Page 4

CHAPTER 4

The floor rippled beneath Maarja’s feet.

She shouted, fell. As heat rolled over the top of her, she covered her head with her arms. In her head, she heard her mother’s voice.

Run, Mary. Run and never look back.

She had to run!

Maarja half rose and turned toward the elevator.

Another explosion shook the floor. She fell hard, flat on her face, knocking the air out of her lungs. Angry red stars swarmed her vision.

She lost consciousness, but in that loss she heard her own five-year-old self screaming, Mama! Mama! Mama!

And—

My fault. Mama, I’m sorry. My fault!

Maarja regained consciousness, and the panic remained, but had been transformed by memory into determination.

Dear God. Flames would engulf that faded kind woman in the wheelchair. Someone had to save her.

Maarja had to save her.

Maarja crawled toward the library, ears ringing, blinking to clear her vision. “Mrs. Arundel,” she shouted. “Mrs. Arundel, I’m coming!”

Sooty smoke rolled out of the library, blackening the ceiling. Scarlet flames roared, reaching high out the broad doorway, blistering the pale cream paint until it turned a gruesome brown and peeled off.

Fear writhed in Maarja’s gut. She had trained in every aspect of security. She knew what to do to rescue endangered art. When she thought about it—and she did—she had expected her childhood experience to armor her against the shock and horror. She hadn’t foreseen she’d hear her mother’s voice in her head, commanding her to run, or that her childhood obedience would be replaced by the terror of knowledge.

She’d been here before.

Not here, not in this place, but staring into the flames, into the madness of shattered glass, shards of furniture, and broken bodies.

Desperately Mary wanted to go to her mother’s rescue. In despair, she realized what Mama had done, and why she had drilled those words into her little girl’s head.

Run, Mary. Run and never look back.

Maarja wanted to run, to obey her mother’s never-forgotten directive, but Mrs. Arundel was somewhere in that library. All Maarja’s old guilt strengthened her resolve. Mrs. Arundel could not be left to burn.

In the library, flames scraped the ceiling, blackening the toes of the artfully painted cherubs, and Mrs. Arundel’s wheelchair stood empty. For one cowardly moment, Maarja thought, She’s gone. I don’t have to—

She caught sight of the woman sprawled on the carpet face down, her black shawl covering her face and back, the hem of her green dress charred and smoking.

Gone? Of course she wasn’t gone. Maarja mocked herself with scathing intolerance. What was Mrs. Arundel going to do, get up and run?

The force of the blast looked as if it had come from the outer wall of the library, probably a projectile incendiary blasted through the window. Mrs. Arundel had been knocked out of her wheelchair, was probably now unconscious. Fire consumed books and shelves, advancing across the hardwood floor toward Mrs. Arundel’s prone body.

Maarja glanced around the elevator foyer, grabbed a quilted blanket used for moving, and used it to cover her head and her face. She took a long deep breath of oxygen, then kept low as she ran into the library and dropped to her knees beside Mrs. Arundel’s still figure.

She pushed the heavy wrap off her face—and jumped when Mrs. Arundel opened her eyes and snapped, “Maarja! What are you doing back here?”

“Rescuing you.” Now that she’d plunged into the inferno, now that she’d replaced the old terror with this moment, Maarja could place her anxiety on ice.

“No!” Mrs. Arundel took a hard breath, coughed, and dropped her forehead onto the carved rug and mumbled…something that sounded like the F-bomb.

She’d probably suffered a blow to the head. That compounded by oxygen deprivation would explain her odd behavior.

Maarja looked around for the wheelchair. It was close at hand, overturned when Mrs. Arundel had been hurled out. Smoke rose from the leather seat, but otherwise it was intact. Thank God. Unthinking, Maarja reached for the metal frame.

Mrs. Arundel snapped again, “Don’t touch! You’ll burn your fingers.”

“Right.” That was so right. Maarja realized that here and now, the wheelchair would serve as a roasting pan.

Mrs. Arundel painfully lifted herself onto her elbows. “Maarja, I beg you, save yourself!”

Steadily, Maarja replied, “And you . I will save you .”

Mrs. Arundel stared at her in frustration, then gave a little laugh. “ Of course you have to save me.” Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wiped at them. “That’s fate, is it not?”

Maarja’s hopes for anonymity were dashed. Mrs. Arundel did know, and Maarja felt sick. “I guess it is.” An admission the flames would consume if Maarja failed Mrs. Arundel now.

“Can you drag me out of here?” Mrs. Arundel asked.

“Yes.” In the short run, that made more sense than the wheelchair. Yet Mrs. Arundel and Maarja were about the same height and weight. No way Maarja could perform a fireman’s lift. How would Maarja get her any farther? Into the elevator? Or, if the elevator had been sabotaged—for this bombing was a malevolent act—down the stairs?

One problem at a time, Maarja. “I’ll use your throw to pull you.”

“Good idea!” Mrs. Arundel pushed herself over onto her back. “I trust you. Move briskly, young lady!”

Maarja removed the moving blanket from her own head, felt such heat from the fire she knew her eyebrows had singed. She covered Mrs. Arundel to protect her from the flames. Grabbing the throw in her hands, she braced her feet and yanked.

Mrs. Arundel moved about twelve inches.

The flames leaped twenty-four inches.

Incentive.

Moving in jerks, walking backward, one pull at a time, she hauled Mrs. Arundel across the rug. Mrs. Arundel’s dark scarred, emaciated legs dragged limply behind them. When they reached the hardwood floor, Mrs. Arundel’s body slid more easily, they moved more quickly, out of the library and into the elevator foyer.

The air was better here.

Mrs. Arundel pushed the blanket off her face. “There. I’m safe! Now you run!”

Maarja did. She ran to the elevator and pushed the button.

It didn’t light up. Of course not. The system had shut down. Maarja reported, “Elevator’s unavailable. We’ll take the stairs.”

“I can’t take the stairs! I can’t walk. You saved me.” Mrs. Arundel made a shooing gesture. “Go get help!”

Inside the library, the flames crackled with joy as they consumed the books, shelves, paint and furnishings. With every passing second, the heat and smoke grew exponentially, greedily sucking up the oxygen.

Oh, God. Dear God. Let me do this!

“You are not safe, and I’m not leaving you!” Maarja leaned down, grabbed the throw, and once more started the process of walking backward, yanking Mrs. Arundel toward the stairs. She had no idea how she was going to get the fragile lady down three flights to the ground floor. She wondered if, hoped that, Alex would run up the stairs, open the door, and arrive to help Maarja carry Mrs. Arundel down.

She wouldn’t; they’d trained for such a situation and Alex would perform her duty. Right now, Alex and Serene were thrusting the fine art into the van, locking everything and racing away, down the road to some random destination. There they’d be joined by other Saint Rees Fine Arts Movers guards and everything would be taken to a safe, hidden place and stored until this crisis, whatever it was, was over.

Maarja would somehow make this work…because she had to.

The stairway door slammed open, slapping the wall, barely missing Maarja’s butt.

Dante Arundel stood framed, shoulders hunched, flexing his fists. “You! The stupidest damned—” He glared at Maarja as if she’d somehow been responsible for the crisis.

“Dear boy, she wouldn’t leave.”

Maarja waited tensely for Mrs. Arundel to explain why.

Right now, he didn’t care. Reaching down, he lifted his mother, placed her over his shoulder, and commanded Maarja, “Follow!”

As if she was so witless she’d stay on this floor if he didn’t tell her to escape.

He also said, “Shut the door behind you!” and “Don’t collapse now, I can’t carry you both.”

As if she would leave the door open to allow the fire to use the stairwell as a chimney. As if she was weak enough to—

She staggered, grabbed the handrail, and stopped to regain her balance.

All right. She might be suffering from delayed shock. But she wouldn’t collapse! As if she’d allow Dante Arundel the satisfaction.

Dante took the corner for the next flight of stairs, and below, she could hear his deep voice murmur to his mother and Mrs. Arundel’s lighter tones murmur back.

They sounded so normal.

Later, Maarja told herself how normal they sounded.

Maarja started down again. She might not have eyebrows, but by God she’d saved Mrs. Arundel’s life today!

Anyway, who needed eyebrows? Or eyelashes? Or—she shook her head and watched as singed bits of hair floated past—bangs?

Just like before.

She staggered again, her knees buckling. She gripped the handrail tighter, and paused to let the wave of grief and horror pass. It had been so long she thought she’d forgotten. She told herself she’d forgotten, because why dwell on it? When would something like an explosion reoccur in her life?

Never. Never. She put her hand to her aching heart. She should have told Saint Rees he had to replace her on any job concerning the Arundels. But who could have imagined this?

She continued down and around the corner, then down and around the corner, then down and around the corner—all those landings, and she never caught a glimpse of Dante and Mrs. Arundel. Her isolation began to feel like a haunting. Had she died up there in the flames?

She got to the ground floor, slammed through the door into the foyer, saw smoke billowing down the curved staircase, heard a series of explosions above.

The front door stood open.

Thank God. Dante and Mrs. Arundel had left the building.

Maarja spent one second with her hand on the stitch in her side.

One second too long. Another explosion rocked the old and revered mansion.

She ran onto the raised porch.

Behind the ornate iron fence that encircled the property, people milled in the street, gawking and exclaiming. Everywhere she saw phones raised to film the event, as if this tragedy was nothing more than a drama for their entertainment.

Two people in particular, a man and a woman, stood at different angles and filmed, their eyes narrowed and their expressions intent. Whenever someone got in their way, they moved enough to produce an uninterrupted eyewitness account.

Reporters , she thought in dismay. How did they get here so soon?

Police shouted, moving them back behind a line. Sirens shrieked as fire engines worked their way through San Francisco’s ever-congested traffic.

A woman screamed. Stopped and screamed again.

Maarja looked for the source.

There she was, Béatrice, close to the ambulance parked on the lawn. Sitting on her knees, placing an oxygen mask on her face, taking it off and giving a shriek, putting it back on again.

Drama queen. This wasn’t about her. It was about—

Maarja’s gaze shifted to the crowd of EMTs leaning and kneeling and speaking in concentrated tones…around a woman’s sprawled body.

Gaze fixed, she clutched the banister in both hands and moved down the stairs. A woman’s body in a green T-shirt dress. Mrs. Arundel’s unmoving body. Her legs were akimbo, her limp arms had been pulled away from her chest. They were giving her oxygen, using a defibrillator.

Maarja didn’t understand. “What’s…happening?”

Nate stood, arms crossed over his massive chest, observing. In that ponderous voice, he said, “They’re working on her. They might bring her back.”

“Bring her back? From…?” From death? “What? No!”

He scrutinized her as if surprised by her outburst. “Mrs. Arundel was a fragile woman. Surely you observed that.”

“She felt strong when I dragged her. She—” Maarja sprang forward, ready to aid the medical team. Distantly, she knew she wasn’t qualified, but—

Someone grabbed her from the side, stopping her headlong rush.

A man. A man held her.

She punched him in the ribs, twisted in his grasp.

With her skills, she should be free. She wasn’t. She looked up, saw the dark wavy hair, the scarred face. Dante. It was Dante.

He held Maarja with both arms wrapped tightly around her. He dragged her away from the house, toward the fence. “Maarja. Maarja. It’s all right. You did the best you could. It’s all right. You tried, but she was too fragile.”

Maarja strained against him, struggled to go to Mrs. Arundel. “What do you mean? Your mother? She’s not…”

“She’s dead.”

Maarja froze. “She…is…not! She’s not. I saw her. I heard her. She was fine. You carried her. I heard you two talking.”

In the background, she heard Béatrice shriek in between breaths. Glass broke as explosions rocked the house. People shouted in the streets as more and more police were needed to control the crowd, as more and more fire personnel in turnout suits streamed through the now open gate dragging hoses and equipment. One of the reporters used the confusion to slide into the compound and, still filming, focus on the EMTs around Mrs. Arundel. The bastard.

And Béatrice’s periodic shrieks, slamming like bullets shot from the world’s most irritating rifle.

Dante looked into Maarja’s eyes, sympathy in his gaze. “She knew she was dying. She knew you saved her from the flames, and she thanked you.”

“I don’t want thanks.” Maarja lunged toward the EMTs as they placed Mrs. Arundel on a stretcher and covered her face with a sheet. “I want her to be alive!”

He gripped her, turned her head, pressed her face against his chest. “She died in my arms.”

“No. No, she didn’t.” Maarja still fought in disbelief. “You’re lying!”

“Maarja, it was her heart.”

“No, she didn’t die. No, she didn’t. She can’t die.” Maarja began to collapse, every hope broken, every grief reinforced. “She can’t die. She can’t.” Tears smashed through the suspicion and heartbreak, and she sobbed out loud. “I tried so hard…”