Authors: Dawn Brown
She stumbled sideways into the wall.
What the--?
She touched her fingers to the screaming agony above her ear. When she pulled her hand away, bright red smeared her pale skin. Blood.
Her vision blurred as she slid to the floor.
Then there was nothing.
Heat radiated from the burning building as Caid crossed the empty car park. The Inn loomed above him, glowing dark orange like a massive ember and seeming to pulsate with a life all its own. A low rumble filled his ears, the vibration permeating his body right through to his pounding heart.
“Joan,” he yelled.
No one answered, but he doubted anyone could hear him over the roar of the fire. He tried again, louder this time. “Joan!”
Where was she? Had she escaped? Made it to a neighbor’s? Or was she trapped inside?
With his heart slamming against his chest, he moved closer, looking for a door or a window not already engulfed in flame. He walked a tight circle of the house, staying as close as the heat singeing his skin would allow.
A sudden explosion of glass had him diving for the ground, pressing the hot skin of his cheek to the cool grass and covering his head with both arms. Tiny fragments showered over him like a deadly rainstorm, burning the back of his hands and neck. When he looked up, hot flames lashed out of the broken window like a serpent’s tongue.
If Joan was inside, she had to be dead. A wave of sick panic mixed with loss rushed through him. Still, he forced himself to his feet, hoping to find proof that she’d somehow escaped.
As he rounded the back of the house, the temperature dropped and the radiant brilliance emitting from the flames dimmed, casting the garden into shadow.
She could have escaped from here. The fire hadn’t spread to the rear of the house yet. He approached the back door, smoke seeping from a smashed window, and gingerly touched the knob until satisfied the metal was cool. He depressed the lever and the door swung open into the kitchen.
Billows of foul-smelling smoke poured out the opening and Caid stumbled back. He covered his mouth with his forearm and hacked, his lungs and throat burning. Good God, no one could be alive inside. Still, he had to be sure. He couldn’t stand back and let someone burn to death in that hell.
He pulled the collar of his sweater up over his nose, crouched down and crawled into the smoky kitchen. The air near the floor wasn’t as bad as when he’d first opened the door, but his eyes still stung and watered.
On his hands and knees, he moved into the dining room. The smoke seemed to thicken, and the temperature rose. He was moving closer to the fire. Or the fire closer to him. Maybe both.
He sat back on his haunches to gain a better sense of where he was and where he needed to go. Something wasn’t right. He wiped away the water filling his eyes to see better. The layout seemed different somehow, but he couldn’t put his finger on the change. Admittedly, he’d only eaten in the dining room twice during his stay. Still…
The door. Where was the door?
His stomach dropped. A heavy bureau, the one where Joan stored her linens and good sliver, had been shoved over the doorway, blocking any chance for escape.
Joan was still inside.
He stood and, foolishly, took a deep breath. Heavy coughing racked his body as he struggled for air and worked to shoulder the cabinet away from the door. The solid wood scraped the floor as he slid the bureau over.
Once the furniture was out of the way, he collapsed to the floor, his lungs burning as he tried to stem the coughs still shuddering through him. Pulling his sleeve over his hand to protect his flesh from the hot brass, he turned the knob and yanked the door open.
Joan’s limp form fell into his lap and a gust of hot wind stung his face and hands. For a moment he stayed frozen, crouched on the floor. Flames rippled over the far wall of the hall like the waves of a fiery ocean, as beautifully mesmerizing as deadly.
Something above him fell with a loud crash. He ducked, half expecting whatever it was to come crashing through the ceiling above him. He had to get Joan out of there.
Still struggling for air, he scooped Joan into his arms and fought his way to his feet.
He teetered and reeled drunkenly from the dining room to the kitchen and out the back door. Once on the grass his knees buckled. He half lowered half-dropped Joan to the ground, then turned away. On all fours, he coughed and retched until he’d emptied his stomach.
With his ears ringing and his throat and lungs burning, he rolled onto his back. Flames flickered behind the glass in the windows above him. The ringing in his ears grew louder.
Not in his ears. Sirens.
Hillary had called the fire department. Would she come?
A wide, round shadow eclipsed the blazing house behind him. Bristol stood over him, his expression grim.
Caid pushed himself up onto his elbows as Bristol crouched beside him, a position that had to be uncomfortable for a man of his size. Caid tried to get to his feet so Bristol wouldn’t need to stay like that to talk to him, but the inspector pushed gently on Caid’s chest.
“Easy, lad,” Bristol said. “Stay where you are.”
The slight pressure was even too much for his weak body to fight against. He had no choice but to drop back onto the ground.
“Joan,” he croaked, then choked on a spasm of dry coughs shuddering through him.
Bristol waited for his coughing to subside. “She’s being seen to.”
Caid turned his head slightly. Paramedics scurried around Joan on a stretcher. He hadn’t even realized they were there.
He looked back at Bristol. “Alive?” Every word he uttered lit his throat with raw agony.
“Aye, I think so,” Bristol told him. “You did well, lad.”
Good. Joan would live and that was good. He glanced around him, but Hillary hadn’t come. He’d told her to stay at the house, not that he’d believed she would.
He closed his eyes and did his best to ignore the ache in his chest that had nothing to do with the fire.
Caid inhaled deeply from the plastic oxygen mask he held to his face. Each breath made his chest squeeze tight. From the back of the open ambulance on the far side of the car park, he watched the fire crew bring the blaze under control. Even from this distance, the glowing inn looked terrifying and he could hardly believe he’d been inside. He held himself against a shudder rippling up his spine.
“Joan’s stable,” Bristol said, as he came to stand beside Caid. The other ambulance, with Joan inside, made a wide turn in the lot before starting down the drive toward the road. “Smoke inhalation and some bad burns, but you saved her life.”
Caid nodded. Thank God, she’d be all right.
“I’m going to need to ask you some questions. I wantae hear more about the cabinet over the doorway.”
Caid tried to speak, but couldn’t. His burning throat felt two sizes too small.
“No’ the now,” Bristol said. “I can wait until we reach the hospital.”
Caid frowned. “Hospital?” he managed to croak.
“Aye. You inhaled a lot of smoke. The doctor will be wanting a look at you. Make sure ye’re all right.”
Caid shoved aside the oxygen mask. “I’m fine.” Though the thick raspiness of his voice did little to help his argument.
“You probably are, but you still need to be examined. Just to be sure.”
Caid shook his head and hopped down from the back of the ambulance. The paramedic who’d been quietly inspecting her equipment and eavesdropping came forward.
“Sir, please get back inside,” she said, sounding very stern and a little bored.
Again Caid shook his head. Had his throat not felt like a raw piece of meat, he would have told both Bristol and the paramedic where to go. As it was, he turned on his heel and started toward his car.
“Mr. Douglas,” the woman called after him. “You need to be seen by a doctor.”
Quick footfalls in the gravel behind him made him stop and turn around. The woman marched his way, bent slightly forward, arms swinging. Her eyes narrowed and three deep lines creased her high forehead.
“Mr. Douglas,” she said as she grew nearer. “Please get back in the ambulance.”
He ignored her, continuing to his car. He’d be damned if he’d waste what little voice he had left on this pointless argument.
“Lots of people are nervous about going to the hospital. I can assure you, this will simply be a routine examination. You’ll be home by this time tomorrow.”
“Aye,” Bristol said, following behind the woman, panting a little when he spoke. “You’ve nothing to worry about.”
Good Christ, would they be bribing him with a loli next?
“Hillary,” he squeaked.
A slow dawning lit Bristol’s features. “Is she waiting to hear from you?”
Caid nodded.
“Well, you go with Ms. Jenkins, here, and I’ll fetch Hillary.”
“I can see to myself,” he said, each word scraping like sandpaper over his raw flesh. He swallowed hard and continued. “I’m going home to clean up, then I’ll get myself to the hospital.”
Ms. Jenkins looked unconvinced. She glanced at Bristol and the heavy man nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on him.” Then to Caid he said, “Ye’re no’ driving.”
Caid whirled around, but before he could croak anything out, Bristol lifted his hand. “I cannae let you drive in yer state. So either you get into my car, or I’ll toss you into that ambulance myself.”
Not bloody likely
. But Caid was fed up with arguing. He followed Bristol to his car and climbed into the passenger seat.
As they started down the drive, Caid looked back, his gaze lingering on the charred, smoking rubble that had been Joan’s Inn and very nearly her funeral pyre.
A cold, sick feeling gripped him.
It took only a few minutes to reach Glendon House. Bristol had barely stopped the car, and Caid was out and striding to the front door, leaving the Inspector to waddle behind him.
Caid pushed the door open. Silence greeted him inside.
“Hill,” he started to call, but the word came out as a whispery squeak. What little voice he had was fading fast.
“Hillary?” Bristol shouted. Caid ground his teeth.
No answer.
Maybe she had gone back to bed.
Caid started down the hall toward the kitchen. Perhaps she just couldn’t hear them. As he passed the study door, open about a half a foot, he stopped. A book on the floor near the opening made him frown. He hadn’t left that there.
He pressed his hand against the smooth wood and pushed the door open the rest of the way. His blood ran cold. The room had been torn apart.
Books and papers lay strewn over the floor. The drawers from his desk had been yanked out, dumped and tossed aside. His heart hammered a slow, steady rhythm that continued to gain speed the longer he stood there.
Who had done this? And where had Hillary been while this was going on?
Where was Hillary now?
“Hillary?” Bristol called again, his voice full of the fear coursing through Caid’s tired body.
Caid turned and continued to the kitchen. Again the room had been ransacked, but there was no sign of Hillary.
Bristol tugged at his elbow. “Upstairs?”
He nodded and together they climbed to the second floor. Both his room and Hillary’s had been turned upside down. Even the covers torn from the beds and the mattresses shoved askew.
Still no Hillary.
Frantic with fear, Caid ran down the hall and gripped the doorknob for the loft, but it wouldn’t turn. Locked.
Where could she be?
He went back downstairs and found Bristol, squatting in the hall, inspecting something on the floor. Bristol looked up, his face pale. “I dinnae want you to panic.”
Caid’s insides turned to ice. If there was ever a reason to panic, it was when someone spoke those words.
“It’s blood,” Bristol said, bluntly. “Smeared here.” He pointed to the floor. “And a few drops near the stairs.”
The air sucked from his lungs as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. “Hers?” he asked stupidly.
“I cannae tell, but it’s no’ very much.”
Caid nodded and swallowed his growing panic. The tiny drops seemed to gleam up at him from the wood . With his heart hammering inside his burning chest, Caid searched every room on the first floor until he’d worked his way back to the kitchen. Once in the empty room, as clueless about Hillary’s whereabouts as he had been when he’d walked through the front door, he leaned against the counter and buried his face in his hands.
Where the hell was she? Had someone taken her? But where? And why?
He just wanted her to be all right. When he lifted his head, a small, dark mark on the stone floor outside the pantry door caught his eye.
He crossed the room and knelt next to the dark, reddish stain. When he touched his finger to it, the cold liquid smeared a lighter shade on his fingers.
He’d found her.
“Hillary?”
Had someone called her name?
“Hillary!” The voice penetrated the thick gray haze wrapped around her brain. She forced her eyes open, but only darkness greeted her. Where the hell was she?
A sharp, stabbing pain throbbed at the side of her head. Gingerly, she touched the area above her ear and felt something warm and sticky. Blood.
Someone had hit her. She’d been about to go after Caid…
Caid. The fire. Was he okay? And Joan?
Panic crept over her, turning her breath shallow and her skin cold, but she refused to give in to her fear. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and forced her mind and body to relax. She needed to get out of here, wherever
here
was.
The cool air smelled dank, and as she pushed herself to her feet, her fingers grazed something warm and furry. She shrieked, the sound drowning out the rodent’s squeak and skittery footsteps. A noise from above stopped her in her tracks. It had been distant and muffled, but it sounded like a voice. Probably just her imagination or a sign that her sanity was slipping from prolonged captivity in the pitch black.