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RACHEL STEIN CONNORS liked to stroll down the boardwalk on Hollywood Beach in the afternoons with her two grandchildren to visit her big brother, who’d moved into a little house nearby about a year ago. Ralph had spent eight years telling her he was going to retire from the NYPD and move to Florida. Now that he’d finally done it, she made sure to see him every day. Even though he was twelve years older than her, he was a great big brother. He deserved the best retirement in the world.

As Rachel walked, she held the hands of her five-year-old grandson and three-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter. They were both excited to visit Uncle Ralph’s house, with all the cool drawings and photos of sharks he had up on his wall.

Suddenly, the little girl froze and scooted behind her grandmother’s sundress. Rachel looked up and saw a golden retriever being walked by a young woman. “It’s okay, sweetheart, he’s on a leash,” she said in a soft voice. The little girl had recently conflated things overheard from a news report about a dog who’d mauled a girl in the Broward County town of Miramar, and she’d decided all dogs were dangerous.

The woman paused, realizing that the little girl was scared, and pulled her dog close. She encouraged the children to pet him, reassuring them that her dog was friendly. Rachel went with it, hoping it might be a way to cure her granddaughter’s phobia, and was pleasantly surprised when both kids started to pat the dog gently. As the woman leaned down, Rachel spotted her brother’s house across state road A1A, over the woman’s shoulder.

She saw the flash a moment before she felt the explosion. She heard it too, but the visceral shock to her system was from the blast wave. The entire house seemed to burst at once.

Rachel fell to the sidewalk, still staring at her brother’s home, now engulfed in flames. As soon as she gathered her senses, she reached out and grabbed both of her grandchildren. She turned them away from the scene just as she started to feel heat from the quickly spreading fire.

People on the beach were shouting. A blue Mazda, going south on A1A, swerved into an unoccupied bus bench. Everyone seemed to have their phones out, either taking photos or calling 911.

Rachel flinched as more noises came from inside the house. Nothing at all like the initial blast, but loud pops and crackles.

Two thoughts hit her at the same time. Her brother was dead. And if this woman hadn’t stopped to let the kids pet her dog, they all would be dead too.

Then she started to cry.