Home Fires (32 page)

He stumbled toward her but made it only a few steps.

“Judge!” Rose strained to catch him as he collapsed and sank to his knees.

He clutched at his chest. “I… I can’t… breathe…”

A long-buried memory filtered to mind of a snowy winter morning and a steaming cup of coffee in her father’s favorite mug. Cold black coffee that remained in his cup, taunting them as they returned home from the hospital later that day accompanied only by their grief.

The Judge was having a heart attack. Every second counted if he was to live. Rose struggled against his heavy weight to reach the phone.

“Get out,” he told her. “Get out… now.” His eyes closed as his body gave way and he crumpled to the floor.

“Judge!” Rose dropped to her knees and cradled him close, frantically searching for a pulse. It was thready and weak. He needed help, fast. She fought down a sudden surge of panic. Her hand trembled in another desperate attempt for the phone.

She smelled it before she saw it. It was an insidious scent, subtle yet pungent and enough to tear her gaze from the phone. Rose’s eyes widened as she caught her first glimpse of the smoke climbing the walls and creeping across the ceiling.

The building was on fire!

Every single hair on the back of her neck stood up straight as she felt sheer terror rising inside her.
Get a grip, Rose.
But how? She was trapped, weighed down by emotions and fear, as well as the Judge’s motionless body. He was too heavy and there simply was no way she could move him by herself. But she wasn’t about to leave him behind, no matter what he might have done.

In the midst of swirling insanity, words she’d heard him speak merely moments earlier raced to mind.

Had the Judge himself set the blaze, then returned upstairs to warn her?

“Cecil?” A halting voice sounded in the midst of catastrophe. “Cecil, where are you?”

“Tommy! In here!”
Thank God
. Relief flooded through her at the welcome sound of her friend’s voice. She hugged the Judge closer, sheltering him as best she could from the billowing gray smoke filling the room.

Tommy Gilbert staggered through the doorway, coughing and hacking. His eyes were wide with fear. “The basement is on fire. I can’t put it out.”

“We have to call 911.” Rose sputtered against the acrid smoke as it intensified.

Tommy snatched the phone and punched in the emergency numbers, only to throw it to the floor. “It’s no use. The phone is dead. The lines in the basement must have burned out.”

“Help me, Tommy. I think the Judge has had a heart attack.”

“Grab his shoulder. We’ll get him out of here.”

There was no time for gentleness. Smoke was pouring through the luxurious office. Rose shoved the Judge out of her lap and struggled to her knees. She grabbed one side of his coat collar with both hands. Tommy commandeered a position at the other side. The garage rooftop deck beckoned, a doorway to fresh air and freedom. They tugged and pulled, fear driving their efforts. Somehow the two of them managed to drag the Judge’s motionless body across the threshold and onto the rooftop deck.

Rose sank down beside him. Frantically her fingertips searched for a pulse. For one heart-wrenching moment she had the sudden fear that they’d been too late, that her old friend was dead. Finally she felt his pulse. The Judge was still alive. She breathed in deep gulps of fresh clean air rolling in off the lake and hugged herself tight to stop the trembling. They were out of the building and safe for the moment.

“I’m going for help.” Tommy rose from his knees. Tears stained his soot-smeared face, and his shirt was torn, singed black from fighting the basement blaze. “I can make it back down the steps to outside.”

“No, Tommy, you can’t.” Rose struggled to a stand. “Don’t go back in there. It’s too dangerous.”

He scurried toward the door through which they’d just come.

Rose started after him. “Tommy, don’t be stupid. Come back here.”

“You don’t understand,” he cried from the doorway. “I didn’t start that fire to hurt nobody. He needed the money. I was only trying to help him, just like your mom said somebody should do.”

Smoke rolled out in a menacing cloud as he yanked open the door.

“Tommy, are you insane? Get away from there!” It felt like she was screaming. He wasn’t making sense. Nothing tonight made sense.

“I’m sorry, Cecil. I never mean to hurt anybody… not you, not the Judge.”

Rose lunged for him, but he proved too quick. “Tommy, no!” Her scream echoed through the night as he disappeared through the open door.

She darted inside the office after him, fighting for every breath, choking in a blinding swirl of thick, stinking fog. The smoke was everywhere, filling each crevice of the once luxurious office space. No flames, but the smoke proved more terrifying than a raging fire.

The memory of another smoke-filled room on a hot summer night brought her heart to her throat. Nothing had existed in the smelly swirl of the smoke house, not even a sense of time or space. She had been alone that night, surrounded by smoke.

But she wasn’t alone tonight. She heard Tommy hacking and coughing as he crashed his way through the Judge’s office. Rose fought back her fears, flung an arm across her face to shield her eyes and nose from the bitter stench as thoughts of Tommy speared her on. Blindly she lashed out with one free hand, just as her father and the fireman had done that night so long ago. They had reached out for her and she would reach out for Tommy. He was somewhere in this room, hopefully still within her reach. Each gasp for breath singed her lungs, every instinct pressed her to turn back, but she forced herself forward. Where was he? She heard nothing human, only crackling and popping.

The sound of wood on fire.

How did firemen willingly face this monster of fire and smoke? How could Mike do this?

What would Mike do if he were here with her?

The sudden thought proved strangely comforting, even as she gagged and retched against the stinking fumes. He would never back down if he was the one looking for Tommy. And if Mike could do it, so could she. Rose stumbled forward another few steps.

“Tommy, where are you?” She tripped over a chair and cracked her knee against a solid piece of wood. The Judge’s desk. She gasped from the pain and tried not to panic. She was blind, her vision limited to the murky brown smoke enveloping her. Even the sight of her own hand was lost to her in the smelly soot. She grabbed at empty space, then staggered another step, stopping, coughing, choking, spitting up soot. “Tommy! Answer me!” The smoke grew worse with each step she took. Every instinct urged her to retreat. The smoke and heat were too intense.

“Tommy, answer me! I’m not leaving without you.”

Her voice gave out, replaced by a hacking cough. The acrid stench of smoke filled every pore of her body. Rose ventured one last step and reached out wildly, grabbing blind. Her hand hit something hard, firm and wooden. She lashed out, pawing at the thing. Her hands searched high and low, running up and down smooth wooden grooves.

The hallway door. She’d finally reached the doorway, only to find it empty.

Rose pounded her fist against the wooden frame as hot tears streamed down her face, mingling with dirty soot. It was the end. She didn’t dare venture any further, not if she had any hope of coming out alive.

Seconds later, a loud crash and an agonizing scream rose from the building, followed by a roar of flames and a menacing cloud of embers and sparks rolling through the hallway directly toward Rose.

Sheer terror kept her rooted in the doorway as she suddenly realized that she could die in here. No one knew she was in the building, except for Tommy and the Judge.

But the Judge was unconscious on the rooftop deck. And Tommy was…

Her resolve fluttered as she remembered the screams she’d heard as the front hallway steps collapsed, taking Tommy down with them. She had to make it back to the door. There was no other way out. She had to be strong. She had to do this. She had to get out.

But how?

Get low
, a tiny voice whispered in her heart. Rose struggled to remember exactly what Mike had said.
Get down on your knees and crawl through the smoke.

She sank to her knees and hit the floor, crying out in terror as her shoulder collided with a bookcase as she started to crawl. She kept going. She didn’t dare stop. Frantically she felt her way around the edges of the furniture, groping for the way out. The smoke was blinding. She couldn’t see a thing.

Crawl.
Mike was right there with her, guiding her forward.
Crawl through the smoke. Let your heart lead you.

Somehow she kept going, feeling her way around the edges of the room. And just as she feared her lungs would burst with one more breath of the sooty, smoky haze, Rose felt metal under her fingertips. She’d found the door’s threshold and the freedom of fresh air.

In the distance, the town’s fire whistle began to wail.

Rose held the Judge close as she waited the few interminable moments for the fire department to arrive. Cradling the old man in her arms brought a sense of comfort to a world that had gone up in flames before her very eyes. The heavy rumble of fire trucks from below announced their arrival on the scene. Shouts of men rushed up from the street as they labored to stretch the heavy fire hoses and hook up water lines. The fire department would save the day and maybe the building.

But there would be no saving the Judge.

Rose wasn’t a doctor, but she knew her old friend was already gone. She hugged him tightly against her as a heavy aluminum ladder smacked against the rooftop’s edge and a hoarse voice called out. She couldn’t answer. Rose cradled the Judge even closer. She would sit with him until they forced her to give him up. Praying for his soul was all she could do. It was too late for anything else.

A thick gloved hand, then two, were steady on the ladder. Finally the fireman was on the rooftop. No suit of shining armor, but a heavy yellow fire coat and buffeted white helmet, air pack strapped to his back. He tore off the breathing mask and helmet and crouched down beside her. “Rosie?”

Only when she spied those turquoise-blue eyes did Rose finally crumple and the salty tears start to fall. Mike’s arms wrapped around her and the Judge, holding them close. “Please, you’ve got to help him,” she whispered.

“The paramedics are on their way. They’ll help the Judge.”

She clutched the front of his fire coat. “No, you don’t understand. I’m talking about Tommy.”

His jaw clenched. “Tommy Gilbert?”

“He’s still in the building. I think… I think the front stairs gave way beneath him.” The tears came faster as her thoughts turned to Tommy and the valiant stand he’d made against the raging fire. He had rushed back inside the building in spite of the inferno facing him, intent only on reaching the outside door, bringing help to her and the Judge.

Mike grabbed the radio from his belt and relayed an alert to the firemen below, starting the search for Tommy Gilbert. Rose shook her head and gave him a sad stare as he hit the squawk button, ending the page. She stroked the Judge’s forehead.

“He’s gone.”

“Let me take him.” Mike slid an arm under the lifeless body. “We have to get him down off the roof.”

“Be careful with him,” Rose whispered as she surrendered her hold. Paramedics joined them on the roof. She stood aside and watched as they strapped the Judge’s body to a compact stretcher. He had been a large man in life, and death had not diminished him. His color was ashen, his eyes closed, but his face was quiet, filled with peace. Rose had no doubt his soul had already departed this world for another. An even better world than the tiny universe of his beloved James Bay.

Her turn came next. Rose grasped the ladder and began the long downward climb. She clung to each rung with trembling hands, but Mike was right beneath her, his body shielding her own from any slip or fall.
Baby steps, one step at a time
… she chanted the mantra in her mind as they inched down the ladder. Finally her foot reached the bottom rung. She put one foot, then the other, on the ground and stepped into the refuge of Mike’s arms.

He led her away from prying eyes and the crowd of curious bystanders held back by plastic yellow barrier tape to the sheltering safety of a fire truck. Someone wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. Another fireman pulled Mike away to talk, a short stubby man with a white helmet like Mike’s own. Chief Ivan Thompson, she noted as she pulled the blanket closer. Wordlessly she watched as an ambulance, with lights flashing and sirens wailing, departed with the Judge. Then Mike was back at her side. She leaned into him, taking no heed of his dirty fire coat or the smell of smoke he wore. The feel of his arms wrapped around her was all she wanted. It was a safe, secure feeling.

Like coming home.

“Rosie, sweetheart, I’ve got some bad news.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and fingered away a few tears. She knew what was coming. She’d wanted to ask since they’d come down off the roof, but she hadn’t been able to summon the courage to hear Mike confirm what she already knew. Finally, with a deep breath, she forced herself to meet his gaze. “Tommy’s dead.”

He nodded, his eyes flashing quiet sympathy. “They found his body in the basement.”

Less than an hour ago she’d been sitting in the Judge’s sleek leather chair. Now Tommy’s lifeless body lay shattered and burned in the bottom of the building, and the Judge was headed for the hospital in an ambulance that—no matter how fast it went—would never succeed in bringing her dear old friend back to life.

“They’ve knocked down the fire. They’ll bring his body out soon.”

“Poor Tommy.” She pressed her fingertips against her temples, as if she could squeeze the image from her mind. Her ears still rang with the sound of Tommy’s scream as the staircase gave way.

“What happened up there, Rosie? Can you tell me?”

“He went back inside to try and get help. He was safe on the roof, but he ran back inside. Then, I think … I think the front stairs collapsed beneath him.” Rose’s voice shook, barely above a whisper. “He tried to save us. Tommy tried to save the Judge and me.”