Rusty Nail

CHAPTER 10

ALEX FROWNS AT the miscalculation. The front door, the escape route, is an inferno, a giant wall of flame that is impossible to get through. The other two windows facing the street are also blazing.

There is no way out.

Alex thinks for a moment, then dashes through the haze and up the stairs. Visibility is poor, and it’s hard to breathe, but Alex remembers that the master bedroom has a window facing the street. A window that opens onto the roof.

A gunshot, from downstairs. Jack is still alive. Doubtful she will be for long, though.

Eyes burning and teary, Alex squeezes them closed and feels along the wall, eventually arriving at the bedroom. The latch opens easily, and Alex pulls up the window with enough force to crack the frame.

The cool Chicago air is like honey. Alex sucks down a breath, wiping away soot from stinging eyes. Walking onto the roof is ridiculously easy, and Alex follows the gutter around to the rear of the house.

Sirens pierce the night, closing in from all directions. Alex gets down on all fours and scoots to the edge of the roof. The drop is about twenty feet, onto grass, but the gutter looks sturdy.

Gripping the aluminum, Alex swings over the side and hangs for a moment before falling to the ground.

Ankles tight together, knees bent, Alex hits the earth hard but unharmed. Alex ponders for a moment – the suitcase is still in the house, but there’s nothing in it that can’t be replaced.

Jack is also still in the house.

Not the way Alex had intended for Jack to die, but a fitting way to end the lieutenant’s life. Choking, burning, and panicked. What more could a gal ask for?

Digging keys from a front pocket, Alex enters the garage, opens the garage door, and hops into the rental car. The sirens are deafening now. Alex starts the car and guns the engine.

A quick left down the alley proves to be a mistake; there’s an enormous fire engine blocking the exit. Alex checks the rearview and sees another truck, also crammed onto the narrow alley.

Leaving on foot isn’t an option. There are things in the trunk. Incriminating things.

Alex jams the accelerator to the floor and the tires screech. Between the fire engine and the building is a small gap. It doesn’t look wide enough to get a car through, but Alex has to try.

Twenty.

Thirty.

At forty miles an hour the car reaches the gap and Alex grips the steering wheel in iron hands. There’s some yelling – firefighters pointing at the car – and a clunking noise as both the driver’s-side and passenger’s-side mirrors tear from the chassis, but Alex makes it through the hole, clips a fireman and sends him spinning into his truck, and then speeds down Hamilton, grinning like the devil himself.