Riptide

thirty-seven

Fire.

He’d started a fire in the house, and the old wood, the antique furniture, the century-old drywall would go up like so much tinder.

She pushed on the trapdoor, trying to force it open, but made no headway.

The smell of smoke was stronger. She was going to die in here. Die in the House of Silence.

She ought to have been afraid. What she felt was rage.

Since childhood she’d been trapped in this house, trapped by memories and family history, bloodlines and madness. She’d tried to make peace with the past, but still it smothered her, choked off her life like the tendrils of smoke curling through the crack in the door.

Maura was right. Family loyalty was not a suicide pact.

And she was damned if she would let this goddamned house kill her now.

She braced her shoulder against the trapdoor and shoved with more strength than she’d known she had.

And the door moved. Only an inch, but it yielded. Red glare, flickering wildly, shone through the gap.

Then the weight of the sofa overwhelmed her, and the trapdoor dropped shut again.

The house still wouldn’t let her go. It would hold her till the end.

“Fuck you!” she screamed.

She tried again, lifting the door two or three inches. The cellar brightened, waves of heat pulsing through the opening like the blast of an oven, the sofa’s legs grinding in protest as they shuddered across the pantry floor.

She was going to do it. Another few seconds-

The sofa stopped with a thud.

She strained against the trapdoor, but the sofa surrendered no more ground.

It must have hit the wall. It was wedged in place. She couldn’t move it.

Maybe she didn’t have to. Though the door wasn’t fully raised, there was an opening that might be wide enough to crawl through.

She wriggled through the gap, twisting and turning as she hauled herself into an orange blaze thick with clots of smoke.

Halfway out now, her upper body stretched across the floor, only her hips and legs still trapped below. She was caught on something. Her fingers probed for the snag. Found it-her blouse, speared by splinters of wood around the smashed dead bolt. She tore her shirt free and climbed the rest of the way out, snaking past the sofa, then rising to her feet, bent double to keep her head low and avoid the worst of the smoke.

In the pantry there was a fire extinguisher. She grabbed it before heading into the living room. The walls and drapes were ablaze. Everything was on fire, the heat beyond belief.

With the fire extinguisher, she might be able to get through the scrim of flame that hung between her and the front door. But Casey was still in the house.

She turned toward the rear hallway. Both sides were blazing, but a narrow aisle down the middle remained open.

Gulping air, fighting the sting of tears from the acrid smoke, she plunged into the corridor.

The heat here was even more intense. It was like standing on the sun. Lurid red-orange glare surrounded her. Choking smoke hung in gray drifts of poison cloud. She couldn’t breathe, the air was too hot, it seared her throat. Squinting against smoke and light, she squeezed the fire extinguisher’s handle. The white spray cleared a path as she made her way down the hall.

The cylinder was getting lighter, its contents disappearing all too quickly. She moved faster, trying to ration the remaining spray but needing it to make any progress at all. She stumbled once, on a floorboard warping in the heat, and nearly fell. Time slowed as she struggled for balance, knowing that if she fell against the wall she would be instantly immersed in flame.

Somehow she kept her footing and reached the end of the hall. The study lay to one side. Before her was the back door. The instinct to flee into the backyard was almost irresistible. She willed herself to enter the study.

Casey was there, the broken lamp alongside him on the floor. There was no fire in here, not yet. She could breathe. She drew in a great swallow of air, too much, and coughed uncontrollably, expelling a viscid stream of black ooze.

The fire extinguisher was empty. She pitched it aside, crouched, felt Casey’s head, found a bulbous bruise on his scalp. No blood, no indication that his skull had been opened. A sluggish pulse beat in the carotid artery at the side of his neck.

He lay face down, eyes shut. She shook him. Slapped his cheek. No response. And the room was getting hotter, smokier, the flames advancing this way.

She shouted in his ear. “Casey!”

He groaned, and his eyelids twitched, but he was still out.

She couldn’t rouse him. And he was too big and heavy for her to carry. But she could drag him. Maybe.

She rolled him onto his back, grabbed his arms and tried pulling him across the floor. Damn, he weighed a ton. He was weighted down by boots and belt, and she didn’t have time to strip him of his gear. The room was becoming an oven, and the smoke was thicker, and there was an awful stink in the air.

Gasoline. That was what she smelled.

Now she understood how the flames had spread so fast. She didn’t know where Parkinson had obtained the gas, and she couldn’t stop to puzzle it out now. All she knew was that the house would be completely engulfed in flame before long.

She struggled with Casey, fighting to haul him across the carpet, but it seemed impossible to make any progress. She had exhausted much of her strength, and the heat and smoke were rapidly sapping what was left.

She wouldn’t leave him, though. She would rather die than abandon him to burn.

The muscles of her arms and back screamed with effort. Somehow she managed to drag him to the doorway of the study.

The main part of the hall was fully ablaze now. No going back that way. But the fire hadn’t reached the very rear of the house, except for a few smoldering spots ignited by wafted embers.

She might have a chance, if she could get him to the back door.

Again she tried to rouse him. “Casey, wake up!”

Casey mumbled something, but when she peeled back one eyelid, his eye was still rolled up in its socket.

If she’d had water, she would have splashed it in his face, but there was no water, only heat and smoke and flame.

She took his arms and resumed pulling. She got him halfway through the door of the study before his gun belt caught on the frame. It cost her precious seconds to work him free.

More embers floated past like clouds of fireflies. Spot fires were breaking out. The rear of the house was starting to catch. She dared a glance toward the back door and saw sparks falling lazily onto the surrounding walls, setting the wallpaper aflame.

She had him out of the study now. She ran to the back door. Parkinson had left it unlocked. She tried to pull it open. It wouldn’t yield. She tugged harder at the knob, but the door remained stuck.

The heat must have warped the frame, wedging the door, sealing it shut. She couldn’t get it open. She couldn’t get out.

She turned to face the hallway, a tunnel of roaring flame.

Fear left her, and anger, and desperation. She saw how simple it was.

She was going to die here. It was how she’d always been meant to die. The house had wanted her all of these years. It had bided its time, and now at last it would claim her as its prize.

She returned to Casey, knelt by him. The heat was very bad. She wondered which would kill her first, heat or fumes or flames.

She hoped it wasn’t the flames. Burning to death-that was a bad way to go. But it didn’t matter.

“I tried, Casey,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

The door crashed open.

An inrush of air from outside, a shout of flame from the hall, and a hand grasping hers, pulling her to her feet.

Draper.

“Go!” he shouted.

The door leaned on broken hinges. He’d smashed it open with a chair from her patio, a piece of heavy cast iron lawn furniture.

When she glanced back, she saw him lifting Casey, hooking an arm around his waist and carrying him. It looked so easy.

He hauled Casey outside, joining her in the yard, while the house crackled and sputtered impotently behind them.

“Through the gate,” he yelled. “Out front!”

She wanted only to stop and rest in the coolness of the yard, but she knew the fire could reach them even here. If the fence started to burn, they would be trapped like penned animals.

She almost tripped over something at her feet. Her lawn mower, disassembled. Parkinson had taken the gas tank, used the fuel to feed the fire.

The gate came up before her, standing open-Draper had kicked it in, shattering the lock-and then she was in the front yard, on the sidewalk, collapsing by the curb, where Draper’s Crown Victoria was slant-parked, engine idling.

Some of her neighbors, newcomers she had never met, people who kept themselves hidden behind walls, were venturing into the street to watch the house burn. Sirens sounded, an ambulance or a fire engine. Across the street the evil Rottweiler howled in jubilation.

Draper arrived beside her, laying Casey on the lawn.

“He was hit on the head,” she managed to say.

The effort of speech cost her too much. She leaned forward, resting on one arm, and wheezed helplessly. She wondered how much smoke she’d inhaled, what her lungs looked like.

Her throat was horribly parched. She would have given anything for a drink of water, though she wasn’t sure she could keep it down.

“Hang on, Jen,” Draper said. “The paramedics are coming. They’ll get you and Casey to a hospital.”

But she didn’t want to go to a hospital. There was something she had to do, something important, if only she could remember what it was. She shut her eyes, and it came to her.

“Sandra Price.” Her voice was a croak.

Draper looked toward the house. “Is she in there too?”

She shook her head. “She’s the next victim.”

“He told you that?”

She nodded.

“Damn it.” Draper looked around uncertainly. “I have to intercept him. You wait here with Casey. The paramedics-”

“I’m not waiting.” She pushed herself upright. “I’m going with you.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Tough.”

She swayed a little as she made her way to Draper’s car. She climbed in on the passenger side, shutting the door with as much authority as she could muster.

“Hell.” Draper saw the futility of arguing. To the crowd he called out, “Anyone have medical training?”

“I know CPR,” one man ventured.

“Watch this officer till the EMTs arrive. Tell them he received a blow to the head and inhaled smoke.”

He slipped behind the wheel, slammed the sedan into gear, and accelerated.

Beside him, Jennifer struggled to gather her thoughts. “The killer-it’s not Richard.”

“It’s Parkinson. I know.”

“How?”

“I found some papers in Maura’s purse. She did some research downtown and took notes. Your house was originally owned-”

“By someone named Parkinson. That doesn’t explain how you knew I’d be at the house.”

“You weren’t at the station. No one knew where you’d gone, or Casey, either. The house was the first place I thought of.”

She released another flurry of coughs and spat up something into her palm. She checked it in the glow of a passing street light. The mucus was clear now, a good sign.

“He could be killing Sandra right now,” she said. “And we don’t even know where she is.”

“She’ll be at C.A.S.T. headquarters.”

“At this hour?”

“Their office is on the boardwalk. The March Festival is still going on. She always keeps her doors open late when there’s a crowd.”

That was true. Jennifer had seen it herself. “Will Parkinson know that?”

“Probably. He lives around here.”

“Does he?”

“A Venice native.”

Of course he was. He could never stray too far from his ancestral hunting ground.

“He’s armed,” she said. “He took Casey’s service pistol. Fired it three or four times. Right after I gouged his face.”

“Good for you.”

“Shouldn’t you call for backup?”

“Parkinson has a police radio. He’ll be monitoring the traffic. That must be how he knew we were at the Fortezza. If he hears the call go out, it’ll spook him. We don’t want him running. We need to end this now.”

Another coughing spell took hold of her, then subsided.

“Smoke inhalation is nothing to fool around with.” Draper sounded worried. “It can get a whole lot worse in a hurry.”

“I’m all right.”

She sank back in her seat. Her eyes burned. She wished she could douse her whole head in a basin of cool water.

“What was Casey doing there?” he asked.

“I thought I’d arranged a rendezvous with Richard. We were going to bring him in.”

“Why wasn’t I invited?”

She hesitated. “I didn’t want Richard hurt.”

“You mean, you were worried about that little squeeze play on the beach?”

“Not just that. Casey told me-well, he told me there have been civilian complaints.”

“No more than any cop gets.”

“And he said there was an incident of domestic abuse. You beat up your girlfriend.”

“Casey’s been talking out of school.”

“Look, you just saved my life. I’m not trying to cause trouble-”

“It’s okay. He’s right. I did hit her. I’d been with her for three years, and the whole time she swore up and down she was clean. Then one night I walk in on her and she’s got a fistful of coke up her nose. She’d been using, for months, behind my back. I lost it. Started yelling. She was high and crazy, and she came at me. So yeah, I hit her. Hard. Then she locked herself in a bedroom and called nine-one-one. By the time the unit arrived, she’d figured out she couldn’t press charges without copping to possession and assault. So she made up a story and the patrol guys went away. And I broke up with her.”

“I see.”

“There were better ways to handle it. I admit that. But she was violent and out of control. And she’d been lying to me. Playing me. I was pissed off. I don’t like being played.”

“Neither do I,” Jennifer said, thinking of Abberline.