sorry,” she said firmly. “She’s not ready. I wanted you aware that she has begun to speak, that’s all. When I’m sure she can handle it, I’ll let you know.”
They sparred some more, with her the winner—although she wasn’t so sure she would have been if either investigator knew how to lay his hands on Chloe while Trina was tied up with her patients.
* * *
TRINA AWAKENED WITH a start. Her phone must be ringing, she thought blearily as she reached out to grope for it on the bedside table. If that annoying Detective Risvold was calling again—
Except...did she smell smoke? With returning consciousness, she realized the shrill scream wasn’t the phone. A fire alarm downstairs had been set off, and suddenly the one in the hall up here began to squeal, too.
Trina shot up to a sitting position, fear punching her in the belly. Her eyes watered, and when she inhaled again, she bent forward coughing. There was a sharp undertone to the smell that she knew she ought to recognize.
Chloe!
Trina grabbed her phone and dropped to the floor. She crawled faster than she’d known she could to the door and into the hall. Even in the dark, she could tell the smoke was thicker here, and she heard the roar of fire. Heat radiated from the staircase, and when she turned her head, she saw flame burning up the wall.
No escape that way.
She crawled into Chloe’s room and kicked the door shut behind her. Block the crack at the bottom. She’d read that advice before. A door could slow the flames.
Nothing she could use lay in easy reach. Like Trina, Chloe seemed to be obsessively tidy by nature, which meant no dirty clothes strewed the floor. Trina gave it up temporarily and pushed herself up. Heart beating wildly, she hit the light switch, but nothing happened. Then she ran to the bed and shook the small figure that formed a lump beneath the covers.
“Chloe! Wake up!”
A snuffling sound was her only answer—and if anything Chloe drew herself into a tighter ball.
Trina yanked back the bedcovers. “The house is on fire.” Somehow she kept her voice calm. “We have to get out.”
The three-year-old sat up. “I don’t know how to get out,” she whispered, and then jerked. “Look!”
Trina turned to see the orange glow already beneath the door. How could the fire move so fast? She yanked the comforter off Chloe’s bed and hurried to cram it against the base of the door. Then she said, “We have to go out the window.”
Nothing to it, she thought semihysterically. She unlocked and lifted the sash window, peering down at lawn that in early April was still winter brown and probably rock hard. She could scream for help...but what if men who had set the fire came instead of neighbors?
Gasoline, that’s what she smelled. This fire hadn’t started with a spark in the wiring or a frayed electrical cord.
After shoving the window screen until it popped out and fell, she said, “Come here, sweetie.”
Chloe obeyed, thank goodness. Trina rushed to the bed for the two pillows and, leaning out the window, dropped them to the ground. They looked puny below. What were the odds they’d help break a fall? But she couldn’t think what else to do. Remembering her phone, she picked it up and dropped it, too. It bounced off one of the pillows onto the dark ground.
A sheet. She snatched it from the bed, horrified to see that the door glowed fiery orange and was dissolving before her eyes.
Twisting the sheet into an impromptu rope, she tied one end around Chloe’s waist. Then she cupped the child’s face with her hands. “I’m going to dangle you as far as I can with the sheet, but then I’ll have to drop you. Just let yourself roll, okay?”
“No!” Chloe flung her arms around one of Trina’s legs and held on frantically. “I don’t wanna! Please! Don’t make me!”
Throat tight, chest hurting, Trina said, “We don’t have any choice.” She wrenched a squirming, fighting Chloe away. Maneuvering her out the window was a nightmare, with the sobbing child flailing and trying to grab hold of her again. Finally, she was able to start lowering her.
The sheet ran out sooner than she’d hoped. Heat seared her back. She was out of time. I have to drop her.
But somebody ran across her yard and positioned himself below the window. “Let her go. I’ve got her.”
Trina recognized the voice of a brawny young guy who still lived with his parents on the block. With a whimper, she released the sheet and saw him catch Chloe.
The fire behind her had become so intense she didn’t hesitate. She climbed out, turned and grasped the edge of the window frame...and let go.
* * *
ACHING, STILL FILTHY, grateful for the pain meds that kept her from fully feeling the burns and bruises, Trina sat holding an armful of little girl. Her position was awkward, rocked to one side so that most of her weight was almost on her hip. Her back and butt had been slathered with ointment and covered with gauze before nurses helped her put on scrubs to replace her ruined T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms.
“There’s some blistering,” the doctor had told her. “Minimal, but you had a close call.”
No kidding.
“It’s going to hurt,” he’d continued, “but if you have someone who can reapply the ointment, and if you take the pain medication as prescribed instead of trying to tough it out, I won’t insist you be admitted.”
He hadn’t asked if she had anywhere to go to, given that her house had just burned to the ground, but she’d called one of the two partners in her counseling practice. Josh Doughten and his wife, Vicky, had become good friends. Good enough to be a logical choice for her to call in the middle of the night. Plus, their two daughters were both away at college, so Trina knew they had empty bedrooms. Josh hadn’t even hesitated; he said he would get dressed and come immediately for her and Chloe.
But they wouldn’t be able to stay with the Doughtens long. She couldn’t endanger Josh and Vicky. What Trina wanted to do was jump—okay, climb slowly and carefully—into her car and drive away. Far away.
Two problems with that. Her car had been in the attached garage and was presumably part of the “total loss” the fire captain had described. Problem two? So was everything in the house, from her clothes to her purse, wallet and credit cards. The only thing she’d salvaged was her cell phone. Until she visited the Department of Motor Vehicles and the bank, she couldn’t even pay for a motel. Assuming anyone would rent a room to a crazy-looking woman with bare feet, wearing scrubs and carrying a kid who didn’t look any better than she did.
The police would probably offer her and Chloe protection, but it would come at a price. After all her effort to hold them off, they’d have the access to Chloe they’d been so desperate to get. In phone messages left in the last day and a half, initial begging had progressed to pestering and finally threatening. They didn’t understand the damage they could do to a fragile young child by trying to dig out answers too soon. And yes, Trina sympathized, but the murder victims were dead. Arresting the killers wouldn’t bring Chloe’s family back.
