On Fire(33)

"I don't want to faint," she mumbled, and rose carefully. Riley had one hand on her elbow, steadying her.

"I've got to push the screen out."

Sig gave her a shove.

"Go."

She followed her sister, crouching down, feeling the fire sucking the  oxygen out of the small cottage. It was like a being, oozing,  terrorizing. She heard the screen crash onto the woodshed roof below the  loft window. The cold, clean air drew the smoke.

Riley coughed, grabbed Sig.

"You first."

"No!"

"Don't argue with me."

Sig choked for air.

"My babies... I'm so big...."

"You're not that big. You have to do this, Sig. Your babies won't have a  chance if you don't. Jump onto the woodshed. Then slide off.

Like when we were kids." Riley squeezed her.

"Go."

If she didn't, they'd both die up here. Staving off her panic, Sig  pulled herself up onto the sill window- washer style, then dragged one  leg over, until she was three-quarters out, the woodshed six or seven  feet under her. She had to get the other leg out. Any further along in  her pregnancy, any taller, and she wouldn't have fit. Riley was there,  helping her.

"Stand back," Sig said.

"I don't want to kick you in the head and knock you out."

Riley took a step back. Sig could hardly make her out with the dark, the smoke.

"You're next. You understand me, Riley?"

"No, I'm going to stay up here and fry."

In a single, unartful movement, Sig forced her stray leg over the sill,  and before she could get tangled up, sprawled forward, landing hard on  her feet on the cold, scratchy shingles of the woodshed roof.

Pain shot up from her ankle, and her knees buckled, but she rolled out of the way, waiting for Riley to drop beside her.

Sig heard glass exploding, saw the glow of flames, smoke pouring from  the loft window. She coughed, tasting the acrid smoke. Where the hell  was her sister?

"Riley!"

"I'm coming. One, two, three..."

And she landed like a panther, her dark eyes gleaming and wild. She was  totally focused, just as Sig remembered on the few times she'd joined  her at a whale stranding.

"You have to jump to the ground now, Sig."

Her head spun, sparks of light flashed, followed by passing waves of  darkness. Everything seemed far away. You have to jump off this  woodshed. It was a voice. She didn't know where it was coming from.

Riley? Where was Riley?

"Matt."

Suddenly her sister's face was in hers. She was screaming at her.

"You are going to jump off this fucking roof." Riley almost never swore.

"Do you hear me? If you don't, I'm going to push you."

"Something's wrong," Sig mumbled.

"I know. Emile's cottage is on fire."

"With me. Something's wrong with me."

"It'll be okay, Sig." Riley had her by the shoulders, was scooting her  down to the edge of the roof. "Listen, I can hear the fire engines.

Music to our ears, isn't it? Someone must have spotted the flames.

"

"I can't jump. I can't think...."

"Sig, listen to me. I'm not going to count. I'm i going to say 'jump!"  and you're going to jump. " She gave her half a beat. " Jump. " , Sig  could feel the roof disappearing under her. She | didn't know if she'd  jumped, if Riley had pushed her, t if she'd simply fallen.

They landed almost simultaneously. Sig felt an; other sharp pain shoot up from her ankle and she sank to the ground.

The grass was cold, damp, smelled of earth and ocean.

Riley, little sister Riley, tried to lift her from the hips, was crying,  cajoling, "Sig, goddamn it, we have to get away from the cottage, it's  on fire," until a | voice--a man's voice, not Matt's--told her to move  aside.

Sig couldn't stay on her feet.

Strong, firm hands took hold of her. She could smell smoke, her own  acrid sweat, could hear the fire, thought she could even hear the smoke.  She tried to claw her way to full awareness, kept losing her grip, ;  falling back. : "My babies," she whispered, sinking again. ;                       
       
           



       

Eleven -^Q >^~

1 hey took Riley's car to the hospital in Ellsworth. Straker drove.

Riley sat rigidly beside him, unable to make herself look back at  Emile's burning cottage, cry, even speak. She'd managed to pull on  hiking pants before clearing out of the loft with Sig, but there'd been  no time for car keys, pocketbooks, anything. Luckily, she had an extra  key taped inside her glove compartment.

Sig was already on her way to the hospital by ambulance. Lou Domnan was  meeting them there. He had questions, he'd said when he arrived at  Emile's with the volunteer firefighters. A lot of questions. Sig had  collapsed, semiconscious, incoherent, when Straker had carried her off.

The woodshed had caught fire seconds later.

"If you hadn't shown up..."

Riley's words sounded unintelligible to her, but Straker, his eyes  pinned on the long, dark, straight road, said, "I did show up."

The EMTs had taken over, put Sig on oxygen and an IV as Riley hung over  them, warned them her sister was almost five months pregnant with twins,  aching to do something to help.

Her hands were blackened from smoke and soot, felt cold and stiff as she  clasped them together on her lap. She stank of smoke. Her heart was  racing, but she was very still, every muscle tensed against shaking,  against a rush of emotion she knew she would never control if she let it  slip through her defenses. She couldn't fall apart. Not now. Her sister  needed her.

"How did you know to come?" she asked.

"I saw the glow of the flames in the sky. It had to be a fire."

"You called it in?"

He nodded.

"I used the radio in my boat."

"Thanks."

He'd arrived on the scene just as she and Sig leaped off the woodshed  roof. His training had kicked into gear, the tight control, the crisp  professionalism. He'd dealt with the firefighters, the police, the EMTs,  informed Sheriff Dorrman they were following Sig to the hospital.

For once, Riley thought, she and Straker weren't at cross-purposes--but  she didn't want to get ahead of herself. Right now, her interests  dovetailed with his. When they didn't, so much for being allies.

"Thank God you didn't stay tonight." Her voice was distant, almost as if it were coming from the back seat.

"You'd have been downstairs where the fire started."

"We might have caught it in time."

She shut her eyes. We. As if she'd have stayed downstairs with him.

But whatever Straker was to her, at least he was there. Sig was so damned alone. Married, pregnant with twins, but alone.

Not, Riley amended, that she and Straker were a pair in the making.

After months of isolation and recuperation, of course he'd have at her  when he got the chance. It wasn't a ringing endorsement of her  attractions, but a practical, objective look at the facts that dictated  that conclusion. This was John Straker. He'd never liked her.

She wasn't his type. The sexual electricity he generated just proved what all that time alone could do to a man.

As for herself, she had no explanation. The stress of finding Sam Cassain's body, Emile's disappearance? She didn't know.

And yet earlier on the dock, she'd sensed the possibility of more  between them than sex. That, she knew, was dangerous thinking. There was  no question he wanted sex. He was physical, earthy, unleashed after  many long months of self-denial. It was a tough combination to resist,  and she found herself increasingly unable--unwilling--to bother trying.  But expecting anything else from him beyond hot, torrid sex was insanity  on her part. She wasn't one for self- delusion.

She felt a twinge of guilt at her train of thought. It was so much  easier to think about going to bed with Straker than about fires and  sirens and her and Sig's narrow escape.

Riley twisted her hands together and blurted, "Sig thinks Matt might  have financed Sam Cassain to find the Encounter and bring up its engine.  That's where the fire on the ship started."

Straker nodded without surprise.

"Makes sense."

"He and Sam couldn't have done it alone. They must have left a trail."

He downshifted, turned into the hospital driveway.

"If they did, Emile knows. That's why he took off."

Riley fell back against the seat.

"He's crazy."

Straker pulled up to the emergency room.

"Can you walk?"                       
       
           



       

"Of course I can walk."

But when she hit the sidewalk, her legs went out from under her without  warning, and for a mortifying second she thought she might pass out.

Some idiot saw her and called for a stretcher.

Straker came around the car and shook his head.

"Forget the stretcher.

You'd have to staple-gun her to it. "

But once inside, he turned her over to a very intense young doctor and  told him to check her out. Straker had that FBI air of authority about  him, and Riley looked like hell. Not a good combination. He slipped off  to see about Sig while the doctor checked her blood pressure, eyes,  nose, mouth, lungs. Any bruises or sprains or pain from jumping?