Hours after setting out, I made the turn into the front hall. My eyes burned. My chest burned. My stomach burned.
Leaning a hand on the doorframe, I bent and vomited more bile. I wanted to sit down, to curl into a ball and sleep.
When my stomach settled, I regripped the blanket. My arms and legs trembled as I lurched backward, blindly pulling with all my strength.
The parlor was now an inferno. Flames crawled the woodwork, devoured the secretary, engulfed the couch. Things popped and spit, sending sparks toward the front hall and foyer. I was past feeling. Past thinking. I knew only to pull, back up a foot or two, and pull again.
The front entrance lay five yards behind me.
Three.
Two.
My mind chanted a mantra, urging my body not to fail.
Get through the foyer.
Over the jamb.
Onto the stoop.
When Anne’s legs cleared the doorway, I dropped to the ground and placed my fingertips on her throat.
No palpable pulse.
I collapsed onto Anne.
“You’ll be fine, old friend.”
Black dots swirled behind my eyelids.
Sleet pelted my back. The ground felt icy against my knees.
Around me, a cacophony of noise. I struggled to make sense of it.
Sobbing.
Was that Anne? Katy?
The yawing and spitting of flames.
Ticking.
Rain on the magnolia? No. Montreal. De Sebastopol. Sleet on the tankers in the rail yard.
What rail yard?
The rumble of distant engines.
Muted honking.
Coyotes wailing far off in the desert.
Not coyotes. Sirens.
The dots congealed into solid black.
38
I AM OF THE OPINION THAT HOSPITALS ARE TO BE AVOIDED. PEOPLE die there.
Ten hours after arriving by ambulance, I rose, pulled on the sweats Charbonneau had given me at Catts’s house the previous night, and left General.
How? I walked out. Like McGee and Pomerleau. Piece of cake.
Unlike McGee and Pomerleau, I scribbled a farewell note absolving my care providers from any responsibility. Tough duty with both hands greased and bandaged.
A taxi had me home in ten minutes.
Ryan was on the line in twenty.
“Are you crazy?”
“I’ve suffered a few burns and a minor bump. Canadians going south have, on occasion, been more severely blistered by the sun.”
“You need rest.”
“I’ll sleep better here.”
“Did your accomplice make a run for it, too?”
The smile felt like shrapnel scoring my face. “Anne has a concussion. She’s not a flight risk.”
“Anne’s obviously the brains of the outfit.”
“She’ll be released tomorrow. Friday we fly to Charlotte.”
