Chapter 29
Jesse
I slam the door shut in horror and stare at Klaus. “What do we do?” I squeak at him.
He looks at me a second, then runs off.
Ouch.
But then I hear a yelp, and he bounds back into the living room before running back into the bedroom. This time I follow him, and when I get inside the room, he nudges my phone with his nose.
“Oh my god, I’m so stupid,” I mutter as I lunge for it, pulling the charging cable out before quickly dialing 911. “Guter Junge,” I tell Klaus as I wait for it to connect. My heart is pounding, but I think the shock is wearing off as reality sinks in.
The building is on fire.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“There’s a fire in the hallway of my apartment building!” I blurt out to the dispatcher and rattle off the address. “It’s like there was a line of fire right down the middle of the corridor,” I explain to her.
It’s weird. It kind of reminded me of when the special effects guys would set a pyro stunt on the show. Through the lens it would look like a normal fire, but in real life it was a carefully controlled strip of accelerant that could easily be put out.
It didn’t seem very controlled out in the hallway just now. And I don’t think anyone’s putting it out easily.
“Okay, Jesse,” the dispatcher says. “My name is Venessa and I’m going to get you through this. Help is on the way.”
“Thank you,” I utter, trying not to let panic get the better of me. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Can you make it down the stairs or out of the window?” Vanessa asks.
“We’re on the fourth floor,” I tell her. “And my dog is with me, so the window’s probably not an option. But I can see if we can get to the stairs.”
“Okay, Jesse,” Vanessa says, her voice steady and soothing.
“Stay on the line and tell me what you see. I’m looking at the building schematics right now and it says there’s the main stairwell to your left and an emergency exit to your right.
Do not attempt to use the elevator. And be sure and check if the door is hot before you open it. ”
“Okay, understood,” I tell her, feeling a tiny bit calmer. I’m always better with instructions to follow.
Wedging the phone between my ear and neck means I have both hands free to grab Klaus’s leash like I was going to before I smelled the smoke.
He’s incredibly well trained, but I don’t want us to get separated if anything goes wrong out there.
I connect it and he whimpers as we head back toward the door.
“It’s all right, boy,” I say to try and soothe him. I don’t know the German for ‘The building is on fire but I’m going to do everything I can to protect us.’ But he can probably feel my stress a mile off, regardless.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a god damned fire started outside my door while I was sleeping.
How did it start? I keep going back to that neat line of flames.
Maybe I’ve watched too many movies, but I can’t help but think that it looked like a trail of gasoline someone had set alight.
If this was my crummy apartment back in LA, then that would seem more likely. I know there were drug dealers in that building because I fucking bought from them. But this is Redwood Bay. I doubt they have gang wars going on around here.
“The door’s warm but not, like, insanely hot,” I tell Vanessa. “Do you reckon I’m safe to open it.”
“We have to see if there’s an exit for you, Jesse,” she says with grim determination. “So proceed with caution. But I think you should be okay to take a peek.”
With my heart in my mouth, I ease the door ajar. When a fireball doesn’t erupt in my face, I risk sticking my head out.
“The fire’s worse,” I tell her over the blaring alarm. It might have been in a neat line previously, but now it’s spread farther across the carpet and in some places, it’s creeping up the walls.
“Can you make it to the stairwell?” Vanessa asks me.
I peer through the flames, coughing on the smoke. “Shit. I think the fire’s coming from the stairwell.”
I look down the other end of the corridor. There are only three apartments per level and ours is in the middle, so the fire escape isn’t that much farther away. Unfortunately, through the slim windowpane on the door—the fire door—I can see more flames.
“Holy shit,” I say, terror welling up inside me. “The fire’s at both ends. I’m trapped!”
“Okay, Jesse,” Vanessa says, her voice steady and firm. “I want you to get back inside your apartment right now and wait for help. If you can, I want you to find some towels, get them wet, then line them along the bottom of the doors to keep the smoke out, all right.”
I cough and press the inside of my elbow against my mouth so the material from the hoodie can filter the air a little bit for me. “Okay, will do,” I tell her, hurrying back with Klaus.
“Do you want me to stay on the line?” she asks.
“No, that’s okay,” I say. The faint wail of sirens comes from down the street, and relief rushes through me.
Rico.
Even if he wasn’t a firefighter, I desperately want my husband by my side now anyway. But knowing that he’s coming with the cavalry makes my heart leap.
“I can hear the first responders now. Somebody else might need your help, so I’ll hang up. Thank you so much, Vanessa.”
“You stay safe, Jesse,” she says sincerely, then the call cuts off. I slip my phone into my jeans pocket.
“Towels, towels,” I mutter as I rummage through the cupboards. I should know where they are, but it’s like my brain won’t work properly.
Or maybe, subconsciously, it knew I should have been searching for something else this whole time.
Because when I open the cupboard under the kitchen sink, there it is.
The little fire extinguisher Rico told me all about.
He’s a firefighter. Of course he’s going to have something like that in his home.
“Klaus, look!” I cry, grabbing it like it’s buried treasure.
The problem is, I remember now that it’s only got a few bursts of foam in it. It’s designed to put out pan fires, not a raging inferno. But it might be just enough to make the difference if the blaze gets through the front door.
Suddenly, Klaus barks and runs back into the bedroom. “What is it?” I ask as I follow him. I should probably be doing the thing with the wet towels that the nice dispatcher told me to do, but then he starts scratching at the wall.
That’s when I hear the thump from the other side.
I gasp.
“Katerina!” I run to the wall and bang back. “Katerina! Are you there?”
I can’t make out the exact words, but I’m going to assume it was something very expletive in Russian.
I look down at the extinguisher in my other hand, then at Klaus. He cocks his head at me. “I think she needs unsere Hilfe.”
Like a bullet from a gun, he blasts into action, racing to the front door. I follow hot on his heels.
Hot is probably the operative word right now.
My heart is pounding, and my head is spinning, but I can’t leave my friend alone, especially not with her joints the way they are. I might be able to make a run for it down the stairs if I can get past the flames, but she’s not going anywhere fast.
I pull the pin from the extinguisher and rest my hand on the doorknob. Klaus’s leash is looped around my wrist so I can use both my hands. “Ready?”
He barks at me once. I take that as a yes.
In just a few minutes, the fire has spread even more. But I remember what Rico told me and aim the nozzle of the extinguisher at the base of the flames, and squeeze the handle tightly, sweeping back and forth to clear a path so I can get one door over.
I can already feel it emptying by the time I reach Katerina’s apartment.
Luckily, she’s left the door unlocked. I burst inside past the last few flames, throwing the used-up canister to the floor.
I hustle Klaus past the threshold so I can shut the door behind us.
“Katerina!” I call out as I pat Klaus down, making sure he didn’t get singed.
The power is out so I activate the flashlight on my phone so we can see.
“Here!” she croaks from her bedroom.
Yeah, the damn smoke is creeping in. But I can do something about that.
I run to find our elderly neighbor huddled up in her bed in her dressing gown, surrounded by her fur coats. Her cat, Noski, is crouched on top of the closet, looking terrified. “Are you all right?” I ask Katerina.
She scowls at me. “Do I look all right, new boy?”
“Yeah, stupid question,” I admit. “Where do you keep your towels? I’m going to try and block out the smoke. And where’s Noski’s travel case?”
“Towels in bathroom, case in hallway closet,” she tells me, coughing more into a handkerchief. “What is this fire? Someone burn cake?”
It’s kind of admirable how she can still crack jokes at a time like this.
I shake my head as Klaus and I move through her apartment. “It’s in the stairwells,” I call back to her. “And the corridor. I think…” I trail off, wondering whether or not I should speculate further or if that might scare her.
“Think what?” she demands, solving my dilemma for me. I’m not sure anything really scares Katerina Petrova. It just pisses her off.
I sigh, gathering up all the towels from the cabinet. “I think maybe someone started the fire on purpose.”
“No!” she shrieks. “Shit fuckers. Who would do this?”
I get the taps running in the bath, throwing the towels in to start them soaking.
Do I know who would do this?
Or is it just a crazy coincidence that I sent Emerson packing mere hours before somebody set light to my apartment building?
Speculating about the cause isn’t going to get us through this, so I shake my head and shove those thoughts aside. I want the towels damp, not sodden, so I start wringing them out and dropping them into the sink.
As I lay a couple down by the front door, I can feel the heat from the other side. My heart skips a beat and I swallow thickly.
We’re definitely not getting out through that way, now.