We smelled the fire before we saw it.
I assumed it was a distant brush fire, we had so many this time of year. I even said a silent prayer that it was minor and that no one had been hurt.
But then Evan turned onto Holly’s street, and panic pierced a hole through my heart.
“Good God!” I heard myself say as Evan leaned on the accelerator and we shot up to the curb.
“Stay in the car!” he barked as he jumped out of the driver’s seat and ran up the lawn.
There was a man already at the front door, shouting and banging on it with both fists. Evan called to him as he whipped out his phone and used it to open the garage. As they ducked under the lumbering door, I saw Holly’s Lexus SUV—the one Evan had picked out and hand-delivered to her—parked inside.
If her car was here, she was home.
I felt a surge of panic as I unclicked my seat belt and ran in after them. It was unthinkable that my son might have had something to do with this. So why am I thinking it?
“Holly! Holly!” I heard Evan calling from somewhere ahead of me.
I had seen pictures of this house but had never been inside it. I didn’t know the layout. For a moment I was frozen, unsure where to go.
“Savannah!” It was a different voice—the man from the front porch. He was coming out of what looked like an office, then ran ahead of me and disappeared from sight.
I jogged straight ahead. A staircase appeared in front of me. Smoke curled down it like a snake.
“I’m going upstairs!” I called out, not waiting for a response as I covered my mouth with the inside of my collar and took the stairs two at a time. It was hot below, but upstairs it was sweltering. If I died here today, I wondered if I’d be remembered as a hero or an idiot. I shook off the thought as I peeked into the girl’s room, then the bedroom next to it. Both were empty.
“Jack! Wait!” Evan called after me, and I could hear his heavy footsteps coming on hard. I could see flames now, licking the walls of the bedroom at the end of the hall. Against all self-preservation instincts, I lowered my head and charged toward it. Evan caught up to me at the threshold. I had no idea what I would find, my head spun with the possibilities. Where is my son? Has he been here? Is he still here? Am I too late?
Smoke burned my eyes as I scanned the room. The fire was everywhere, devouring the drapes, the bedframe, the walls. It was literally hell on earth. I was about to turn back when Evan grabbed my arm.
“There!” he shouted, pointing to a door with a nightstand pushed up against it. It took me a second to understand what a nightstand was doing in front of a closed door. I got a sick feeling as I realized—it was barricading it.
Someone was in there.
And someone wanted to make sure they didn’t get out.
Evan and I bolted toward the barricaded door. Above and all around us, wood beams and drywall were crackling and buckling into themselves. Embers swirled with rage. I was already so hot I didn’t notice a smoldering ember had landed on my arm.
“Your sleeve!” Evan yelled as he clamped his bare hands around the burning cloth. I shook him off and dropped to the ground, extinguishing the flames with my body weight.
I crawled to where Evan was pulling at the nightstand, then rolled onto my back and used my legs to help push. The nightstand slid clear of the door, and in a few seconds we had it open, and I saw the inevitable result of what I’d done to this family. The shame I felt was as suffocating as the smoke-filled air.
“Holly!” Evan cried out, then fell to his knees. I watched as his two fingers probed her neck for a pulse. “She’s alive!”
I had to step over Holly’s legs to reach the girl, who was hanging off a clothing rod by her wrists. I forced myself not to ask myself what kind of monster was capable of this, because the answer would cripple me.
“Oh my God, Savannah!” a stranger’s voice called out. And in an instant he was beside me. I did a double take when I saw his face. Do I know him?
“We need to lift her up to unbind her wrists,” the man said. I took in his dimpled cheeks and pale-blue eyes—he was definitely familiar, but I still couldn’t place his face. I wrapped my arms around the girl’s slender midsection and hoisted her up on wobbly legs. As the man loosened the leather belt around her wrists, I glanced down at his shoes—shiny Chuck Taylors. And I immediately knew, this Good Samaritan helping save not just this poor girl but also my rotten soul was the investigative reporter whose script I’d just optioned.
“Almost got it!” he said, working the supple leather belt with determined fingers. Of course I knew that belt, too. Because I had bought it for my son. His name was engraved in the buckle. The bill of sale was probably still in my wallet. Tears welled up from the deep recess of my heart, mingling with the ones caused by the stinging smoke and heat.