The Overseer (4 page)

Then she heard something.

Petroleum-scented splashes of gasoline washed across the walls and tables as Dominik slung the can in all directions. He set the can down for a moment and rummaged under the sink for a trash bag. Quickly he swept the drugs off the table into the plastic and pulled the tethers shut with a swift yank. He set the bag near the door, stuffed his cell phone between his shoulder and ear, and reached for the gas can again.

“Hello?” a female voice said in Dominik’s native language.

“Do you know who she is?” Dominik replied in the same language as he soaked the curtains in gasoline.

“Who?”

“The girl that followed me. She knew where I was and where I was going.”

“What are you talking about?”

Dominik sloshed more gasoline onto the living room carpet, sending a splash across the back of a ratty recliner. “Some girl—midtwenties maybe. She found me in the liquor store. She followed me. Chased me back to the house.”

“You ran away from a girl?”

“Shut up, Misha.” He grunted. “She came out of nowhere. She knew where I was and where I was going. She must have been watching us for days.” He moved up the stairs, spilling a trail of gas.

“What are you going to do about it?”

Dominik let the last drops trickle from the can, dousing a pile of sheets in the bedroom, then tossed the can into the corner. “I’m closing down the storefront.”

“Use the gas can in the shed. Burn it down.”

“I’ve already started.”

“Good. Get going, and get out of there.” There was a click, and the line went dead.

Dominik felt the lighter in his pocket as he moved toward the stairs, then stopped. A creaking in the ceiling from the attic above. He looked at the trapdoor in the ceiling, slightly ajar. Another creak and the distinct sound of footsteps overhead.

He eyed the padlock dangling from the hatch—an overt violation of fire code if he wasn’t mistaken—but the reasons for that seemed more useful than ever.

Hannah took another step back.

Someone was in the house.

They were down there, but there was no way to know for certain if they’d heard her. She wanted to get away from the hatch—away from the center of the noise she’d heard. There had been the sound of someone talking. It wasn’t English. Russian maybe.

She herself had been kidnapped just over a year before. Nothing as hideous as this—but it had still left its mark on her—a lingering fear, almost a dread, hung over her like a cloud. She’d chosen to face it head-on, to walk straight into the blackness alone. Now she feared it would engulf her.

There was a clattering sound near the far wall and a funny smell.

She took another step back.

Footsteps moved toward the hatch—then stopped just below. What were they doing down there?

Hannah turned, looking at the boarded window. Was it a way out? Maybe she could tear the boards away. The hinges on the hatch squeaked with a minute adjustment.

Were they coming up here? To grab her? To kill her?

Hannah forced herself to stop it. To let go of the questions. To silence her mind. Her life really could be in danger, but this time she could choose to do something. To take control. She was not tied up or caged, and she would not let fear paralyze her. She could act.

Then she heard it.

A click.

She thought of the window. A moment of quiet, then footfalls moving down the stairs. They were leaving.

Hannah moved to the hatch, putting a hand on the thick wood. It didn’t budge. She shoved. It wouldn’t move. She stomped.

She was trapped.

Dominik heard a loud thump strike the attic entrance. They’d figured out that it was locked. There was another thump. They’d specifically reinforced the hatch to keep the girls from knocking it open if they ever had the guts to try. The padlock would hold, and the thick bolts would stay in place.

He kicked the back door open and stood in the threshold.

The lighter came open with a snap.

His thumb rolled across the wheel, and a thin blade of flame conjured itself up from the metal casing. He shielded the tiny flame for a moment, then tossed it into a puddle of gasoline.

There was a split second where nothing happened—Dominik froze, worried that the puddle had drowned the fire. Then it spread in a violent blossom, devouring the surrounding air with an audible howl. The house caught ablaze in a matter of seconds, fire consuming up the stairs.

Dominik pulled on a jacket he’d taken from one of the closets and zipped it as he walked away.

Hannah knew something wasn’t right.

She couldn’t have explained how, but something had changed. The smell—the pungent aroma that had been rising from below— suddenly seemed to vanish, replaced by something else.

Then she recognized the smell that had been. And her eyes went wide as she realized what the new smell was that had replaced it.

Greenish smoke slithered up from the cracks around the attic hatch. The smell was foreign—not like campfire smoke with its earthen richness, but the putrid scent of melting plastic and burning synthetics.

Then the floor started to get warm.

Fire travels up, she thought. Heat rises. Smoke rises. There was nowhere further up to go. She was at the tip of the spear.

She turned to the window, tugging at the boards that covered it—the rain smacking down just beyond.

The amount of smoke doubled in seconds, filling the attic with an acrid cloud. No fire yet. Just smoke. Her eyes stung, pinpricks stabbing at her tear ducts. Hot tears slid involuntarily down her warming face. It was all happening so fast. It reminded her of the fire safety videos she’d seen in elementary school, depicting how a cigarette in a trash can could send a house into an unrecoverable blaze in less than two minutes.

Arson could work so much faster.

She hacked and coughed, fingers digging into the boards, pulling at the wood. She lifted her foot, giving a solid kick that split the boards, crushing the glass beyond. Hannah grabbed the loose pieces and pulled them free, revealing the window.

Street light poured in through the rapidly thickening smoke. Rain tapped at the spiderwebbed glass. The whole window was little more than a slit. Less than six inches. She would never fit. It had been boarded up purely to keep light out.

Her lungs seized, fighting to keep out the dark haze. Her body convulsed with a violent cough. Heat permeated her.

Hannah coughed once more, then lifted her leg, jamming her heel into the tiny window, sending beads of glass splashing outward. It wasn’t big enough for her to get out, but it was big enough to let a little air in.

She shoved her face to the opening and pulled in a lungful of the chilled air beyond. Then she pulled the jacket off her back and put it to her mouth. She crouched down, moved back into the prisonlike room, and searched for the trapdoor. Found it. Her hands worked at the latch, pulled. Nothing. There had to be some way to get out.

The blurring of her vision worsened, tears and smoke clawing at her eyes.

She coughed. Her body felt heavy and unwieldy. She tried to adjust her body with her right arm, but all the strength seemed to be slipping out of her. Fighting hurt so much. Moving sapped her energy. The searing floor suddenly seemed welcoming. Her body started to relax, curling into a ball. The unrelenting stinging in her eyes suddenly seemed unbearable.

Her eyelids shut.

The attic suddenly seemed far away. Her mind slipped into silence. The kind of silence she could try so hard to cultivate in times of trouble now seemed so easy. Everything that seemed to worry faded, and rather than doing she was simply…

Being.

She could feel the past again.

Before it had been such a horrible place. When others had lived here. When family pictures and Christmas ornaments had been stored here in cardboard boxes. And then the old occupants moved out and others moved in—the ones who had perverted this place to be something else. Rolling carpet over the plywood, not bothering to nail it to the rafters.

Hannah’s eyes snapped open, and she stumbled toward the window for a life-saving breath of cool air. Then she dropped to the floor and grasped at the carpet, pulling the shaggy covering loose. She reached for the floor, pulling at the boards, only to realize that she was standing on the edge.

Hannah moved and gave another pull—the heat was overwhelming. The plywood pulled away, clattering to the side as she tossed it.

Rafters—a few feet apart—partitioned themselves between sections of pink insulation. It looked like cotton candy, she thought.

Her hesitation lasted only a second, and then she jumped, feet first toward insulation.

The world seemed to freeze.

Then her body crashed through the billowy pink insulation, smashing through the thin layer of sheet rock, and she felt herself hurtling through the gray smoke toward the carpet one floor below.

She landed with a thud, losing her balance as her body slammed into the wall.

The heat enveloped her, blasting at her like a furnace, smoke stabbing at her eyes. Hannah looked up and saw the window at the far end of the hall. She pulled her jacket tight against her face and rushed forward, trying to stay low. Moments later she was at the window, the glass fogged over with a greasy black smear from the heat and smoke. Then she saw the gas can, tossed at the floor below it, fire clinging to the outside wall where gas dribbled down.