Death By Sunken Treasure (A Hayden Kent Mystery Book 2) (19 page)

Keeping fingertips on both of the surfaces, I made my way toward the center of the bar. Inching ever closer to the fire.

A series of loud pops from exploding liquor bottles almost drove me back to the kitchen. I felt like I’d been in the bar for hours. The air seemed thicker. More explosions. A shard of glass cut down the side of my arm. My heart beat loudly enough to fill my ears, even over the roar of the flames.

I forced myself to follow the bar to where I thought the office door cut the back wall in two. My left hand lost contact with the inside bar surface, pitching me forward. Groping wildly I found the surface again. My hand felt around the inside of the space and located the office door. I prayed Devon was inside and alive. The fire’s roar galvanized me. If Devon called out, I would never hear him. I shoved the door of the office open. Fire hadn’t yet found the inside, but smoke filled the room. A prickle of fear touched my heart. How could I find him? I didn’t dare let go of the door. It was my only way to safety. No light penetrated inside the room. Even the flames provided no illumination here.

I tried to call for Devon. The makeshift respirator covering my face made shouting impossible. Worse, the cloth was drying out. Smoke filed my nostrils and mouth with every breath. A wave of tiredness washed over me. The smoke lightened briefly, sucked through the ceiling vent of the air conditioner. A lump curled beside the desk. I let go of the door behind me and took a step in the direction of the lump. Black smoke filled the room again. I dropped to my knees and crawled. Certain I reached the desk, I ran my hand along the floor. Nothing. I groped up, down, and around the desk leg. Nothing.

My eyelids drooped. The thought of moving defeated me. Where were the fire trucks? I had to lie down. I shook my head to clear the thought. I made one last sweep. My swinging hands knocked over a wastebasket. Could a wastebasket look like a body? I didn’t know. I fought the desire to stretch out and sleep. A loud roar hurt my ears. A thousand explosions sounded. Fear brought bile to my throat. I made one last desperate attempt to find Devon before I crawled backwards.

My feet touched something. Wall, door, I didn’t know. Joy at my good luck bubbled up in my chest. I forced myself to stand. My questing fingers found a knob. The door felt hot to the touch. I didn’t remember it being hot before. I pulled the door open the tiniest bit. My breath caught painfully in my throat. Fire engulfed on the far side of the bar. Huge flames soared over the top. I had to get out. I had to get to the kitchen entry. Fear pulled me through the door.

I grabbed the back of the bar with my right hand. The searing heat of the stainless counter almost made me pull my hand back. Something wet on the counter stung my hand. The liquor bottles. They’d exploded on this half of the bar too. Behind me, behind the bar, coming straight for me, was a wall of fire. The fire almost surrounded me. Every second I delayed brought the inferno closer. I had to get to the kitchen door before the flames cut off that avenue of escape.

Throwing caution to the wind, I raced toward the door and safety. My chest burned. Every breath stabbed the length and depth of my lungs like daggers. I reached where I thought the door would be. My hand pushed. Nothing. It took all my willpower not to give in to the panic bubbling up in me. How could the fire be so bright and show me nothing?

Frantic now, my hands beat the walls. Heat flowed down my back in waves. I thumped harder. I moved from side to side, my fists finding nothing but solid wood. My strength ebbed as the fire robbed my body of the oxygen I needed to survive. I fell forward. The wall opened and I kept falling. The cooler air of the kitchen surrounded me. I couldn’t grab anything to break my fall. It went on for an eternity.

Thirty-One

A million small knives stabbed into my back. Someone held a mask over my face. My eyes burned. I tried to blink. The burning got worse. Everything appeared wavy like it does underwater without a mask. I started to cough. Great gasping hacks. My lungs must be falling to pieces. Someone turned me over on my side. I vomited and tasted charcoal. A hand brushed my cheek and lips with something wet. The mask went back in place. This time, when I opened my eyes, the concerned face of an EMT worker stared down at me.

“Can you breathe?”

I nodded, not certain at all if I wanted to give up the oxygen mask covering my face. He lifted the mask. Smoke filled my nostrils and grey clouds of it spiraled in the night air. Memory came flooding back. The Petard. The bar was on fire. “Devon.” My voice sounded more like a frog croaking than a woman speaking.

Two hands lifted me onto something soft compared to wherever I lay. They gently arranged me on a fluffy pad. Straps tightened around my legs, hips, and upper body. They lifted me up. I used what mobility remained to swivel my head around. My Subaru sat where I’d parked it, covered in water and who knew what else. Another car on the left.

One of the EMTs put the mask back in place, the bottle tucked between my legs. “Don’t talk.”

I struggled with the mask. My hands were wrapped in huge bandages. Useless. I turned my head and managed to knock the mask off-center. The strap cut into the corner of my mouth. I didn’t care. I needed to save Devon. I raised my head a bit and stared at The Petard. If he could be saved, I amended. The EMT worker tried to cover my mouth again. This time I raised a bandaged hand and tapped her. Shockwaves of pain went through me at the touch.

The medic lifted the mask slightly. “Devon,” I croaked out again. “In there. In the office.”

The speech exhausted me. I fell back onto the gurney and let the mask settle into place. Every breath was a struggle. Sheer agony. My chest burned, my lungs burned. The inside of my nose felt glued together and my eyes stung. If anything else hurt, I didn’t bother to pay attention to it.

The medic touched my arm lightly. I opened my eyes. Devon’s face, red but whole, gazed down at me. “I’m right here, Hayden.”

“You’re not dead.” Tears slid from the corners of both of my eyes. I wasn’t sure if they flowed from a release of emotion or the smoke.

“I’m fine. I pulled you out. Why did you go in?”

“We talked.” He patted my arm near the elbow. His eyes met the medic and they exchanged a glance over my head. One that said I was delusional. A jolt of anger started at my toes, but burned out before I got to my chest. Maybe I was crazy.

I lifted a hand and pointed in the general direction of the two cars parked behind the burned building. “Yours?”

He nodded. “Yes, I worked here earlier. My battery wouldn’t take a jump. A friend picked me up.”

“No.” I managed to swallow a few more times and lubricate my mouth. “Someone is in the office.” I swallowed again, forcing my throat to work. “We talked.”

“You talked to someone in the office?” Devon’s face was a mask of horror.

I shook my head. “No, phone.”

Officer Barton walked up to the stretcher as the last of my words died out. She leaned over me, kindness in her eyes, and said, “Don’t talk. You’ll be at the hospital soon.” Her face hardened when she looked at the medic. “Get going. She may have more damage than we can tell here.”

The wheels crunched over the parking lot, drowning out my thoughts. I sighed and coughed into the oxygen mask. I wanted to curl up and go to sleep, but the medic refused to let me. Every time I closed my eyes and relaxed, he tapped me on the forehead.

The ambulance bumped its way down the road to Fisherman’s Hospital. It was a homecoming of sorts for me. Some thirty odd years ago, I drew my first breaths in this hospital. First in my family born in a hospital. A lot of Conchs told the same story. No close hospitals. They ended up being born in a car on the road to Miami, or they’d made arrangements with one of the excellent midwives in the Keys. Thoughts spun through my head like a kaleidoscope. As soon as I thought I had a handle on them, they shifted and changed. I wondered if the medic gave me something. I didn’t think so.

The lights of the emergency room hurt my eyes. They rolled me to a curtained area and transferred me from gurney to bed with barely a bump. A doctor arrived almost immediately. He put me through some breathing tests. About ten minutes later, two men wheeled a large x-ray machine behind the curtain. They took films and left without a word. The next thing I knew, Janice, Grant, and Mallory burst in from behind the curtain. Janice’s badge hung around her neck.

“Rank has its privileges.” She pulled the curtain closed behind them and took a place next to my head. She chortled. “That was fun. Been a while since I cop-slapped anyone.” Her brown eyes snapped with merriment. Grant and Mallory wore far more serious expressions. Grant patted my wrist above one of the bandages. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Everywhere except my voice.” I lifted a bandaged paw in his direction. “I think these were precautionary. Or someone needed their merit badge in wound wrapping.” I laughed. The instant coughing fit made me regret my laughter.

The doctor came in again. “X-rays are clear. Don’t know how you managed that.”

“Hope they look better than she does.” Mallory held up a mirror as she spoke.

I barely recognized the face looking back at me. “A true friend would have cleaned me up.”

“A true friend would have stopped you from going, not just told you not to,” Grant said. His eyes betrayed his guilt. I wanted to grab his hand. My bandaged paws prohibited any contact.

A nurse arrived, her face a mask of alarm. “You folks shouldn’t be here.” Janice whipped her badge away from her neck and started to say something, but the doctor interrupted with a shake of his head. The nurse shrugged and with a wet washcloth proceeded to wash away what I hoped was the worst of the soot.

“You’ll be going home as soon as we examine your hands. The medic said they were red, but wasn’t sure if they were burned.” He cocked an eyebrow at the nurse who removed a sterile package from her pocket. “This will hurt.”

A thought slammed into me with the magnitude of a freight train. “The body in the fire. Whose?” I glanced from Grant to Janice to Mallory as the nurse snipped at the bandages.

I didn’t like the glance they exchanged among themselves.

“Let’s wait for Officer Barton. She’s coming here after she finishes at the site.”

Clarity broke through my fog. Officer Barton called one or all of my friends. That’s how they knew where to find me.

I winced as the nurse unwrapped the heavy covering from my hands.

I bet Officer Barton arranged for Janice in case I said anything about the fire. I studied my hands. They were red and puffy. I clenched them. A little stiff, not too bad, and definitely only lightly burned. More like a bad sunburn than something that results from my cooking. Except for my fingertips; three of them on each hand were topped with angry blisters.

“Who was in the fire?” I said again.

The curtain opened and Officer Barton strode though. As I expected she stonewalled my question.

“Are you feeling well enough to talk to me?” She glanced at the doctor as she asked the question.

“We’ll be discharging her with an inhaler as soon as you finish. She must not have gone into the fire. If she did, she is amazingly resilient.”

“Tell me what happened.”

I repeated the entire story to Officer Barton. Janice, Grant, and Mallory stood by and listened. I became agitated when I got to the part about entering the office. The body, my naked fear that I would not get out, my clumsy search. Finally, I broke down in loud sobbing tears. The doctor stood at my side and injected something into my upper arm.

“We thought she might be in shock. Too calm and cooperative. This will make her rest a bit.”

A feeling of warmth flowed through me. Whatever he gave me worked, and fast.

“Will one of you be driving her home? We don’t need to keep her.”

Grant nodded. “I will. Can I take her now?”

“Give her a few minutes. Let the drug take effect.”

Home. Images of
The Wizard of Oz
floated up in memory. I wished I could go home by clicking my heels three times. A wave of emotional pain washed over me and battered me in the shallows of my thoughts. Did my parents die because of me? Could I ever go home again? Oh, I could go to the house, but could I go to that warm, safe place? Danger surrounded Dana. I’d lost my parents and my surrogate mother. I had to fight for Dana. She’d been crying out for help, and I’d abandoned her. She was an emotional wreck, and I’d thought it was only her grief. Strange thoughts continued to fill my mind as the past merged with the present. I must have nodded off. The next thing I remembered was having the nurse prop each of my legs on the wheelchair leg rest. She wheeled me to the front door. Grant’s cherry red Jag waited.

I placed both hands on the armrests and forced myself upright. Even that slight movement made me gasp for air. I coughed. The nurse handed me a fistful of tissues. Her message clear: spit the poison up. So I did. Charcoal-colored phlegm tinged the tissue. Grant came around the door to help me sit. He swung my legs in and fastened my seatbelt.

“You sure I shouldn’t go with someone else?” I waved a red hand over the tan leather seats.

He slid into the driver’s seat and looked me full in the face. “They’re leather—you can’t hurt them with a little soot.”

“Grant…” My voice trailed off as he raised a hand.

“Don’t. It must hurt to talk.”

I smiled my agreement. “Who was in the fire? Why won’t anyone tell me? Is it because I could have saved them if I’d been smarter?”

“Don’t beat yourself up. So far no one said anyone died in the fire. You were oxygen deprived. The mind plays tricks.”

I tilted my head back against the headrest, intending to give his statement some serious thought. I knew what I saw. A body. “You’re wrong. The smoke cleared a bit. The fire hadn’t gotten to the office. I saw a…”

“Who did you see?” His gentle voice matched the expression in his eyes.

“A hump. I don’t know.” The words sounded lame even to my ears. What did I see? A hump next to the desk. “I get your point.”

We rode a few more miles in silence. My brain churned with so many thoughts they were in danger of melting into one. Why did The Petard burn tonight? The one night the bar was closed. I searched my thoughts. Was The Petard ever closed? Last I knew it was a seven-day operation, open as early to as late as the law allowed. “Grant, who would profit from the fire?”

“Who owns the building?”

I thought a minute. I checked the ownership researching the corporate documents and the liquor license. “Mike. No. Mike’s company.” I straightened in my seat. “No, I’m wrong. Jake owns the building. Jake leases the building to Mike’s company.”

“So Jake profits, and maybe Devon if the corporation designated an also named insured interest, and the second will stands.”

“At least Dana doesn’t profit. Nobody can point a finger at her.” The bitterness in my voice surprised me. I squirmed in the seat and considered whether to take that train of thought any further. I was too tired to fight with myself. “Someone killed Mike. Do you believe me now?”

He shot me a quick glance. “I believe someone tried to kill you.”

“Not Devon. He saved me. He came into a burning restaurant and saved me.”

“After he invited you there.”

I rolled the thought over in my mind. Goosebumps rose on my skin.

We pulled up in front of my house at the same instant Grant’s cell phone rang. I unbuckled my seatbelt but waited to get out. Exhaustion overwhelmed me. I wanted a hand getting out of the low car. He signed off, his face a mask of concern.

“The body in the bar.” He glanced at his feet where they rested in front of the driving pedals. “Buddy.”