But then Sydney saw that he'd pried off the hot and cold water knobs, and her heart sank.
'C'mon, there's more to do,' Aidan said, nodding toward the bathroom door.
Biting her lip, Sydney gave one last look at the young woman in the tub. As Aidan led her back toward the living room, she felt the soaked carpet squishing beneath her feet. Her hand strayed toward her pocket.
He stopped in front of the coffee table, where he'd set out the family album for her to find--along with those awful Polaroids and his old modeling shots and contact sheets.
'Did you like my pictures, Sydney?' he asked. 'Wasn't I a beautiful kid?'
Nodding, she inched her fingers into her pocket. 'Of course you were, Aidan.'
'Take some of those eight by tens and the contact sheets and roll them up for me, real tight--so it's like a baton.'
Reluctantly, Sydney took her hand out of her pocket. She put down the can of charcoal starter and did what he'd told her to do. She realized she was making a torch for him.
'All right, now, soak one end of it in the charcoal starter,' he said. 'I never did like any of those pictures. They just reminded me of how she used me.'
Sydney squirted more of the flammable liquid on the rolled-up photos. The smell of it was starting to make her ill. All the while, she heard a sound from down the corridor: the elevator humming. Maybe Joe was on his way.
Aidan watched her every move. 'Okay, now, put down the charcoal starter and hand me the baton you just made.'
Trembling, Sydney complied. In the distance, she could hear the elevator doors whoosh open, and then a faint
Aidan grinned. 'Well, I think that might be your Joe to the rescue...'
'Joe, watch out!' she screamed. 'It's a trap! He's got a gun--'
Before she could get another word out, Aidan slammed the butt of his revolver against the side of her head.
Stunned, Sydney fell to the floor. It took a moment for her to focus again. She blinked and saw Aidan hovering by the half-open door, the homemade baton in one hand and his gun poised in the other.
'Joe, look out!' she yelled.
Just then, he came to the doorway.
Aidan fired the gun twice. The loud shots reverberated in the near-empty living room. Joe darted back toward the corridor--out of sight. There was a heavy thumping from footsteps.
Sydney couldn't tell whether or not he'd been hit. Struggling to her feet, she reached for the pepper spray in her pocket. She still wasn't sure what had happened to Joe. But Aidan had tucked the gun under his arm and now set a lighter to the makeshift torch.
Lunging toward him, Sydney doused him with the pepper spray.
The torch-baton exploded and flames crawled up Aidan's arm. Shrieking in terror, he dropped the gun and the makeshift torch. The photos used to assemble it separated and fluttered around the room. Sections of carpet soaked with the charcoal starter now ignited, and the flames licked up at the walls. Screaming, Aidan hit his arm again and again to extinguish the fire eating away at his flesh. He weaved over toward the window and tried to smother the flames with the curtains.
Sydney spotted the revolver on the floor, and she dove for it.
The room filled with smoke, and a fire detector let out a shrill monotonous beep. The Monopoly money drifted around her--some of the bills were on fire.
Pulling herself up, Sydney glanced over toward the door. She still didn't know whether Joe was alive, dead, or wounded. She heard someone coughing, but it sounded like the woman in the bathroom. The smoke and flames in the next room had become so thick Sydney could barely see anything past the bedroom doorway. In all the confusion, she'd lost sight of Aidan.
Then she spotted him again--by the open window. His arm was charred and bloody. But he was staring at her, half-smiling.
Sydney aimed the gun at him, but she knew as well as he must have, she couldn't pull the trigger.
He just nodded at her, and then started out to the window ledge.
'No!' she screamed.
'You can't save me this time, Sydney,' he said. 'You can't even save yourself.'
Aidan climbed out the eighth-story window, then pushed himself off the ledge.
For a few moments after that, everything was a blur. Someone set off the building's fire alarm. The shrill beeps and the constant ringing assaulted her ears. Black smoke swelled from the blaze in the bedroom, and yet Sydney blindly made her way in there--and then to the bathroom. Somehow, the flames hadn't moved across the tiled bathroom floor, but the room was swelteringly hot and red ashes darted around her like incendiary moths.
The young woman in the tub had managed to untie the black cord around her ankles, and now she struggled to her feet. But she was disoriented, and coughing from all the smoke.
Grabbing a robe off the hook on the bathroom door, Sydney plunged it in the toilet and then quickly wrapped it around the young woman.
Sydney felt a blast of heat as she led the girl out of the bathroom. Her hair was singed. Flames began to lash at her legs and arms. She could barely see anything in all the thick black smoke. She tried not to breathe it into her lungs. It felt as if she were being strangled.
Suddenly, someone covered her and the young woman with a blanket and guided them out of the bedroom's inferno. She knew it was Joe. Past the murky blackness and the shrill, deafening alarms, she sensed it was him. Joe led them toward the door. As they fled the smoke-filled apartment, the blanket slipped and she finally glimpsed him. His face was scorched red in spots, and burn marks covered his arms.
Sydney clung to him as they hurried toward the stairwell with the young woman. The stairs were crammed with people making their escape. Coughing and gagging, Sydney couldn't quite get a breath. 'Just another couple of flights, honey!' she heard Joe scream. But she could barely hear him over the alarm--and now, sirens. They finally made their way outside, where fire engines sped up the street.
Sydney coughed and coughed until she spit up a black bilelike substance. Everything hurt. Her eyes had dried up, and she kept blinking so she could focus on what was happening around her. She saw the dazed young woman plop down on the little stretch of lawn in front of Rikki's building.
A bit farther down, she noticed Aidan's broken body sprawled on the sidewalk. Sydney winced. The poor, abused, little boy who had wanted to die fourteen years ago had finally realized his ambition.
'You okay, honey?' she heard Joe ask.
Nodding, Sydney at last caught her breath. She wiped some soot away from her face and worked up a smile for him.
It looked as if Joe was trying to smile back at her. But he started to cough. Blood spilled over his lips.
Panic-stricken, Sydney stared at him, and for the first time she noticed the bloodstain on his shirt--along with a small hole, where the bullet had ripped through to his stomach. He staggered forward, and she caught him in her arms.
'I--I'm sorry,' he gasped.
Under his weight, Sydney collapsed to the ground, but she managed to sit up and cradle him in her arms. 'Oh, no, no, no,' she cried, rocking him.
'Tell Eli I'm sorry, too,' he whispered.
Sydney kissed his forehead and touched his cheek. She helplessly watched him slip away. She couldn't save him.
All she could do was hold on to Joe's hand as he took his last breath.
EPILOGUE
