Fireproof

CHAPTER 75

Maggie’s badge got her past the first set of barricades. She stopped herself at the second set, fear turning her knees to mush and panic making it hard to breathe. So much smoke, and the flames kept swallowing more and more. She could see that the house next door was completely engulfed. Her house was filled with angry black clouds of smoke.

“Ma’am, you can’t go any farther.” A firefighter stood in front of her.

She held up her badge.

“It’s still not safe for you to go any closer, Agent …” He bent down to look at her ID. “Agent O’Dell.”

“It’s my house.” It came out in a whisper. She wasn’t even sure she had said it out loud.

“O’Dell.”

She didn’t look up at him but she could tell he was putting it together. Every firefighter in the area probably knew all the details about these arsons.

“The CNN piece,” he said. “Good God, he came after you, too.”

“Please, can you tell me if anyone made it out?” Her voice cracked over the lump in her throat. She had been so frantic about Patrick, only now did she realize Harvey and Jake had been inside, too. In a matter of one night, all her prized possessions and companions gone. Up in smoke.

“No one’s come out. We’re still trying to get inside both houses.”

“The house next door is for sale. I believe it’s empty.”

“That’s what we thought, too, but we heard a dog barking, insisting someone was inside. We’ve got a crew trying to bust in the back.”

“Wait a minute. A dog?”

He nodded. “Big black shepherd.”

“Jake,” she said, and smiled. “Jake made it out.”

She saw two firemen carrying a body from the backyard of the empty house. Just then a blast of flames shot through Maggie’s roof.

“I’ve got to go,” the firefighter told her, already racing up her lawn.

She sat, actually collapsed onto the curb. She could feel the heat of the flames even from back here. She buried her face in her hands and tried to drown out the tromping of boots, the yells of the rescue crews, more sirens.

She had been worried about shadows following her in the parking garage and all the while the bastard was here. Right here at her house, setting it on fire.

She felt the hand on her shoulder at the same time a wet muzzle pressed under her chin.

“I couldn’t save the front. But I sprayed the hell out of the back.”

She looked up to see Patrick, his face smeared with soot, his white T-shirt torn and gray, his eyes watery and red. Both Harvey and Jake were with him.

Maggie stood on wobbly knees. “It’s just a house,” she said and hugged him. “The most important things I have are right here.”