dying! “Thank God!”
“What’s all the fuss? And what the hell is that nasty smell?”
“Your apartment is on fire! Thank God you’re safe! I thought you were up there. Josh tried to get in the back way, but he couldn’t. I’m just glad no one is home.” I let out a massive sigh of relief.
Owen’s face grew rigid. “Ade and Patrick are in there!” He flew to the front door and patted down his pockets. “I don’t have my key! I don’t have my key!” He jerked the doorknob back and forth and kicked the door repeatedly, but the old, heavy door didn’t budge. “Adrianna!” he started screaming. “Her group got cancelled. She’s probably in bed sleeping. Oh God!”
“Josh is getting my key right now. I called nine-one-one.” I felt sick and panicked. My best friend and my godson were trapped inside, burning to death! As Owen continued to pound on the door, I looked around frantically. I couldn’t just stand here and wait for the fire trucks. I had to do something! There were no ladders lying around, but maybe someone had left a garden hose out back. By this time of year, hoses should’ve been put away for the winter, but I was still going to look. I flew into the backyard again and, in the light from the next house, searched the foundation for a water spigot. I found it. But there was no hose. Shit! Shit! I glanced up to the third floor and choked on a sob. The smoke was getting heavier.
Without thinking, I ran to the fire escape and started up the stairs, tripping several times. My legs were shaking so violently that I could barely put one foot in front of the other without catching the toe of my boot on a stair. “Adrianna!” I cried out through my tears. Pausing on the second-floor landing, I called her name more forcibly. I had to make her hear me! I had to! I caught sight of the first visible flame as it shot from the living room window. “No!” I screamed. “No! Adrianna! Adrianna!”
Like my condo building, this house was wooden-a tinderbox. That first flame would spread in no time. I cursed the wooden fire escape, which was as vulnerable to fire as the building itself. I’d have to descend almost immediately. Still, I continued screaming for my friend and praying that Josh would return or that the fire trucks would arrive. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since I’d called, but it felt like an eternity.
Owen’s small grilling area above me was rapidly disintegrating as the fire began to grow. When a burning piece of wood dropped next to me, I kicked it off the landing, threw my arms over my head, and screamed with everything that I had in me. “Adrianna!”
“Chloe!” The male voice came from below.
I glanced down. Even in my petrified state, I was stunned. “Kyle? What-?”
My cookbook partner stood at the base of the fire escape. “Chloe, what are you doing? Get down! Get off there now!” He took a step onto the wooden stairs.
“Get away from me!” I hollered as I moved up to the next step. “You did this! You started this fire, didn’t you?” I yanked my arms out of my coat and threw it over my head in the hope of protecting myself from any more falling debris. Kyle scrambled higher until he was only a few steps away. I couldn’t go up any farther. “Josh!” I screamed. “Owen! Help me! Help me!”
“Chloe, you have to get down from there!” Kyle begged.
“Don’t get any closer to me, you psycho!” I swung my leg out as a warning. “Ade and Patrick are in there!”
“What? No! No!” He froze and stared at me, his head shaking back and forth. “Adrianna!”
Kyle lunged past me, knocking me to the side. I grabbed the railing and caught myself just before I toppled down the stairs. Frightened of Kyle and knowing that I was unable to save Adrianna and Patrick, I made my way downward. As I descended, the wail of sirens finally began to fill the air. Reaching the ground, I backed up and watched as Kyle reached the stairs to the third floor, the stairs that led to Ade and Owen’s landing. He coughed over and over as smoke swirled around him, and then he suddenly leaped the stairs, two at a time, to reach what was left of the landing and the back door.
“Kyle!” I yelled uselessly.
He blindly shot an arm forward to touch the door and screamed in pain, fell backward, and hit the railing behind him. Within a fraction of a second, the railing, none too sturdy to begin with, gave way, and Kyle plummeted three stories down and hit the ground. Feeling sick and sickeningly overwhelmed, I turned away.
Josh’s voice rang out over the sirens. I turned to see him jogging up the lawn toward me. “We got them! We got Ade and Patrick!”
“Are they okay?”
“I think so. Yeah.” Josh wrapped both arms around me and pulled me against him. “It’s all okay now.”
I clung to him tightly and buried my face in his chest. Nobody in the world could make me feel as safe and as right as Josh could. God, I had missed this feeling. “But, Josh. Look.” I pulled away and walked slowly toward Kyle. He’d landed on his back. Blood seeped from his nose and from the side of his head, and his legs were splayed at awkward angles. As I watched, he turned his head slightly; miraculously, he was alive, although maybe not for long. “Josh, get the EMTs.”
Josh nodded and took off. I knelt down next to Kyle and spread my coat across him. He was mouthing something, struggling to speak. I leaned my ear close to him.
Kyle looked up at the sky and blinked rapidly. “It wasn’t supposed to be them, you know. Right? It was supposed to be Owen. We could have been together. I could have made her happier than he could. I’d have taken care of her. You’d have taken Patrick. I know you would. You love him. You’d have been the perfect mother.”
“Just hold on, Kyle,” I said evenly.
“See, Dad?” he continued. “Now I have the wife, the beautiful wife, and cookbook, and nobody is going to ruin it this time.”
“You started the fire at Digger’s, didn’t you?” I asked softly, leadingly.
“Oh, I had to. Hank Boucher wouldn’t have liked what Digger had to say about me.” His lips curled into a small smile. “That wouldn’t have worked out at all. I think I need to rest now.”
And with that, Kyle’s head rocked to the side. I pulled the coat up over his face and walked away.
TWENTY-ONE
“WHERE’S Patrick? Who has my baby?”
“He’s right here,” I said gently. “I’ve got him. He’s fine.” I carried Patrick out from my bedroom and handed him to Adrianna.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m still freaked out.” Adrianna reached out and took Patrick from my arms. She tightened the blanket around her son and kissed the top of his head. “Thanks for letting us crash here, Chloe. Obviously we can’t live in that house any time soon.”
“I doubt you’ll ever be moving back in there, Ade.” I put my hand on her shoulder and leaned in to give her a hug.
“True. This is the opportunity that our landlords have been looking for. A good excuse to renovate the apartments back into a single-family house. I don’t know where we’ll go.”
“We’ll find you guys something. How are you feeling?” I asked. I couldn’t hide my concern. “I know the hospital wanted you two to stay only one night, but I can’t help worrying.”
Ade shrugged. “We’re fine. Physically, that is. I’m still in a bit of shock, though. I had no idea that Kyle was such a whack job.”
I nodded. Ade and Patrick were lucky to have needed only minor treatment for smoke inhalation. By the time Josh had returned from my condo with the key to Ade and Owen’s apartment, the fire had really picked up. Only then had the smoke alarm gone off. One of the firefighters told Owen that some smoke alarms are triggered by flames and not by smoke. Ade might have been in the deep, exhausted sleep of a new mother, or she might already have been suffering from smoke inhalation when the alarm finally had sounded. In either case, I was immensely relieved that nothing worse had happened.
“So, Kyle wanted me?” Ade squirmed uncomfortably and pulled Patrick closer. “And he started the fire believing that Owen was inside?”
“Yes. It seems that Kyle imagined that with Owen out of the way, you could be together. He took all of the things you’d been saying about Owen’s job and terrible pay and wanting a better place to live, and twisted them in
