Preston was gone. Fire engulfed the cabin. Smoke billowed into the sky, casting an eerie glow. It was crazy! Those streaks of fire…like fuses…what was happening? As she watched, headlights came on about a quarter of a mile away, brushing the treetops with their probing beams.
No one answered at Sandi Jameson’s apartment. Willow picked up a decorative flowerpot on the porch and flung it through the glass pane in the door. The crash of shattering glass should have awakened anyone inside.
“Sandi?” she shouted through the gaping hole. “Fire! Get out of there. Now!” She reached through the window, fumbled for the door latch and snapped it open, catching her right arm on a glass shard as she withdrew her hand. The sharp point sliced through the tender flesh of her inner forearm.
Gasping, she bent over with the shock of pain. There was no time to deal with it. She shoved her way inside. No light, no one came running into the room. Could they be gone?
She rushed through a kitchen cluttered with dirty dishes and trash of unbelievable proportions, past the living room. She found her way to the bedrooms at the far west end of the hall.
“Sandi!”
She heard a startled squeal through one of the doors and burst inside to find Sandi’s two little girls, Brittany and Lucy, huddled together on the lower level of a set of bunk beds. They wore tattered, oversize T-shirts for nightgowns.
“Girls, it’s okay,” Willow said, rushing to them. “We’ve got to get out of this apartment now. Where’s your mother?”
“Sissy, she’s bloody!” five-year-old Brittany wailed, clinging to her older sister.
Willow looked down at her right arm and saw the blood dripping at a rate that alarmed her. “It’s okay, honey. I’ll take care of it later. Right now we’ve got to get you out of here. Please tell me where your mother is.”
“Not here,” said seven-year-old Lucy. “We can’t leave the apartment. Mom said never leave the apartment when she’s not here.”
“Your mother’s gone?”
The girls stared at her, one pair of green eyes and one pair of brown eyes wide with apprehension.
“Your mother will want you to leave this time,” Willow said. “I need to get you out of here to safety. You can trust me. I’m not going to hurt you.” She reached for Brittany, who cried out and backed away, staring at Willow’s arm.
“But what’s wrong? What’s happening?” Lucy asked.
“Preston’s cabin is on fire.” Willow forced her voice to remain gentle and reassuring, though she felt anything but calm. “We need to get you out of here because the cabin is too close to the lodge.”
“A fire?” Brittany wailed.
“It’s okay, I’ll get you to safety.” Willow would deal with the negligent mother later. She switched on the overhead light and reached into the connecting bathroom for a towel.
In deference to the squeamish child, she wrapped her wound with the not-so-clean towel, then scooped the youngster into her arms and grabbed the older sister’s hand. “Girls, you’ll have to trust me. This way.”
Brittany trembled in Willow’s arms, but held tightly around her neck and burrowed against her shoulder.
There were more people who needed to be warned. Would she reach them all in time?
Graham Vaughn snapped awake at the first trill of his cell phone on the bedside stand. He wasn’t on call tonight, but still he reacted instinctively, like one of Pavlov’s beleaguered animals, when he heard that particular sound. Somehow he’d expected to break that unwelcome habit when he left the practice.
He’d obviously been demented to even consider such a possibility. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d stopped taking patients—he’d just stopped getting paid for it.
He glanced at the numbers on his clock. Two thirty-five. He grabbed the cell phone, but didn’t recognize the number on the screen. A patient in trouble? He pressed the green button. “This is Dr. Vaughn.”
“Graham, it’s Preston. I need help. My cabin is on fire and it could spread at any minute.”
The news didn’t register for a moment. “Uh, Preston?”
“Did you hear me?” The man’s voice rose in panic. “Fire!”
Graham lurched from the bed and reached for the clothes he’d dropped onto the floor three hours ago. “I’ll be there. Have you called 9-1-1?”
“Yes. Help is on its way, but there are two other fires in the Branson area tonight. They’re shorthanded. Hollister’s responding, but I think we’ll need some extra hands to help us evacuate, and the renters will need a place to stay tonight. Can you get here in time?”
“I’m on my way now. Where are you?” Graham pulled on his jeans with one-handed awkwardness, then reached for his shirt, shoving his feet into a pair of sneakers. Preston was right—Graham couldn’t possibly get there in time to help with evacuation, but he was ultimately responsible.
“Down below at Two B. I’m using Carl Mackey’s cell phone.” There was a sound of pounding, then Preston’s voice as he shouted for the occupant.
Graham had purchased the lodge at a greatly reduced price last year and had invested a good deal of sweat equity in it since then. He’d spared no expense on safety, and in spite of the high rent, Preston, his manager, had filled all the units in record time.
People liked to live in the country, except for times like this, when help was farther away.
“Has it spread past the cabin?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Preston said.
“It shouldn’t. We took every precaution when we refurbished that lodge.”
“You’re right, it shouldn’t spread naturally,” Preston said. “But this monster doesn’t look natural to me. I’ve never seen green grass burn either, until tonight.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this doesn’t look accidental. Look, I’ve got to go,” Preston said. “Rick Fenrow’s not answering his door, and I didn’t think he was scheduled to work tonight. Carl’s gone up to see if Rick’s car’s in the carport.”
“Okay, but be careful. Don’t let anyone go back inside for belongings. And don’t you go back in for anything.”
“No chance of that. My place is an inferno. If my sister hadn’t awakened, we wouldn’t have made it out. Got to go.”
The connection ended. Graham shoved the phone into his shirt pocket, then immediately retrieved it. He pressed a number he knew well and grabbed his jacket on the way out the front door.
He ran down the hillside from his house and pounded across the wooden dock that stretched out into the private cove that fed into Table Rock Lake. He was jumping onto his jet bike when the groggy voice of his friend splintered a half-conscious greeting through his cell
