What were his options?
He had damned few.
The hall bath was an interior room. With no windows, it was a death trap.
The bedrooms had too much fuel. Soaked in gasoline, bedding, mattresses, and area rugs would catch too quickly. Smoke was pouring from both doorways.
But if he continued to stand still, he was dead. The whole house would be engulfed in a few minutes. Modern houses, full of synthetic materials, burned hotter and faster and emitted more toxins than houses in the past.
Heat enveloped him. Sweat broke out on his skin. The smoke darkened and filled his lungs.
With no other choices, Lance raced back toward the front hall, toward the fire. With no fabric save the welcome mat, the fire would spread more slowly there. He could exit through the dining room windows or patio slider.
Provided the arsonist didn’t beat him to the back of the house.
Flames danced across the floor in front of him. Without breaking stride, he dug deep, pushed off the floor, and leaped over the fire. Pain licked at his bare feet and roared through his bad leg as he landed, but adrenaline blocked the pain as quickly as it registered.
Eyes stinging, lungs burning, Lance coughed. He stumbled across the living room toward the sliding glass patio doors.
Through the glass, he saw a flaming bottle soaring toward him like a missile. Anticipating another explosion, he ducked and covered his face. But the bottle broke on the outside of the thicker glass of the patio door. Liquid splattered the glass and patio. Flames rushed across the concrete, then, lacking additional fuel, went out.
Lance opened the slider. Air flooded the house. Behind him, the fire rushed toward the fresh oxygen. Leading with his gun, he staggered through the opening into the darkness. His focus tunneled down to the potential threat. Smoke clogged his throat, and his racing heartbeats echoed in his ears.
A shadow ran toward him. A man. Sweat dripped down Lance’s forehead, mixing with soot and smoke, and ran into his eyes. He blinked, but his vision was still too blurry to identify the man.
“Stop!” he shouted, aiming his gun at the dark figure.
“Whoa,” the figure yelled. “Don’t shoot me. It’s Bill.”
Lance wiped his eyes, which didn’t help much. He squinted, and his vision clarified enough to see his skinny next-door neighbor standing on the back lawn, hands in the air. Shirtless, he wore only pajamas bottoms and sneakers, the laces untied.
Lance lowered the gun. A wave of heat hit his back, and he staggered a few yards farther away from the house. “Did you see anyone?”
Sirens blared. One big advantage to living in town was the proximity to the fire and police stations.
“No!” Bill yelled over the din of the fire and approaching emergency vehicles. “Is anyone else inside?”
Lance shook his head. Now that he was alive and likely to stay that way, his body busied itself with exchanging smoke for clean night air. He leaned on his thighs and hacked up what felt like an entire lung.
The winds kicked up. Something hot pricked Lance’s shoulder. He swatted an ember from his skin. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the fire swallow his roof. Flames reached into the dark sky, and smoke billowed across the moon.
“Dude, we gotta get away from here. Let me help you.” Bill slung one of Lance’s arms over his shoulders and half dragged him to his own backyard, around his own house, and out to the street. Bill’s wife stood on the sidewalk in a long bathrobe. She clutched their toddler on her hip. More neighbors emerged from houses and gathered on front lawns.
A fire truck parked, and firemen went to work, dragging hoses off the rig toward the inferno. Two more fire trucks and multiple Scarlet Falls police cars roared onto the street. An ambulance parked at the rear of the vehicle pack, three lots down the road. Patrol officers herded the crowd farther from the fire.
Sharp jogged down the sidewalk toward Lance. He wore jeans and sneakers, but his salt-and-pepper hair stood straight up on one side.
“You alive?” Sharp asked, scanning him.
Still coughing, Lance nodded.
“I’ll take him from here,” Sharp said to Bill.
Bill ducked out from under Lance’s arm, and Sharp took his place. Lance wanted to tell him he could walk on his own, but he wasn’t entirely sure about that. Faceplanting on the sidewalk would be embarrassing.
“Thanks, Bill,” Lance croaked.
With a wave, Bill turned and jogged toward his wife and child.
“I heard the sirens and just knew it was you.” Sharp hauled Lance to the back of the ambulance. Lance perched on the rear bumper. A paramedic slapped an oxygen mask over his face and handed him a bottle of water. Lance moved the mask to rinse his eyes and mouth. He spat onto the street then sipped water. The cool liquid soothed his raw throat.
The paramedic unfolded a blanket. Lance waved it off. He was still sweating from the fire.
Sharp took the blanket and shoved it at Lance. “You realize you’re only wearing boxers?”
Lance hadn’t. His attention had been focused on not burning to death.
He lifted the oxygen mask off his face. “Good thing I have my gun, or I’d feel naked.” His voice was hoarse and speaking set off another wave of coughing.
“Just breathe.” Sharp snapped the mask back into place, then wrapped the blanket around him. “You’re giving that old lady down the street an eyeful.”
The oxygen helped, as did sips of water.
The paramedic took Lance’s vitals, then gestured toward the open doors of the rig. “Can you climb in?”
“I don’t need to go to the ER,” Lance said. His coughing had subsided, though his lungs still felt irritated.
“Have you seen your foot?” the paramedic asked.
Lance looked down. Blood dripped from multiple cuts. He propped one ankle on the opposite knee and examined the bottom of his foot. “It’s not that bad.”
And just like that, Lance’s foot began to throb.
“But you should probably have the glass picked out,” Sharp said.
Admitting defeat, he handed Sharp his gun, butt first. “Would you lock this up for me?”
“I will.” Sharp slid it into his jacket pocket. “I’ll run back to my place, get my car, and meet you at the ER.”
“What time is it?” Lance asked.
“Two a.m., but yes, you should call Morgan.”
“I hate to wake her.”
Sharp stared at him. “How did she take it the last time you had an emergency and didn’t want to bother her?”
Not well. Not well at all.
“You’re right. She’ll want to know. But my phone is in there.” Lance gestured to his house. The firemen were giving the blaze their best effort, but his house was not salvageable. The best they could hope for at this point was to keep the fire from spreading to his neighbors’ homes.
“I’ll call her.” Sharp nodded. “Be right behind you.”
“Thanks. There should be spare clothes in my office closet.” Lance turned and climbed into the back of the ambulance. The paramedic strapped him in. Through the open door, he watched his roof collapse. Sparks showered into the sky. The firemen retreated, spraying the houses on either side of Lance’s.
It suddenly occurred to him that he had nothing. He didn’t even have any clothes on his back.
His second big realization was that he didn’t care. He hadn’t built a life here. He’d used his house to sleep and store his stuff. Other than some photographs and his piano—he was going to miss that—there was nothing he couldn’t replace.
His life was with Morgan and her kids.
“Wait,” he said as the paramedic started to close the door. “I need to see a cop. Just for a minute.”
The paramedic jumped down and flagged down a cop.
The Scarlet Falls patrol officer climbed into the back of the ambulance.
Between coughing bouts, Lance gave him a three-sentence summary of the firebomb attack.
The officer took notes. “I’ll call the arson investigator and start knocking on doors. Maybe one of your neighbors saw something.”
But the fire wasn’t just arson. It had been attempted murder. Lance had thought someone was after Morgan, but it seemed he was also a target.
Who had he angered recently? Adam Carter came to mind first. Noah’s brother was beside himself with grief and rage. He was also missing.
But Adam wasn’t the only person with a personal grudge against Lance. What if Kieran Hart had discovered his photos were missing?
Chapter Thirty
It was still dark when Morgan rushed down the ER hallway. Sharp had said Lance was OK, but until she saw him for herself, she would not be able to draw a full breath.
“Morgan, over here,” Sharp called from a doorway.
She hurried over. At the sight of Lance, her eyes welled with hot tears. Her first deep breath felt like it cracked her wide open.
Lance was sitting up, bare chested, with a hospital blanket pulled up to his waist and an oxygen mask on his face. An IV dripped into the back of his hand. His face was splotched with soot, and his eyes were red. A doctor wearing magnifying glasses bent over his foot.
Lance pulled the mask off his face. “Hey, come here. Sharp was supposed to tell you I was OK.”
But there was no stopping the tears once they started. She’d lost both her parents and her husband. She’d never thought she’d find another man to love. That had seemed nothing short of a miracle. But now . . . she couldn’t bear to lose him.