Chapter 11 Inferno #2
“Again, I don’t disagree.” He drew a resigned breath. “Ben’s mom and her associates sure seem to enjoy burning things down.” There was a short pause before he elaborated. “I’ll be checking out of the hotel. We all will. Tiffany Masterson torched the place this evening.”
A horrified whimper clogged Kaya’s throat. “Are you okay?” She’d just left the hotel a bit ago. “Is April okay?”
“Like I said,” he reminded her dryly. “We’re at a party. It’s at the police station. Surely, you can hear the noise.”
“Convince them to take the party to Alpine,” she snapped. “I mean it. If things are as bad as I think they are, we’re going to need backup. Bo’s driving us there now.” The look she gave Bo dared him to turn her down one more time at his own peril.
He smirked and stepped aside, allowing her to pass.
“Never a dull moment with your woman,” Gil growled to Bear from the driver’s seat of the tactical vehicle he was driving. It was big, black, and designed to resist ballistic threats and explosives.
“Nope.” Bear laced his fingers through hers. He didn’t sound like he minded.
April was seated between the two of them inside the massive armored vehicle. It felt like they were going to war. Gil had insisted on bulletproof vests for everyone joining their impromptu rescue mission.
Alpine wasn’t in the Heart Lake Police Department’s jurisdiction, so Luke and Wheeler were out of uniform. They were riding in the back of the vehicle with a small team of armed Lonestar Security guards.
Luke promised to stay on the phone with the Alpine Police Department to alert them of their pending arrival. Any police action tonight would have to come from their direction.
It was a tense, nail-biting drive that took an hour-and-a-half. April couldn’t shake the feeling that they were driving into something terrible.
She bit her lower lip and sat forward in her seat as they approached the city limits. A deep orange and red glow illuminated the horizon. Not a static glow. One that flickered. A luminous smoke dome amassed in the sky above it.
“It’s a fire,” she breathed. Ol’ Callie’s threat about burning the whole thing down hadn’t been metaphorical.
She’d gone and done it! She was closing up shop — eliminating the evidence, the witnesses, and everything else in one fell swoop.
To wipe the slate clean, nobody would be safe. Not even Benjie and Verity.
Gil pressed down on the gas pedal, speeding toward the fire.
As they careened closer, her heart sank even more. “It’s the nursing home,” she breathed. A huge, apocalyptic-style inferno was spreading from building to building.
Firetrucks surrounded the senior center. Sirens wailed. Lights flashed. People dashed around. Men and women in white scrubs were wheeling patients on beds with I.V. cords flapping in the breeze. It looked like a scene from Armageddon.
A woman stood amid the white-clad medical personnel, waving her arms like windmills to direct them where to wheel the patients. Her long, dark hair whipped in the wind, covering her face. She flung it away from her eyes and went back to directing traffic.
April dialed Kaya with shaky fingers. “Pick up! Pick up! Pick up!” She chanted the words anxiously.
“April?” It was Kaya. Her voice sounded muffled behind the rapid pounding of April’s heart.
“Where are you?” April demanded.
“At the west corner of the campus. You?”
“We just arrived. Heading your way.” April repeated Kaya’s location to Gil and Bear. “What’s on the west side of the campus?”
“Ben’s dad, according to the tracker on his phone, though we haven’t found him yet.”
April kept Kaya on the phone, repeating frenzied updates to Gil as he changed directions and sped toward the west side of the campus. A uniformed police officer tried to turn them around, but Gil ignored him.
“We’ll ask for forgiveness later.” He gunned the motor and drove the all-terrain vehicle over a concrete median. Its oversized tires easily scaled the obstacle. Then the parking lot abruptly dipped to a lower level.
“Hang on,” Gil shouted right before bumping down a flight of wide concrete stairs.
Bear kept one hand gripping the grab bar and one steely arm in front of April.
“There he is,” Kaya exclaimed through the phone pressed against April’s ear.
“Ben’s dad?” Excitement leaped through April.
“Yep! Found him!” Kaya drew a sharp breath. “And Ben’s mom. It looks like she’s trapped up there. I think he’s trying to save her. Oh, this is bad!”
April stayed on the phone with Kaya until they located her. “We see you! How can we help?”
Gil skidded a little as he braked behind the armored vehicle Bo, Kaya and Ben had arrived in. Rising in front of them was a tall building with a central tower. It was engulfed in flames.
April, Bear, and the others poured out of the tactical vehicle and surrounded Kaya. Heat and smoke slammed into them, making it difficult to breathe. It was hot. So hot.
April pressed a shirtsleeve over her mouth and nose, hollering through them to be heard. “Where are Ben and Bo?”
Kaya pointed at the building in front of them — up, up, up to the central tower. “Trying to save his mom with a mountain of mattresses,” she wheezed.
April squinted up at the tower and saw the figure of a woman standing on the balcony. Her breath caught in her throat at the realization that the woman was teetering on the edge of the stone railing like a tightrope walker.
“What are you doing?” April whispered. And then she knew.
Verity Haywood was poised to jump!
“Noooooo! Not yet!” Dr. Benjamin Haywood stood on the pavement below his wife, calling up to her in an agonized voice. “Hang on just a little longer!”
Bo was tossing hospital bed mattresses out of a window on the main level, and Ben was hauling them to the spot where his father was standing. As fast as they were working, there weren’t nearly enough mattresses in place yet to break a fall from that magnitude.
Gil and Luke rallied their troops, rushing forward to assist them. April and Kaya were right in the middle of the huddle, adding their efforts to the mix.
Verity gave no sign that she heard her husband or saw the rapidly rising pile of mattresses.
“We’re ready, Verity,” Benjie Haywood called at the top of his lungs. “Jump!”
But Verity didn’t move. Her arms remained outstretched, and she tipped her face up to the sky.
The way the smoke was billowing around her, lifting her hair, briefly transformed her into a hazy angel.
A tormented angel of darkness, who was starring in whatever fantasy was rolling through her twisted mind.
“Jump, honey!” Benjie’s voice grew hoarse. “Do it now!” Time was running out.
With a loud crack, the building imploded on itself. Verity went down with it, arms stretched wide, and was quickly swallowed by the smoke, flames, and crumbling stone.
Emergency vehicles sped their way, erupting with first responders, hoses, and other firefighting equipment. The Heart Lake police and Lonestar Security team retreated, half-dragging and half-carrying the sobbing Dr. Haywood between them. Their part was over. They’d done all they could.
Ben wasn’t in much better shape than his father, but Kaya was anchored against him, with her sooty arms around him and tear-stained face pressed to his chest. For the next several minutes, she held him up in more than just the physical sense.
First responders herded them back. They ended up at the entrance of the campus, where paramedics were weaving in and out of the patients on hospital beds. The injured were triaged. Some were transferred to stretchers and loaded into an army of awaiting ambulances.
The dark-haired woman was still there. Now that the evacuation was complete, she was darting from bed to bed, patting hands and speaking in a soothing voice.
“Looking good there, Captain Miller.” She lightly tweaked his nose. “This isn’t your first battle, soldier.” She uncapped a bottle of water and held it to his lips. “Just think of the stories you’ll be able to tell your grandson the next time he visits.”
There was something familiar about the lovely woman. Her inky hair, copper skin, and high cheekbones reminded April of the Comanche women on the rez near Heart Lake. It was possible she had some Native American blood in her.
The man she’d called Captain Miller trembled uncontrollably as he tried to take a sip.
That was when April realized he was suffering from Parkinson’s.
She hurried forward to help stabilize him from the other side of his bed, working in tandem with the woman to ensure he got a few sips of water down.
The heat from the fire was merciless. Everyone was sweating profusely. The firefighters shouted back and forth to each other as they rigged a pair of hoses to spray a mist over the area.
A sigh of gratitude rose from the crowd.
Most of the buildings were beyond saving. The people were not.
“Let me go,” one patient shrieked, drawing heads her way. “Help me! Please!”
April glanced up to see what was wrong and found an old woman writhing in agitation on her hospital bed. To April’s alarm, her arms and legs were shackled to the bed. What a horrible time to be confined! Was it because she’d been deemed a danger to herself or others?
“She’s fine,” the dark-haired woman assured no one in particular. “Her Alzheimer’s is getting worse. We restrained her for her own good.”
Now that April was standing this close to the woman, she could see she was missing one of her front teeth.
“You fool!” The old woman hissed at her like a snake. “This is how you treat me after all I’ve done for you?”
The dark-haired woman didn’t respond, and the old hag started screaming again. “I don’t have Alzheimer’s! My name is Callie Haywood, and I’m in full possession of my wits. There’s been a terrible mistake.”
The Heart Lake Police and Lonestar Security personnel froze. Their heads turned in unison toward her.
Keeping his Stetson pulled low to hide his face, Luke loped over to her bedside. “Can you repeat that, ma’am?”