of and behind the house, was also on fire, probably due to an errant spark from the burning building or stray bits of airborne, smoldering ash. Rolls of opaque black smoke bled from a number of broken windows around the base of the house.
While his colleagues advanced the hose lines, Boone went to work on the ladders. As far as he could see, the flames were confined to the lower level of the house for now, but they would still have to be quick in their search of the second floor above the fire. He noted one window on the side of the house was open, in spite of the cool October night, and, determining it to be the most likely place to find a resident, he called to another firefighter and suggested they enter the house there.
Immediately after crawling through the window, he was surrounded by smoke, but his vision was still clear enough for him to make out a bed. An empty bed. Its covers were rumpled and kicked to the foot, however, as if someone had awakened and left in a hurry.
A quick search of the two other rooms upstairs revealed one to be a home office of sorts, with a personal computer on the desk whose screen saver still danced and glowed eerily through the dark haze of smoke. The other room was evidently a spare bedroom, unused if the still-made bed was any indication. Exiting that one, Boone nodded to his partner in the search, and the two men headed for the stairway at the end of the hall.
At the foot of the stairs, he found a woman. Initially, he thought her unconscious, but when he rolled her over, she groaned, and he could see that she was barely hanging on.
“Morgan!” he called into the radio he carried to alert the firefighters outside of the progress inside. “I got a woman just inside the front door—foot of the steps!”
“No other victims found,” a voice crackled over the radio in response. “No one’s been able to get into the basement—that’s the source of the fire. But the neighbors said she lives by herself. Shouldn’t be anyone else in there.”
“Well, that’s something, anyway,” he said to himself, relieved that this rescue, at least, would be uneventful. The woman on the floor was small and slender, seemingly without weight, so he easily scooped her up into his arms.
He exited through the front door, and carried the semiconscious woman across the front lawn toward the street, then lay her effortlessly on the grass. When she groaned again, a sputtering cough erupted, and she flailed one hand in front of herself as if she were trying to physically grab hold of the fresh air. To help her out, Boone went back to the ladder truck to retrieve the oxygen they carried on all the rigs, returned to the woman and cupped the clear mask over her mouth.
As he monitored her breathing and waited for the ambulance, he noted the brown-and-black teddy bear she held clenched in one hand. It was threadbare in spots, ragged in others, and a fierce, hot fury gripped him at what her possession of the toy might mean. She coughed and sputtered some more, tears spilling freely from her eyes, but unable to wait any longer, Boone snatched the mask off her face and pulled her to a sitting position.
“Lady,” he said, giving her a quick shake to help rouse her. “You’re okay. But I need to know if there’s anyone else inside the house.”
A new series of rough, ragged coughs rocked her for a minute, and more tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving stark, clean streaks in the soot that smudged her face. Then she looked up and gazed at him with wide, panicked eyes, eyes that were so big and so blue, he nearly forgot for a moment where he was. Hastily, he brushed the odd sensation off and reminded himself that he had a job to do.
“Mack,” the woman whispered hoarsely, the single word barely audible. She stared vacantly at the burning building for a moment, then riveted her gaze to Boone’s with an intensity that shook him to his core. “Mack is still inside the house.”
Great, Boone thought. Why was he not surprised? Her rescue had been too easy, too neat. Evidently she didn’t live alone after all. Obviously her neighbors didn’t know her as well as they thought they did. Or maybe she just had a boyfriend they didn’t know about.
“Is Mack your husband?” he barked out, the roar of the flames behind them growing louder, threatening to drown out their voices. “Your boyfriend?”
She started coughing again, then stared at him, obviously still confused and uncertain. “My husband?” she finally repeated, her expression bewildered, those blue, blue eyes gradually sharpening their focus a bit. “No, I—I’m divorced. And I don’t have a...a boyfriend. Mack is my—” She seemed to recall the gravity of the situation then, because she grabbed his coat savagely and cried, “Mack! My God, he’s still in there!”
With one strong hand, she jerked Boone down until his face was within inches of hers, and her eyes filled with tears again. “You’ve got to get him out of there. Mack is all I have left. He’s...he’s...” She began to cry in earnest then. “God, he’s only three years old! Please...you have to help him!”
Boone’s entire body went rigid. “Where was he the last time you saw him?”
“Asleep on the couch in the living room,” she said, crying freely now, her sobs blurring her words. “He was sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake him when I went to bed, so I Just left him alone. I...I... Oh, no...”
Something hot and coarse knotted in Boone’s belly. Once more, he noted the teddy bear the woman clenched in the hand that wasn’t gripping his coat. He hadn’t seen a child’s bedroom, nor any other indication of a child’s occupancy, save the teddy bear in the woman’s death grip.
But they hadn’t made it down to the basement, he reminded himself, a sick feeling gnawing at his belly when he remembered the radio announcement that the other firefighters hadn’t been able to make it down there. That’s where her child’s room must be. Good thing she’d left him sleeping on the couch, Boone thought. Otherwise the kid would have been a goner.
Man, a kid, he thought wildly. There was still a kid in there.
“Where’s your living room?” he demanded. “Where’s the couch he was sleeping on?”
The woman seemed to snap out of her stupor some, because her next directions were offered with some degree of coherency and a great deal of demand. “Turn left when you go through the front door. The couch is on the far side of the room.”
Boone nodded. “Okay, we’ll get him out. You stay put. Thompson!” he shouted out to one of the other firefighters nearest the front door. He heaved himself away from the woman, shoved his helmet visor back down over his face and began to race toward the burning house. “There’s a kid inside! We’re going back in for a kid!”
Boone had fought enough fires that watching his back was second nature. What other people might consider a terrifying situation was just another job for him to do. Usually. But when there was a kid involved, something inside him got anxious. Something inside him got scared. Something inside him got wary.
This time when he entered the house, it was with a single-minded intent to locate a three-year-old boy.
The general rule of thumb in his line of work was that where victims of fires were concerned, adults acted like dogs, and children acted like cats. While the former tended to run, the latter would normally hide. Boone hoped like hell this kid wasn’t an expert at hide-and-seek. Otherwise, they were both going to wind up toast.
Left, he reminded himself as he passed over the threshold and into an incinerator. She told you to turn left.
When
