I couldn’t go any farther. My eyebrows were singed. I realized I could die in there.
I turned and headed for the light and cool that I knew were behind me. Suddenly, I spotted two shapes, the bodies of a woman and a man. Clearly dead, their clothes on fire.
I stopped, feeling my stomach turn. But there was nothing I could do for them.
Then I heard a muffled noise. I didn’t know if it was real. I stopped, tried to listen above the rumble of the fire. I could hardly bear the pain of the blistering heat on my face.
There it was again. It was real, all right. Someone was crying.
Chapter 3
I gulped air and headed deeper into the collapsing house. “Where are you?” I called. I stumbled over flaming rubble. I was scared now, not only for whoever had cried but for myself.
I heard it again. A low whimpering from somewhere in the back of the house. I made straight for it. “I’m coming!” I shouted. To my left, a wooden beam crashed. The farther I went, the more trouble I was in. I spotted a hallway where I thought the sounds came from, the ceiling teetering where the second story used to be.
“Police!” I yelled. “Where are you?”
Nothing.
Then I heard the crying again. Closer this time. I stumbled down the hallway, blanketing my face. C’mon, Lindsay… Just a few more feet.
I pushed through a smoking doorway. Jesus, it’s a kid’s bedroom. What was left of it.
A bed was overturned on its side up against a wall. It was smothered in thick dust. I shouted, then heard the noise again. A muffled, coughing sound.
The frame of the bed was hot to the touch, but I managed to budge it a little bit from the wall. Oh, my God… I saw the shadowy outline of a child’s face.
It was a small boy. Maybe ten years old.
The child was coughing and crying. He could barely speak. His room was buried under an avalanche of debris. I couldn’t wait. Any longer and the fumes alone would kill us.
“I’m gonna get you out of here,” I promised. Then I wedged myself between the wall and the bed and, with all my strength, pried it away from the wall. I took the boy by the shoulders, praying I wasn’t doing him harm.
I stumbled through the flames, carrying the boy. Smoke was everywhere, searing and noxious. I saw a light where I thought I had come in, but I didn’t know for sure.
I was coughing, the boy clinging to me with his petrified grip. “Mommy, mommy,” he was crying. I squeezed him back, to let him know I wasn’t going to let him die.
I screamed ahead, praying that someone would answer. “Please, is anyone there?”
“Here,” I heard a voice through the blackness.
I stumbled over debris, avoiding new hot spots flaming up. Now I saw the entrance. Sirens, voices. The shape of a man. A fireman. He gently took the boy out of my arms. Another fireman wrapped his arms around me. We headed outside.
Then I was out, dropping to my knees, sucking in mouthfuls of precious air. An EMT carefully put a blanket around me. Everyone was being so good, so professional. I collapsed against a fire truck up on the sidewalk. I almost threw up, then I did.
Someone put an oxygen mask over my mouth and I took several deep gulps. A fireman bent over me. “Were you inside when it went?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I went in to help.” I could barely talk, or think. I opened my fanny pack and showed him my badge. “Lieutenant Boxer,” I said, coughing. “Homicide.”
Chapter 4
“I’m all right,” I said, forcing myself out of the EMT’s grasp. I made my way over to the boy, who was already strapped onto a gurney. He was being wheeled into a van. The only motion in his face was a slight flickering in his eyes. But he was alive. My God, I had saved his life.
Out on the street, onlookers were being ringed back by the police. I saw the redheaded kid who’d been riding his Razor. Other horrified faces crowded around.
All of a sudden I became aware of barking. Jesus, it was Martha, still tied to the post. I ran over to her and hugged her tightly as she licked my face.
A fireman made his way to me, a division captain’s crest on his helmet. “I’m Captain Ed Noroski. You okay?”
“I think so,” I said, not sure.
“You guys in the Hall can’t be heroes enough on your own shift, Lieutenant?” Captain Noroski said.
“I was jogging by. I saw it blow. Looked like a gas explosion. I just did what I thought was right.”
“Well, you did good, Lieutenant.” The fire captain looked at the wreckage. “But this was no gas explosion.”
“I saw two bodies inside.”
“Yeah,” Noroski said, nodding. “Man and a woman. Another adult in a back room on the first floor. That kid’s lucky you got him out.”
“Yeah,” I said. My chest was filling with dread. If this was no gas explosion …
Then I spotted Warren Jacobi, my number one inspector, coming out of the crowd, badging his way over to me. Warren had the “front nine,” what we call the Sunday morning shift when the weather gets warm.
Jacobi had a paunchy ham hock of a face that never seemed to smile even when he told a joke, and deep, hooded eyes impossible to light up with surprise. But when he fixed on the hole where 210 Alhambra used to be and saw me, sooty, smeared, and sitting down, trying to catch my breath—Jacobi did a double take.
“Lieutenant? You okay?”
“I think so.” I tried to pull myself up.
He looked at the house, then at me again. “Seems a bit run-down, even for your normal fixer-upper, Lieutenant. I’m sure you’ll do wonders with it.” He held in his grin. “We have a Palestinian delegation in town I know nothing about?”
I told him what I had seen. No smoke or fire, the second floor suddenly blowing out.
“My twenty-seven years on the job gives me the premonition we’re not talking busted boiler here,” said Jacobi.
“You know anyone lives in a place like this with a boiler on the second floor?”
“No one I know lives in a place like this. You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Jacobi bent down over me. Ever since I’d taken a shot in the Coombs case, Jacobi’d become like a protective uncle with me. He had even cut down on his stupid sexist jokes.
“No, Warren, I’m all right.”
I don’t even know what made me notice it. It was just sitting there on the sidewalk, leaning up against a parked car, and I thought, Shit, Lindsay, that shouldn’t be there.
Not with everything that had just gone on.
A red school knapsack. A million students carry them. Just sitting there.
I started to panic again.
I’d heard of secondary explosions in the Middle East. If it was a bomb that had gone off in the house, who the hell knew? My eyes went wide. My gaze was fixed on the red bag.
I grabbed Jacobi. “Warren, I want everyone moved back away from here, now. Move everybody back, now!”
