Shattered by Death (A Jo Oliver Thriller Book 2) (18 page)

“Our Nick will be here in under five minutes. Let us invest our time in talking to the staff about the habits of the director.” Gino picked up a legal pad and started writing.

I scrolled through my phone for messages. Mitch had left me three.
God bless her.
At least
she
was solid to the core. Wasn’t she?

The first text contained all names and background information for every Riverside employee. I scrolled down the screen three times. The list kept going. I moved on to her second message. It contained a picture. I enlarged it as much as I could with my finger and thumb. Nick. On Kira’s sofa. Time stamped and dated three days earlier. If that was even legit. The angle of the shot suggested Kira had taken it from her infamous captain’s chair. Unless it’d been taken from a camera mounted over her desk.
A hidden camera? Why?

I turned a steely gaze on Gino. “Did you know about this? Can I trust
anybody
anymore?”

Was everyone in my life a pseudo enemy?

His face walked from shock, to grief, to rage. He seemed to wrestle with the rage for a minute before putting it down. “You do not know what you are saying. I will forgive it. I forgive you these thoughts. It is all because of
la mala
. Her evil is all the more complete as she has worked among you, has gained your trust, the trust of the entire department, for years. And I tell you her betrayal—”

A loud blast thundered through the air. The wall behind Gino buckled and fell inward, plaster wallboard folding in half. Gino scrambled to his feet and rushed me, taking me down onto the hallway floor. My head smacked the thinly-padded concrete. A second blast erupted, and the trembling walls around us starting falling in.

My ears rang. Chalky dust filled the hallway. Ceiling tiles floated down around us. Beeps, hums, and alarms blared. Gino rose to his knees, shook his head. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Then he offered me his hand, pulled me up to a seated position. My head was light. I swallowed back vomit. I breathed in deep, filling my lungs with the hot, dirty air. Coughs savaged my throat.

A red and white calendar hung from one corner of what was left of the wall in front of me. The words were blurry, but I could make out a smiley face and the words “Happy B-Day Marian O.” on one of the squares.
Mom? It has to be Marian Oliver!

“Mom!” I shook my head and pushed to my hands and knees. I must hurry to my mother, to the twenty-seven other helpless men and women on the floor. “Call it in, G. I gotta go find my mother!”
As I fought to get to my feet, low moans from every direction broke through the smoke, like a giant hand turning up the volume on a low-rent sound system.

I pushed myself over to the edge of the hallway, eyeing the steel bars that used to hide behind sheetrock. I wrapped my hands around one and pulled myself to my feet. Dust rushed through the corridor on the back of a ferocious wind. To my right, the entire bank of windows behind the nurses’ station had blown out. What had happened in my mother’s room?

My right leg dragged behind as I limped down the debris-laden hallway toward room 1200. Tiny pieces of green glass crunched under my feet, the remains of a vase—its plastic tulips scattered. Shreds of paper unmoored from bulletin boards flew around like angry birds. The wind was distinct, layered over a hundred other noises.

I stopped for a moment. Low wattage lights lined the hallway floors and remaining exit signs—the blasts must’ve taken out the electricity. Every single resident on this wing depended on at least one device to keep them alive—how long could the generators keep my mother’s oxygen machine operating?

I sniffed.
Fire? Or is this just how it smells when a bomb goes off?

In the gloom of the hallway, only two rooms lay between me and the next exit sign. I tried to sprint, but pain shot through my right knee and climbed up my thigh. I reached up to wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. It came away sticky and red. A paneled door appeared through the dust on the right. Room 1202. Was someone trapped inside? I pushed through the door and glanced around the tiny studio. Empty.
Thank You, God.

I lurched down the hallway to Mom’s room. The door hung sideways, the top two sets of hinges dangling. I squeezed past it and tried to call out her name, but my mouth was a dry canyon. Thick waves of nausea rolled through me.

Cold wind ravaged the air in her little space like a dusty tomb.
Broken windows
? Her oxygen machine lay on its side, red line stuck at the fourth level, no telltale whooshing sound, no humming, dead. Could she breathe through the dust and pull in enough of the cool air winding its way through her apartment? Bedroom—she’d been in her bedroom. I pulled down on the claw handle and opened the door. My mother was on her side, trying to sit herself up in bed, wide eyed. I clung to the doorframe, bracing against a curtain of dizziness. Her forehead twinkled with glass. Tiny dots of blood formed a crown on her head. Her face was ashen. Our eyes met—she pushed her birdlike frame into a seated position and pointed a thin finger my way.

I made it to her side, tears dulling my eyes as I brushed the glass off of her pajamas and into my hand. I leaned in and reached my arms around her meager frame. Time to move her to safety. My right arm encircled another arm, strong and rough with rocky muscle.
What?
Nick was behind me, circling my mother and me with his arms.
Nick! Here? How could I have doubted this glorious man?

He pressed his lips against my ear. “Can you stand up, beautiful?”

Was he whispering? Screaming? My ears were still buzzing. I nodded my head. “Take her out of here.” My throat burned from the smoke. “Get her out
now
!”

He took off his leather jacket, wrapped it around her, and then folded her into his arms like a china doll. He held her in both arms, jutting an elbow out to me. I grabbed onto him with both hands and pulled myself to my feet. Waves of dizziness and nausea swept over me.

“Go! Through the windows!” I squawked at him, my throat raw.

I jabbed a thumb at what was left of the three floor-to-ceiling windows flanking my mother’s bed. He picked through the broken glass like a panther, pausing in front of the window. Large hunks of glass hung low, quivering. We couldn’t go through it without risking it falling on us.

Tension rifled up the arm I clung to.
No way, Nick. There’s no turning back now
. Breaking away from him, I grabbed the comforter off my mother’s bed, threw it over my shoulder, and hoisted myself toward the craggy window. The sprinkler system kicked on, spitting streams of tepid water over us.

I pushed my shoulder into the remaining shards of glass hanging like stadium pennants from the top of the window frame, breaking them off, clearing a path to safety. I motioned for him to take my mother through, but he stood stock still behind me.

I waited a few more seconds, but he still didn’t move. I turned to match his gaze.
The opening I just cleared is too small for both of them
. I yanked the comforter up to cover my head and shoulders. Then I stretched out both arms, bunched my hands into fists, pulled them into my shirt sleeves as best I could, and barreled head-first through the glass, toward the fresh air of freedom. Just as another explosion threw me forward.

I awoke amidst a thick field of swamp grass sticking into my belly. My left boot was being pulled away from my body. My right foot was bare, cold, and pulsating with stabs from hot pokers. Orange and yellow starbursts painted the night sky. The air was ripe with fuel and blood and death. Nick. I turned my head toward a bloody body next to mine.

Nick!

“Josie!”

A spark of pain jolted my eyes open, pushing away the dark images.

“There you are, beautiful!” Nick loomed over me, handsome and very much alive. “Now that you’re awake, I’m moving aside to let the paramedics have their way with you again.” Nick’s eyes reflected love and warmth and life.

I sat up, slapping at gloved hands as they tried to hold me down. Water was shooting onto the building from all directions. Flames licked out of second story windows.
Mom!
Where was my mom?

A cold blast of wind battered my face. I put my hands on the shoulders of the man in front of me and pushed myself to my feet. Nick must’ve paved the way. The paramedic didn’t try to stop me. An ambulance idled behind me. Two men bent over a stretcher, speaking in low tones to my mother. They’d already dabbed away the bloody crown. She was nodding feebly—in good hands. What about the others?

“Gino—where’s Gino?” I willed one uncooperative foot in front of the other. But neither one obeyed.

Nick wrapped his arms around me, murmuring into my ear. “He’s alright—he made it out the cafeteria doors, with two residents the first trip. Then he made it back in and out for more residents twice before the first engine arrived. He’s fine.”

My breath struggled past the tightness in my chest. “We gotta get back in there.” What about Arnie’s wistful face as he lay prostrate on the thinning carpet? “Arnie! Did he get out? Did you see him?”

“He’s out. They’re all out. By the grace of God, none of the residents were injured in the fire.” He rattled this out authoritatively.

“You can’t know that. The building’s just being evacuated.” Well, that might not be true. Had I passed out?
Nick responded with a long stare.

“How long have I been laying here?”

“About fifteen minutes. Long enough for the paramedics to clean you up and make sure your bumps, bruises, and burns are only skin deep. But, given how long you were out, you may have a concussion.”

“Well, that’s a relief.
For me
.” It came out a whisper that should have sounded stronger—more confident, with a little swagger. But an invisible knife had creased my stomach lining
. Is my mother going to make it? What about the others?

Nick pushed my bangs out of my eyes with one hand. “It’s okay, Josie—everybody got out. Your mother’s fine.”

“How many explosives?”

“Three that we know of so far. Jibes with Gino’s description of your hallway interlude. And the timing was almost flawless.” He pulled me several feet away from the ambulance, giving us some makeshift privacy.

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”

“Awfully convenient explosion—that’s what I’m saying.” He leaned against a young pine tree on the lawn, pulling me into his chest.

I trembled as our bodies touched, then inched away. Public displays of affection, when I didn’t know what I wanted between us and couldn’t remember what had just happened, were not on the menu right now. I pulled his arm out from around me. “What are you trying to say?”

The annoyed look in his eyes melted into resignation. He shifted on his feet, maintaining eye contact. “Josie, it took about fifteen minutes to evacuate the building just now. And, that doesn’t take into account any time lost when we were working on getting your mother to safety.”

Is Nick getting all paternalistic over me knocking out the window?
I shook my head, filing that away for later. “Enough about my daring escape strategies. Where’s Kira?”