again.
“Maybe your mother made it to the roof,” he said, acutely aware he was doing the following once more.
“And maybe she still waits for the elevator. She will not know the cable is burned. No one will.”
They were on the fourth floor now, and the smell of smoke was getting stronger. Up to the fifth, they climbed. The sixth. The seventh. The smoke stung the back of his throat. Gina coughed and dragged in air.
The eighth floor was next. The one where the fire had started. Creed reached out, grasped her arm, and forced her to halt. From here on out, things weren’t going to be pretty.
“Is there any other way of getting to the ninth floor? Another set of stairs? Elevators?”
“No,” she said, winded. “Except Mr. Silverstein’s entrance, and his door, always it is locked from the rest of us.”
“Where is it?”
“On the other side of the building. We cannot get there from here. Mama would not have been able to use that door. Too many people tried.”
“So these stairs would be her only way to get to the ground level.”
“She did not come this way. She would not have had time.”
Creed peered at the stairwell, illuminated only by a dirty skylight. He could hear the fire, snarling and snapping, a horrific monster just beyond their reach. The air was thick. Heavy with heat. They couldn’t go much farther.
But he had to find a way to get up those stairs. He needed to get to the ninth floor. He’d noticed fire hoses mounted on the walls on each level they passed. He could use them to fight his way through the flames with more guts than brains to help Gina find her mother.
There would be a tank of water on the roof; turning the iron valve would release the water into the hoses. But before Creed could remove the hose from its bracket, before he could turn the valve for the rush of water, glass shattered.
An explosive fireball roared into the stairwell, a roiling mass of flame that threw him back against Gina and sent them both toppling down the stairs.
Chapter Five
Pain shot like a rocket through his head, and incredible heat seared every inch of his skin. Smoke filled his lungs, choking back the air he needed to breathe.
But it was sheer instinct that propelled Creed from the depths of unconsciousness to the horrifying reality that if he didn’t get the hell out of the stairwell, he would die. And so would Gina. The snarling, snapping flames were too close, too demonic, too determined to burn them alive if they didn’t.
The blast had thrown them down like rag dolls, and he lay sprawled on top of her, his body a shield against the worst of the heat. With Herculean effort, he heaved himself up; his glance clawed over her. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, didn’t make any reaction at all, and a raw fear gripped him that she was dead.
He swore. There was no time to determine if she was. He had to get her out, get them both out, and in spite of the narrow breadth of their surroundings, he managed to heft her over his shoulder, like the feed bags he used to carry when he was a kid. Holding her tight with one arm while using the other to brace himself against the wall, he descended the debris-strewn stairs they’d only just climbed, his teeth gritted against the disorienting smoke, forced to trust his feet to find the way when his eyes couldn’t. Past the seventh floor, the sixth, he traveled with as much speed as he dared, meeting no one coming up, no one going down.
By the time he reached the third level, the air showed signs of thinning. By the time he stumbled to the second, the roar of the fires above had lessened, but frantic voices below grew clearer with every step. Barked commands, he realized, from firemen and policemen desperate to gain control of a tragedy gone wild.
They were too late. Terrible damage had already been done.
His lungs burned from exertion, from the poisons he’d inhaled from the factory’s hellish top floors, and staggering into the vestibule at last, a storm of humbling relief swept through him.
The place was eerily deserted. The elevator stood open, abandoned, Leon long gone to save himself after the car was rendered useless. Creed headed straight for the building’s exit doors.
Suddenly, two grim-faced firemen burst through, dragging a heavy canvas hose behind them. Creed did a quick sidestep to evade them. They were too intent on hustling up the stairs to notice him or the woman he carried.
Creed watched them go. In the coming minutes, as the men climbed closer, deeper into the inferno, Creed and Gina would be far from their minds, the least of their troubles.
Another time, he would’ve followed them up in a brazen attempt to do what he could to help. Now, he had Gina to think of. He had to get her out of this godforsaken place. And hope she was still alive.
In several long strides, he was outside. His lungs filled with crisp, clean air, and he breathed in deep, as long and as much as he could.
Never would he take fresh air for granted again.
A heavy cloud of smoke hung over the factory, but beyond it, the sky still shone blue and hinted at the coming dusk. Seagulls soared in graceful abandon as they meandered their way to and from the ocean. Beyond the perimeter of the Premier Shirtwaist factory, to the thousands of people unaware, it was just the beginning of another Saturday night.
But to those closest, their lives would never be the same again.
Including Gina’s.
She hung limp and heavy over his shoulder, and he shifted her body to cradle her more comfortably in his arms. Her dark head lolled against his shoulder, and a small moan slipped from her throat. It moved him, that moan. Creed never considered himself to be a religious man, but he breathed a prayer of thanks to the Almighty that she wasn’t dead as he’d earlier feared.
She’d been knocked cold from the fiery blast, and he didn’t know how bad she was hurt. No blood that he could see, or broken bones, but she needed a doctor to know for sure, and he raked a glance around him to find Graham Dooling. Of anyone, the man would do what he could to help Creed locate one.
But the crowd gathered behind the police lines surrounding the factory made searching for Dooling all but impossible. Word of the blaze had spread fast, aided by the giant plume of blackened smoke billowing into the sky. Grief-stricken relatives of the garment workers screamed for information about their loved ones. Horse-drawn fire wagons raced to help fight the blaze, their sirens wailing, their efforts hampered by the hordes of curiosity-seekers streaming into
the streets.
Creed turned away from it all and headed toward a well-groomed park on the city block adjacent to the Premier. The place offered a small piece of serenity amongst the chaos. He could take Gina there for a little while, then get her medical help and maybe learn some news about her mother.
Scores of young women were already there, clearly of the same mind. From the smoke smeared on their faces, he discerned they were mostly factory workers, the lucky ones who’d managed to escape just as the fire broke out. A small number were being consoled by family members fortunate enough to have found them. Others sat alone, crying, dazed and devastated by all that had happened.
He found a quiet spot away from them, dropped down to one knee, and eased Gina onto the thick grass. She didn’t move or make a sound. He knew what it was like to be knocked unconscious. He understood she needed a little time to bring herself out of it.
But he lingered over her, worrying, his gaze caught on the finely sculpted angles of her face and the dark coloring of her heritage.
A beautiful woman, this Gina Briganti.
Might be she had family looking for her, too. A sister or a cousin. A husband. Or her mother—he could only hope, for both their sakes.
She hadn’t mentioned anyone, though, and the thought of her being alone, fighting the nightmare of the fire and all its repercussions…
At some point, it’d become important to stay with her. She didn’t know it yet, but she needed him.
And hell, maybe he needed to be needed right now.
Didn’t take a brilliant man to figure he was still hurting from Pa and Mary Catherine’s betrayal. He’d probably always hurt from it, at least some. But he refused to think of them and how they were living out there, a couple of lovebirds on the Sherman ranch, a world away from the turmoil here in the city.
He grimaced and drew back. Hell of a day so far, and it wasn’t even over yet.
Exhaustion hit him fast and hard, and he sank onto the ground next to Gina. His body had been pummeled by chunks of plaster and wood from the explosion in the stairwell, and he felt the bruises to prove it. His throat burned from the smoke. And every muscle ached…