Rusty Nail

CHAPTER 9

I RANG DIANE Kork’s doorbell again, not expecting an answer. The tattoo match in both videos was enough to suggest a crime had been committed, giving me probable cause to enter her house without a warrant. The front door was heavy wood, dead-bolted, and I doubted even my best tae kwon do spin-kick would open it.

The neighborhood was dark, quiet, parked cars lining the unlit street. Kork’s house was typical for Chicago, a two-story red brick duplex with a black iron fence encircling a postage-stamp-sized lot. Similar buildings bookended this one, less than two yards between them. I walked down the porch stairs and took the narrow walkway to the rear of the house, looking for a basement window to break.

The windows along the side had decorative bars on them. I followed the perimeter, advancing into the backyard, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. We were in the heart of downtown, but with the lack of any lights it might as well have been the woods.

The backyard also had a porch, with two small windows framing the back door. I climbed the wooden stairs, tugging my.38 from my holster, keeping my elbow bent and the barrel pointed up.

Two things hit me at once: the smell of smoke, and the orange light flickering through a crack in the drapes.

Fire.

I tried the door. Locked, but the knob was cool. Switching the grip on my revolver, I tapped the glass out of the left-hand window and yanked the curtains through, smoothing them over the ragged shards.

“Police! Is there anyone in here?”

No answer. I tasted hot, foul air, shoved my gun back in my holster, yanked out my cell, and dialed 911. Then I pulled myself through the window.

I fell into the kitchen hands first, palming the linoleum floor and dragging myself along until my feet followed. Two countertops, and the floor in front of me, were ablaze, and the flames seemed to notice my arrival and launched themselves at me.

Smart move, Jack, breaking a window and feeding the flames with O₂.

I reached behind me in a panic, pulling the heavy drapes over my head, feeling bits of glass caress my hair, just as the fire surrounded me.

It got stifling hot, like I’d crawled into an oven. My fingers singed, and I released the burning drapes and rolled toward the door, becoming tangled in flaming, smoking fabric.

My head popped through the front, and a patch of my hair stuck to the melting floor. I peeked through one eye, noting I’d rolled through the worst of it, but the curtains cocooning me were sporting some serious flames of their own. Plus, whatever the curtains were made of, it didn’t burn cleanly, and choking brown fumes clouded my eyes and provoked a coughing fit.

First things first. I freed my left arm and tried to unwind the curtains, grabbing for the patches of fabric that weren’t on fire yet.

A wave of heat turned my attention to the right, and I witnessed the flames lick up the wall, enveloping the window I’d gone through. No exit there.

My eyes were useless now, my nose running like I’d turned on a faucet, and my coughs racked with phlegm. What kind of material were these curtains made from? Arsenic? I knew I’d choke to death before I burned to death, so I tore away the fabric, kicking and clawing, getting singed over and over until I was finally free.

I coughed, and spit, and crawled through the doorway. My left hand screamed at me, and I squinted at it but couldn’t make out the burns from the soot. I made a fist. It hurt, but was still functional.

Still on my knees, I took a quick look around and figured out I was in the living room. The ceiling was obscured by a thick cloud of gray smoke, and the walls looked like reverse waterfalls; flames flowing upward rather than water coming down. And the noise – a sort of low roaring sound, mixed in with the crackle of a billion dry leaves. Loud enough to mask my coughing. The sound of raging fire.

Twenty feet away, I saw the lower half of a doorway. I scrambled toward it on all fours, ignoring the pain in my burned hand, getting within fifteen feet… ten feet…

Two legs cut through the smoke and appeared in the doorway, obscured from the knees up. They wore loose jeans and construction boots, unlaced.

“Police!” I croaked, fumbling for my holster.

I heard the shot at the same moment I felt it, an explosive BOOM passing the right side of my head. I cleared leather and drew a bead, firing three shots at the center mass of the shooter just as the legs darted back.

My head rang with a deep resonation that shut out the sounds of the flames. I rolled right, on my stomach, keeping my gun on the doorway. I waited fifteen seconds. Thirty seconds.

My feet got hot, and I chanced a quick look and saw the fire creeping up behind me. I was about to be engulfed.

I crawled forward, using my legs and my burned hand, my.38 still trained ahead of me. The smoke had filled the room, hovering so low, it was in my face. I fired once more through the doorway, and then got on my feet and ran through it in a crouch.

A quick glance around showed me my mistake.

I’d run right into hell.