LITMIR.BIZ

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      He was done. For now he was done.

      Outside, blinking under the glare through the gray October clouds, Andrew drew in deep gulps of cold air. Across the yard, EMTs swarmed over Eric. Head injury, laceration to his leg, maybe a punctured lung from a broken rib.

      He didn’t even get to say goodbye before they had Eric on the bus and down the street.

      His captain strode up beside him, radio halfway to his mouth. “Monroe! Where was that girl? They can’t find her. They’ve done a sweep, but no dice. I pulled them out—the smoke’s so bad, and they used up their air in nothing flat. That whole place is about to go.”

      “You’ve got to go after her!” Andrew insisted. “Sounded as if she was on the landing above us—as though maybe she was trying to come down.”

      The captain swore. “The way that floor caved, you can bet the stairs aren’t far behind.”

      “I heard her,” Andrew repeated. “I’ll go. Send me. I just need a new air pack. I know where she is—at least where she was when I was pulling Eric out.”

      The captain’s radio squawked, seizing his attention. He turned back, a look of indecision on his face for a moment, then he gave Andrew a quick nod.

      Andrew didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a new air pack and shot up the ladder, nozzle in hand, with another firefighter, Jackson, behind him.

      This time, he didn’t hear Katelyn. He climbed inside the window and pushed along the bedroom wall, pawing through what felt like a drycleaner’s worth of clothes on the floor. Around a heavy dresser. Over a squeaky toy.

      Out the door. Down another hall, this one bare floor, no carpet. Heat seemed to radiate upward through the cracks in the floorboards, and he pushed back thoughts of Eric almost tumbling down into the blackness.

      The floor would hold.

      They would find Katelyn.

      “Fire!” Jackson hollered out. “Stairs!”

      Andrew pointed the nozzle and blanketed the area with water.

      The smoke, amazingly, seemed to clear, and that was when he saw her—just the shape of her, just a suggestion of a form on the floor. It was a miracle he’d seen her—a second earlier, and he, like the earlier crew, would have missed her entirely.

      Andrew crawled forward. Laid his hand on her.

      Small. Scarcely bigger than Taylor or Marissa—and his nieces were only twelve.

      Still, her deadweight slowed him down as he tried to drag her one-handed back the way they’d come. He was too tired—too exhausted from pulling Eric. He needed to use both hands.

      It was almost as if Jackson could read his mind. He clapped Andrew on the back and grabbed the nozzle. Now Andrew set to work, dragging her along the line, back toward the bedroom, over the squeaky toy, through the clothes that would go like fat-lighter kindling once the fire reached this far.

      And it would. The glow was getting bigger, marching up the stairs, toward the bedroom door. Jackson was hurrying him now, but he didn’t need to, because Andrew knew the score.

      They had to get out, out before that fire ate through the staircase and took away the second floor’s main load-bearing wall.

      Now for the window—daylight, even if it was only a rectangle of gray the color of galvanized steel. The hand-off to Tommy, who was waiting on the ladder—

      And that was when Andrew saw how bad Katelyn really was. The disintegrated yoga pants from mid-shin down, the misshapen and blackened bedroom slippers, with their hot pink fur matted and melted. The soot-covered face slack and unresponsive.

      I should have called it in when I heard her on the stairs. She was okay then. She was fine. And now... Is she even alive?

      Andrew watched as Tommy made his way down the ladder. He watched for any hint that Katelyn was more than a corpse.

      Too late. I was too late.

      He clambered out onto the ladder and headed down, his heart somewhere in his boots.

      Too late. The words echoed in his head with every step on every rung.

      On the ground, more EMTs were waiting to take her from Tommy. Quick as a flash they had her on a backboard, a C-collar on—and Tommy was giving him a thumbs-up. His wide grin told Andrew there were some signs of life.

      Elation flooded him, and he nearly collapsed on the ground by the ladder as relief pulsed through him.

      She’s alive!

      A win. This was a win. The house could go—and it probably would in a matter of minutes, whether he gave it permission or not.

      He looked back over his shoulder to see Jackson on the ground and flames punching through the upstairs windows.

      Yeah. Fire could have the house. But it couldn’t have Eric, and it couldn’t have Katelyn—at least not today.

CHAPTER TWO

      THE CHILL ATE into Mallory Blair’s bones. The waiting room was empty except for an old man asleep on a couch. He was wrapped in about three dozen blankets and a plump pillow. She found herself fixated on those blankets, wishing for something warm to wrap around her.

      Not a blanket to envelop her.

      A pair of arms.

      Not a pillow under her head.

      A strong, rocklike shoulder.

      She’d been here before—not here, not in this hospital. All she could think when she took in the institutional furnishings, the flickering fluorescent lights overhead, the overwhelming scent of citrus cleaner, was another hospital. The hospital where a doctor had come out and hemmed and hawed and finally told her that Mom and Dad were gone.

      In one instant, the world she’d known—comfortable, secure, a future ahead of her— went poof. She’d gone from being—

      Admit it, Mallory. You were a spoiled brat who had no clue how much you depended on your parents.

      She hadn’t been all alone then.

      Katelyn had been with her.

      Mallory swallowed the sob pent up in her chest. If it came out, if she started crying, she’d lose it. She’d cry for hours or days or a lifetime, and she couldn’t do that. She had to be strong. She had to think and concentrate on what the doctor said.

      If the doctor ever came back out.

      What if she comes back out and tells you Katelyn’s gone?

      Mallory was still trying to wrap her head around the little she knew. One minute she’d been hanging the new shipment of holiday dresses on the rack, running her steamer over them to remove the creases and folds, and the next, some stranger on a phone was telling her...

      Accident, fire, medical evacuation by helicopter to a burn unit halfway across the state.

      And here...after a two-hour drive through twisty Georgia roads she didn’t know, to find the right hospital in a city full of hospitals...

      Down the hall came loud laughter. The corridor was full to bursting with a huge family, tumbling over one another like a box full of rambunctious puppies, more like a family reunion than a crisis. They’d had good news, she guessed. That or they were trying to put the horror of the moment out of their minds.

      I should have never let Katelyn talk me into letting her skip her senior year and go on to college in Waverly. I should have insisted she choose a college closer to home. I should have found the money to pay for the dorm, not that firetrap of a house. It’s my fault—I pushed for that resident’s exemption for her, just to save money, and I shouldn’t have.

      Mallory’s stomach rumbled. It confounded her

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