LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      Flames licked out the window and up the side of the house, red and orange tongues scorching the stucco black. Smoke wormed its way through the attic vents into the night sky. Glass popped, and the smell of burning wood filled the cool air of an early summer evening. A faded For Sale sign stood in the weed-choked front yard, as abandoned as the house itself.

      Tightening his helmet strap, his adrenaline giving him a nice edge, Mike Gables swung down from his seat behind the driver of Engine 61 and jogged to the back of the truck. The gold and black crest on the side of the vehicle read Paseo del Real, California.

      “Let’s put some wet on that red before the guys from 62 get to have all the fun,” he shouted to Jay Tolliver, his buddy and fellow firefighter. Mike wished they had been the first engine company on the scene, but the driver of Engine 62 had beaten 61 out of the station by milliseconds. They were already putting water on the fire.

      We’ll get ’em next time, Mike thought with a competitive grin.

      Giving Mike a thumbs-up, Jay took the nozzle and headed across the yard. Right behind him, Mike hefted the hose over his shoulder, reeling it out from the truck.

      “Fireman! Fireman!” A gray-haired woman in a housecoat and slippers came running toward them, waving frantically. “There’s a little boy inside. He’s in the back bedroom. Oh, dear heaven! The poor little thing. I heard him crying. You’ve got to—”

      With no more than a look that communicated what needed to be done, both Mike and Jay dropped the hose and raced toward the back of the house. The place was entirely dark. No curtains on the windows. No sign anyone had lived there for months.

      Out front, a second police car arrived, siren screaming, lights flashing red-and-orange stripes along the shadowed path to the rear of the house.

      “Suzie, where are you?” a child’s voice cried.

      “Damn, there’re two of ’em,” Mike muttered. Kids. He hated it when the red devil went after kids, trying to suck the life out of them. Bad enough when it was grown-ups who were trapped. It wasn’t a fair fight when kids were involved. Mike’s job was to even the odds.

      “I can’t see anything inside,” Jay shouted, trying to peer in the old-fashioned guillotine window. He gave it a shove but it didn’t open.

      Mike pulled his heavy flashlight from its loop at his waist. “I got it. Stand back.”

      He smashed the back of the flashlight through one of the panes, reached inside past the jagged glass, unlatched the window and opened it.

      “Come here, Suzie,” the child coughed and sobbed. “Please, Suzie.”

      “Give me a boost,” Mike ordered.

      Jay cupped his hands, and Mike used them to lever himself inside, diving headfirst. He hit the floor with a thud, and coughed as smoke filled his lungs.

      Stay low, you go; stay high, you die. Mike reminded himself of the old firefighters’ adage as he tried to get his bearings in the dark. Beyond two feet, smoke swallowed the light he shone around the room. He began circling to the right on his hands and knees so he’d know how to get back out again if there was a flashover.

      But he wasn’t going anywhere until he found the children.

      “Where are you, kid? Talk to me, okay?”

      “I can’t find Suzie.”

      Mike followed the sound of the young, frightened voice. “I’ll get her. You just stay put and keep talking.”

      The child coughed again.

      If the kid hadn’t made a sound right then, Mike might have missed him and passed right by what appeared to be a walk-in closet. He flashed his light inside and caught a glimpse of a boy with big brown terrified eyes. He looked to be five or six years old.

      “Come on, fella, let’s get you out of here.” He reached for the boy.

      The kid backed farther into the closet. “No! I won’t go without Suzie!”

      Mike didn’t like the idea of manhandling the kid, but the smoke wasn’t getting any better. He had to get the youngster out of there in a hurry.

      “I promise I’ll come back for Suzie, but for now you’ve got to do as I say.”

      “No!” the child wailed, making himself as small as he could in the very back of the closet. “I want Suzie!”

      Losing patience wouldn’t help. “What’s your name, son?”

      The boy snuffled and coughed again. “Randy.”

      “Great, Randy. Now this is what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna carry you out the window, then I’m gonna—”

      “No!”

      Clearing his own lungs with a cough, Mike flashed the light around. If he could spot Suzie—

      “Is Suzie your sister, Randy?”

      He shook his head. “Nuh-uh. She’s my dog ’n’ she’s all I’ve got.”

      Mike heard a plea in the boy’s voice that was more than a spoiled kid wanting his pet back. Something that went far deeper.

      From outside, Jay shouted, “You okay in there?”

      Mike gritted his teeth. “Yeah, we’re just hunky-dory.”

      He couldn’t mess around any longer. Kids couldn’t tolerate a whole lot of smoke. Neither could he.

      Lunging for the boy, Mike wrapped his arm around the kid’s middle and started to back out of the closet, still keeping on his hands and knees. Toting the youngster around in that position was like carrying an angry, oversize centipede, a hundred arms and legs flailing while the boy screamed that he wouldn’t go anywhere without Suzie. Randy’s heel caught Mike in his solar plexus. He grunted as the air whooshed out of his lungs.

      And they said dogs were loyal to their masters. Apparently, in Randy’s case, it worked both ways.

      “Are there any other people in the house?” he asked the child.

      “Just Suzie. And she’s mine!”

      At the window, Mike passed the squirming, thrashing boy to Jay.

      “You gotta save Suzie,” Randy cried. Great big tears filled the boy’s eyes, and his chin trembled. “You promised!”

      “Who’s Suzie?” Jay asked, barely able to contain the youngster in his arms.

      Mike rolled his eyes. “Don’t ask.”

      Turning back into the smoke-filled room, Mike knew it was against departmental rules to risk a firefighter’s life for an animal. But dammit, it was the kid’s dog. Sometimes rules needed to be broken.

      Getting as low as he could, he squirmed across

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