Lucky Break (29 page)

The smell of smoke was stronger in the kitchen, growing more acrid, stinging my nose and eyes as I took the stairs down as fast as I could.
 
Stupid, I know, but Newton would be terrified.
 

I couldn’t leave the bird.

He flapped and fluttered as he shouted, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” I popped open the door and presented my shoulder.
 
“Hop aboard, no time for arguing.”

Wild-eyed, he did as I asked, his claws puncturing cloth and the skin underneath.
 
I couldn’t take him down the stairs and risk him bolting for safety, only to be caught in the stairwell.
 
Grabbing his feet, I carried him through the great room.
 
The fire licked through the doorway to my bedroom. Smoke trickled in, the majority of it funneled through the hole where my bedroom windows had shattered.
 
But, hungry and with plentiful oxygen, the fire would spread.
 
Knowing I would help that cause, I threw open the French doors to my balcony, and tossed the bird out.
 
I had to watch, make sure he took flight.

Sensing fuel, the fire flared to my left.
 
I slammed the doors, grabbed my purse off the couch, and paused to glance around.
 
There was nothing I wanted here.
 
An odd and sad thought—I’d take time to process that later.
 
I hit the door to the stairwell behind the elevator.
 
About halfway down, I heard feet pounding up.
 
Two more turns and I met Romeo leading the fire brigade.
 
Catching sight of me, he sagged against the railing.
 
Dropping his head, he sucked in lungsful of air.
 
I joined him, letting the firemen stream past.

“Heard the call go out,” he gasped.
 
“Damn near died.”

“You and me both.”
 
Realization eked through the fissures in the dissipating cloud of my panic.
 
Emotion rattled my bones, shaking me from the inside.

“Scared?’
 
Romeo asked.

“Pissed.”

He gave me a weak smile.
 
We turned and started down through a gap in the firemen, careful to avoid the hoses snaking as they pulled them from the hook-up two floors down.
 
Romeo followed me, a hand on my shoulder.
 
He needed the physical reassurance as much as I did.

One small choice.

And I lived.

At the bottom, we pushed through the door, the cold air slapping us with life.
 

I grabbed his arm.
 
“Make sure everybody is out of there.
 
Then find Forrest.
 
Pull the surveillance video for the last couple of days.”
 
Questions lurked in his eyes.
 
I cut them off.
 
“Do it now before we lose it.”

He turned, caught sight of his target, and rushed off.

I drifted across the street where my neighbors huddled, but stood apart.
 
I felt guilty for this little exercise even though I wasn’t, not really.
 
Not in any way that I could be held accountable, but people were my business, and I knew I’d be the lightning rod for their fear and discontent.
 
I wouldn’t blame them.
 
My fight had followed me home.
 

This had Irv Gittings’ stink all over it.

Revenge.
 
As a motivation for murder it was almost clichéd.
 

Now to prove it.

And avoid using the same justification for the same action.
 
I really didn’t need a cell next to Teddie or a bed next to my father.
 
The damage Irv had already wreaked was more than enough.
 
I had to get to him before he hurt anyone else.

My neighbors, still feeling the euphoria of having brushed up next to disaster yet remained untouched, closed around me peppering me with questions and sharing their delight that I hadn’t been hurt.
 
Long on suspicion and short on fact, to be honest, I was still gob-smacked that weakness, emotional wallowing, had led to my being alive.
 
There was an interesting metaphor in there somewhere, but I was too shaken to devote the energy to find it.

“The firemen have cleared the building,” Romeo announced, as he shouldered through the crowd.
 
He waved several small HD tapes.
 
“The system also backs up to the cloud, for future reference.
 
Glad the fire chief owes me one.”

“You got enough strong-arm capital left to convince them to let me get my car out of the garage?” I asked, my mind coming back online but still pinging a bit randomly.
 
More fire trucks screamed into the driveway, then disgorged their human cargo dressed in full protective gear.
 
Men pointed and scrambled, unfurling hoses, joining the fight.

“Doubtful.
 
The chief is a tough nut.
 
And I’m not sure I’d play my last card for that car.”
 
Romeo didn’t sound all that hopeful.
 
“I can’t believe out of everything you could’ve grabbed you took Teddie’s guitar and the keys to that rattle-trap that probably should be parted-out.”

“Hard to explain.”
 
My neck hurt, but, transfixed by the fire, I stared skyward.
 
“It’s like you know you should grab something that has some value, especially something with emotional resonance that can’t be replaced.
 
But you can’t think, so you just grab.
 
In my defense, I didn’t grab my car keys.
 
I leave them in the car.”

This time I could feel his incredulous look; I didn’t have to see it.
 
“You leave your keys in the car?
 
In the car-theft capital of the universe?”

“Car won’t start for anyone but me.”
 
I met his smile with one of my own.
 
“Loyalty.
 
Priceless.”
 
I gave him a quick hug.
 
“Thank you.”
 
Newton chose that precise moment to flutter to a landing on my shoulder.
 

“Shit!”
 
Romeo leapt back, then recovered.

Newton gave me a look and said, “Bitch.”
 
The word held a hint of ownership that made me laugh.

“I can’t lose you,” Romeo whispered, then recovered.
 
“You keep life interesting.”
 

A kindred sufferer of emotional constipation.
 
“Comic relief, my best thing.”

“Weren’t you wearing those clothes yesterday?” he asked.

“Yes, Detective, I was.”

He glanced at the guitar as he chewed on his lip.
 
“You going to tell me how you survived that?”
 
His eyes once again shifted to the inferno leaping out of my bedroom window.

“No,” I sighed.
 
“Let’s just say it was a stroke of luck.”

So, there I stood, with a guitar in one hand, my purse over one shoulder, a parrot on the other, and an arm around Romeo, both of us looking up as fire consumed everything I owned.

Jean-Charles, in the middle of the late-night burger rush, had dropped everything and run from the Babylon to the Presidio.
 
He’d been my first phone call.
 
Out of breath and red-faced, he brushed the bird from my shoulder, handed the guitar to Romeo, then grabbed me tight, rocking back and forth.
 
Sharing love, a heady thing.

“You’re making me hungry,” I said into his neck, relishing his nearness, the feel of him, the emotion that vibrated through him into me.

“Hungry?
 
Why is this?”
 
He didn’t loosen his hold to look at me as he usually did.

“You smell like hamburgers.”

He chuckled and still didn’t let go.

I wiggled a bit, giving him a hint, and he reluctantly eased his hold on me.
 
One arm remained around my waist as he stepped to the side and took in the crowd, the fire trucks, the men hauling hoses, the debris of my life floating down, swirling as the wind caught it.
 
“How?” he started, then shook his head.
 
“It is a miracle.”

As he pulled me tight, I could feel him shaking.
 
“Come, let me cook you something.”
 
My chef considered food to be the panacea for all ills, a theory I heartily embraced.
 

“Dear God in Heaven, you’re all right!”

Jolted out of a deep sleep, I bolted upright.
 
“Shit! I wish people would stop doing that.” I stared into the angry, worried, terrified face of Miss P.
 
Finding her attitude no fun, I took a look around.
 
My office.
 
My couch.
 
I remembered.
 
Jean-Charles.
 
Dinner.
 
I left him at the Burger Palais handling some crisis.
 
I couldn’t remember exactly what.
 
He said he’d come get me.

I fingered the blanket covering me.
 
He must’ve come and decided not to awaken me.
 
The thought warmed my heart, then the cold arrow of reality, of the fire, pierced it.

“Why didn’t you call anybody?”
 
Her eyes shot daggers.
 
Not a good look.

I gently eased her out of my face.
 
“I called everybody.
 
Romeo helped.
 
Check your phone.
 
When I called you it rolled to voicemail.
 
I left a message.”
 
Gently, I put my feet on the floor, but I didn’t have the energy to stand.
 
“What time is it?”

“Eight o’clock.”
 
She punched at her phone, her brows crunched together.
 

I took the offending device out of her hand.
 
One look and I thrust it back to her.
 
“This is my old phone.
 
It was in your desk drawer.”

“What?”
 
She glared at the thing as if she could scare it into giving up its secrets.
 
She bolted into her office, making scratching sounds as she rummaged in her desk.

I tested my legs; they held.
 
One hour of sleep, not counting the hours I’d slumbered in Teddie’s bed. To be honest, my sleep last night totaled more than my average, so I wasn’t feeling too bad.
 
I wandered to the small bathroom in my old office.
 
Searching the closet, I was a bit disappointed in my clothing options—I usually kept several changes of clothes there for exigent circumstances.
 
“Is this all of my clothes?” I called to Miss P in the outer office.
 

No answer.
 
I peeked through the doorway.

Miss P looked up, her grin a mile wide.
 
“I found my phone.
 
Voicemail full.
 
Jeremy called.”

“Of course he did.
 
My clothes?”

“I sent them out to be cleaned.”
 
She stuck headphones in her ears, and was lost to me. “For that, you get to take care of the bird.”
 
She didn’t hear me.
 
And apparently she hadn’t noticed him in the small cage in the corner.
 
They had a love/hate relationship.

Ain’t love grand?

CHAPTER TWELVE

M
Y shrilling phone caught me just toweling off.
 
I leaned out of the shower, retrieving it.
 
I heard the bird shouting obscenities in the front office and someone slamming drawers.