Chapter 7 #3
The flames flickered on the gas stove.
Selah, where are you?
And that’s when the man turned. He spotted North, and for a second, they simply stared at each other.
“What’s your plan here, Martin? You going to torch the place and drive away?”
The man seemed…well, not like the notorious villain North had heard about—the man who’d tried to murder the president, who’d worked with the Russian Bratva to release smallpox at Disney World, the one who’d used an EMP bomb to take out Air Force One, the same man who’d tried to explode a dirty bomb on a small European nation.
No, this man looked like a pharmaceutical salesman, clean-cut, dark hair, dressed like a man who owned a house in the suburbs, with a nice family he took camping on the weekends.
Except for the look in his eyes, the flash of darkness, fury.
And then the smile. “North, I presume?” Then he held up a tire iron—probably the same one he’d used to get into the house.
Oh goody.
Martin lunged at him, and North stepped away, deflected Martin’s arm, but the man rounded, his stance easy.
North took back the part about the suburbs. And the nice family.
In fact, suddenly the man morphed into some version of Bond, James Bond, with his arrogant smile and small shake of his head.
And then, just like that, the man lifted a lighter.
Only then did North realize he stood in the middle of the oily floor.
Martin leaned down and touched the lighter to the oil. It burst into flame just as North leaped from the space, into a dining area. Fire bloomed, racing across the accelerant in hungry lines.
Then the room flashed into flame, and North rolled under the table, protecting his head, waiting for the explosion.
Not yet.
He rolled out and spotted Martin scrambling up the stairs.
Where—
He glanced at the flames, the black smoke, and took a breath.
Then he plunged through the fire, running hard, slipping and then catching himself on the counter.
His feet smoked, but he stamped it out as he followed Martin up the stairs.
He spotted him in the master bedroom, slamming doors open. And just like that, North got it.
Ruby Jane had either escaped the house or…or she had a safe room. And Martin was going to smoke her out.
North charged into the master and tackled Martin, full speed. They crashed into an end table, sending a Tiffany lamp shattering across the wood floor. Glass crunched under their bodies as they rolled.
The man’s elbow caught North’s temple, the same spot he’d bruised when he’d been thrown from the horse. Pain exploded behind his eyes, and Martin pushed off him, rolled to his feet, and kicked him.
North slammed back against the wall as Martin took off down the hallway.
Nope.
North scrambled to his feet, lunged after him, caught him at the stairs.
They went down, fighting, tumbling, slamming against the wall, the railing, and finally thundering to the bottom.
Somehow, North got his arm around the man’s throat, put him in a sleeper hold.
Smoke filled the lower level, and his eyes burned.
“Where is she?” North tightened his hold, threw his leg around Martin.
Martin had gotten a hand under North’s arm, fighting the pressure. Then he drove his elbow into North’s ribs.
North grunted.
Martin did the same. Then he pushed off the wall, propelling them both down, toward the flames.
The heat hit North’s back as he tried to stop them, but the oily floor and his own slippery shoes fought him.
Then Martin’s fist found his throat. North gagged, grip loosening. They slid across the slick hardwood, knocking over a chair. Family photos crashed from the walls.
Martin broke free, rounded, and North got his boot up just in time to send him sprawling.
Then he popped up, and North’s fist connected with the man’s jaw. Blood sprayed across the floor, mixing with the accelerant. Martin stumbled back and turned.
And fled out the door.
“Stop!”
An engine revved. Tires sprayed gravel.
North turned and scrambled back up the stairs. “Selah!”
Already, smoke filled the hallway. He flung open the master-bedroom closet, expecting another door there.
Nothing but clothing.
“Selah!”
No response. He turned and headed back to the hallway—then to the next room.
A girl’s room, with a pink bedspread and posters and nothing resembling a safe room.
The next room held a toddler bed, trucks, books.
“Selah!” He headed back out to the stairs, but fire blocked his path, a wall of orange and black. Smoke rolled across the ceiling, thick and oily from the accelerant. The heat drove him back, singeing his borrowed flannel.
The staircase groaned as the fire licked it.
He ran back to the master. Then into the bathroom.
And there he spotted it. A closet door, attached to what seemed like the outside wall of the house. He tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.
He sent his fist into it with a shout.
It didn’t even shudder, his fist on fire.
So, maybe it was metal. Safe-room grade. York, you dog.
“Selah!” He pounded on the door. “Let me in!”
Nothing.
“The house is on fire!”
Please, please don’t be trapped in there.
He ran out into the master and slammed the door shut. Then he threw a couple pillows from the bed onto the floor and covered up the crack in the door.
That would buy them time.
He was opening the window, trying to let in fresh air, his brain scrambling for how to get into the safe room, when he spotted them.
Her.
Selah, her blonde hair in a wave, running hard along the shoreline, holding a child on her hip.
Running away from him again.
While he was trapped in a burning house.
Yes, that felt about right.
He shouted, but of course she couldn’t hear him, not above the flames now crawling up the back side of the house.
So much for that happy ending, the one where he scooped her up, told her that he couldn’t live without her, that she was light and mercy and grace and the reason he could return from the dark places he had to inhabit to do his job.
To keep her safe.
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
Of course now that verse would find him. He stood at the window, watching her run, breathing in fresh air, the fire growling around him.
Okay, so maybe he was a little afraid.
Lord, I could use…help.
And that’s when he spotted a trellis on the far side of the house, just beyond the window ledge.
He just needed to get out and pray the trellis held his weight.
Here went nothing…
* * *
Sixteen or so years ago…
Almost home.
The Mediterranean stretched endless and blue, waves trembling against the hull of their chartered boat.
Salt air kissed Timea’s skin, teased her dark hair from its loose braid.
She gripped the polished teak rail of the trawler Alexander had rented out of Santorini, her sundress curling around her shape, the tiniest of baby bumps.
“I still can’t believe we did it.” She lifted her face to the sun, and Alexander’s heart squeezed at the sight. Three weeks of trains and back roads, careful misdirection, had finally brought them here. Three weeks out from Budapest. Free.
He stood at the helm, parting the waves as they motored to Crete. A two-day trip aboard a liveaboard trawler. It felt like a real honeymoon, and he could nearly taste it—their future. “Having second thoughts, Mrs. Cooper?”
“James.” She rolled his true first name on her tongue like honey. “James Cooper.” She turned and walked over to him, leaned up against his back, her arms around his shoulders. “It fits you. Better than Alexander ever did.”
“Because it’s real. My dad called me Jack.
But I was named after my grandpa—James Cooper, so it felt like the right answer when I went to get us new passports.
” He covered her hand with his. Under their fingers, his heart hammered out the truth of who he was, who he could finally be. “Everything from now on—real.”
The fishing boat on the horizon had barely moved, a dark speck against the cloudless sky. Behind them on the deck, their new life waited in two suitcases, everything they dared keep from their old one.
“Tell me again.” She stretched up, kissed his neck. “About our home.”
“Which part?” His fingers found the slight swell of her stomach, hidden beneath the flowing dress. Their miracle. Their future.
“Everything.” She stepped back, and he put the boat into neutral, let it bob on the water. She tugged him toward the cushioned bench along the stern. “Start with the cliff.”
He settled beside her, drew her close against his side. The simple gold band on his finger caught the sunlight. Their hasty but perfect wedding before a magistrate in the small country of Montenegro felt more real with each nautical mile.
“The house sits high above the water,” he said, his arms around her. “White walls rising straight from the cliff face, like they grew there. Blue shutters on every window—the exact blue of your eyes in this light.”
She hummed, content. “And the garden?”
“Wrapped around three sides. Herb beds closest to the kitchen. Your tomatoes and peppers beyond that.” He traced patterns on her shoulder. “Olive trees with plenty of shade for afternoon reading.”
“What about the nursery?” Her hand drifted to her stomach. “Sophie needs a beautiful room.”
“Sophie?” He shifted to see her face. “When did we decide that?”
“Just now.” A smile played on her lips. “After my grandmother. She always liked you.”
His smile dimmed. “The man she knew as Alexander.”
“The man inside.” She touched his cheek. “The good parts we get to keep.”
“Sophie.” He tasted the name. “Sophie Cooper.”
“And if it’s a boy?”
“Then we paint the nursery blue.”
She shook her head. “Yellow. Like the sunrise. Boy or girl.”
“Yellow?” He laughed and got back to the helm, put the boat into gear. “I don’t know. I think we talk about blue—”
The world tore apart.
One second, he was laughing, the next, percussion slammed through his body, lifted him off his feet. Heat scorched his lungs. The boat twisted beneath him, metal screaming.