Chapter 79 Taylor
Taylor
Outside, in the back of one of the ambulances, while she’s given oxygen and assessed, Taylor provides some sort of statement to the police.
But she’s distracted, trying to search for faces in the crowd.
Where’s Vivian? Where are the others? It’s confusion and smoke and bedlam.
She sees periodic black robes flit through the night, like phantoms. More fire trucks arrive, their sirens roaring. Onlookers are gathering by the second.
“Tomorrow we’ll need you to come to the station, or in the next few days, when you’re up for it,” the officer is saying.
Taylor nods. She can still taste fire in her mouth, sense the heat on her skin.
“Holy shit,” she hears one person say, and another says, “Can you imagine the secrets going up in flames right now?”
People are clinging to one another, their faces alight from the reflection of the flames and the flashing emergency lights.
She thinks she hears an ambulance peel off, hopefully with Vivian, but it’s hard to differentiate between all the alarms and the ringing in her head. Her muscles feel tensed, a hard board.
“Is this your cat?” another officer asks, approaching. He’s struggling to contain China in his arms.
“No,” Taylor says, relieved to see that the cat escaped the fire, though she looks as spooked as Taylor feels, her tail puffed up like a dandelion. Then Taylor says, “Wait! Yes. Yes, she’s mine.”
Taylor! Taylor! she thinks she hears someone yell, but when she listens more closely, she realizes it’s just chatter from the growing crowd.
“Okay, we’ll put the cat in one of the patrol cars,” the officer says. “Any other animals inside?”
“Not in the Knox…I don’t know about the servants’ quarters.”
“Servants’ quarters?” the paramedic who is taking her blood pressure repeats, surprised.
“Taylor! Taylor!” Someone is yelling her name. It’s Sam; he must have gotten her note.
“Stand back,” the paramedic barks.
Sam edges as close to her as they will allow. He shakes his head at her, wordless. His eyes are red, as if he’s been crying.
Are you okay? he mouths, and it’s all she can do to nod.