Dear God, Mark had locked me in here and then started the house on fire. What an idiot I’d been to agree to meet him alone. I couldn’t believe that I’d read him so wrong. And yet, he didn’t seem crazy—he seemed afraid. And he certainly hadn’t seemed like he was ready to lock me in a room so I would die from smoke inhalation.
The bare-bones study had no curtains, though there was a swag over the window. I rolled the desk chair over, balanced myself on it, yanked at the rod, and pulled the swag free. I stuffed as much as I could beneath the door. I ran back to the window and looked straight down at the two-story drop to the flagstone patio below. I was going to have to chance it if the firefighters didn’t get here in time.
Then I had a terrible thought. Would they even know to come here? The house had a fire and alarm system. That much I’d seen on my first visit. What if Mrs. Arlington had skimped on the second-floor detection the way she had with the decor? Mark might have set the fire up here to destroy evidence and to delay the fire’s discovery.
Smoke travels up. How long would it take for the smoke to be thick enough to reach down the stairs, where I had seen alarm code panels? And what if they were just for show? Lots of people never bothered activating existing systems. Maybe the beeping was from one of those battery-powered alarms not even connected to a central monitoring location.
I thought back to the Mamanasco cottage. It was no longer hardwired like in the old days, when lines literally ran to the firehouse and police headquarters. We were now connected via the internet with a backup battery for power loss. Would Mrs. Arlington, who didn’t even have a generator, have an updated system?
No sense in thinking about something I couldn’t change. I would just have to hope that the fire department had received the alert.
The Arlington estate was less than four miles away from the antique firehouse on Catoonah Street that still serviced the town. For once I was grateful that the new emergency operations headquarters being built away from the village center wasn’t yet completed. I hoped that the smoke now seeping into the room wouldn’t outrun the help I prayed was only minutes away. While I waited, I would do whatever I could to survive.
After I’d announced to my uncle that I would be moving to New York City, he’d given me a book for Christmas called Dr. Disaster’s Guide to Surviving Everything. I think he thought it was funny, but the more I read through how to survive bear encounters and chemical attacks, the more prepared I vowed to become.
Grizzly bears did not inhabit this part of the country, and the black bears frequently spotted around town weren’t interested in people. All you had to do was retreat slowly without turning your back, and you could both go your separate ways.
Chemical attacks required covering your face as much as possible, exiting as fast as you could, and stripping down naked to douse yourself in water even before help arrived. Not something I would relish.
Most useful in my current predicament was fire survival. What had I read? In a high-rise fire, avoid elevators unless you want to end up akin to a roasted turkey. That one was etched uncomfortably in my brain.
What else? Fires needed fuel to burn, and homes built a hundred years ago didn’t always provide the same fuel opportunities as new houses with synthetics and plastics. Hopefully Mrs. Arlington’s old house with its plaster walls would slow the flames.
Fires also needed oxygen. Well, so did I.
I hoped the window I now tried to lift wouldn’t attract the flames. As much as I put all my strength into it, the old frame wouldn’t budge. Too many coats of paint over the years had secured it so tight it might as well have been nailed shut.
By now the smoke had seeped into the room enough to make my eyes water. I was also beginning to cough.
What secret was still in here that was worth killing for? Had Mark lured me here knowing that I had been the last to speak with Mrs. Arlington? He might have been trying to determine what I knew and who I might have told before getting rid of me. I had the sick feeling that I had just placed Scoop in mortal danger.
A racing heart, clammy hands, and the desire to climb out of my body told me I was also in the throes of a panic attack. The smoke was still coming from the gaps surrounding the door and had risen, hanging like a cloud overhead. The swag wasn’t enough. I crawled to the door, sticking low to the floor. I pulled the swag out to reposition it and then jumped back in terror as a thick haze of black wafted into my face. Coughing, my eyes stinging, I hurriedly stuffed the swag back. I then kicked off my shoes and tore off my jeans, which I stuffed tightly into the remaining gaps.
The smoke confirmed that the fire was heading my way, if not already nearby, and I was going to be out of options soon. To have any chance of survival, I would have to break that window and lower myself as close to the stone patio as my five foot five inches could reach.
I searched for something, anything to break the window. Aside from the few books I had previously removed from the shelf and had already thrown at it, there was nothing strong. I wished I had the bucket I had used on the downstairs door when I first broke in. Even the wastebasket was useless, because it was wicker. As a last resort, I took the chair and, with all my strength, flung it. One of the plastic wheels fell off as the window cracked. I tried again. The window still held.
Before I could throw the chair again, I heard sirens. Relief was only momentary, because the cloud of smoke now felt like fog surrounding me. I tried to breathe into my arm and then pulled my shirt up over my face, gasping for air.
Between the smoke and panic, it was hard to get a breath of any kind. The overwhelming sorrow I felt as the realization sank in that I might die today stalled me for a moment.
No way, I thought. I’d throw the chair again and lower myself out the window. I’d risk the drop to the cement patio. Irrationally, I decided I would not leave the room without revenge. I grabbed a scrap of paper from the desk, scribbled a note, and stuck it in my bra—Mark Goodwin locked me in and started the fire. If I died of smoke inhalation, someone might at least find it. Unless, of course, my body was roasted.
STOP, I told myself. Think.
I knew from my survival reading that there was something called back draft, and I tried to remember if this was the type of environment that would create an explosion. The door still felt cool, so the flames had not yet reached this part of the house. The smoke, however, was a rude reminder that the fire was heading this way fast. I decided to risk it and threw the chair again.
More cracks riddled what I could now see was a double-paned window. I thought I heard the driveway alarm over the incessant smoke detector, and noise outside told me that the firefighters were here. Somehow I would have to let them know where I was trapped.
Stuffing the cracks with my jeans and the swag had bought me some time. I quickly dropped to the floor, where the smoke was less dense. I would wait here until I was sure the firefighters would be able to hear me when I threw the chair at the window again. I would then keep doing it until I made enough noise for them to notice.
Burying my face in my arms, I pressed my back against the bookshelf and listened. A loud click caused something to shift behind me, and I fell backward into a cool black abyss.
What the heck?
The bookshelf, with its glued-together tomes that I hadn’t been able to tug off the shelves, had been a decorative way of treating a closet door—a well-sealed closet door—which had now opened. I knew I needed to shut it again, and yet it was so dark—what if I got stuck in there and no one ever found me? Didn’t they tell you not to hide in closets when a building was on fire? I might be locked in the walls of the burned-down Arlington estate in perpetuity. My poor family would never know what had happened to me.
Cloudy thinking aside, when smoke chased me inside the closet, I knew I had no choice but to slam the door against the murderous gasses. A few minutes later I was feeling less oxygen deprived, though my breathing and heart rate could still rival that of an Olympic sprinter. It was pitch-black, and as my hands moved over the wall, I felt enormous relief at finding a light switch. That is, until I flicked it on and off. Idiot, I thought. Power has not yet been restored to West Mountain.
As if blind, I moved my hands around. It appeared that this was Mrs. Arlington’s office supply closet. Trying to call out with a raspy voice wasn’t working, so I continued investigating the space.
Eyes straining in the darkness, I cursed Goodwin for taking my phone. I could have called for help. I could have used my flashlight app. Of course, that was his plan, wasn’t it? Take my phone, start the fire, and goodbye, Winter Snow, the woman who had been nosing around and now knew his secrets. Hadn’t he said he had a truck? Maybe the black truck that had been following me was his.
The roar of water from heavy hoses slapping against the house somewhere still sounded so far away. I called out, and my voice sounded like Croak’s. I tried again, louder. Still no response. Feeling like a caged animal, I suddenly understood Diva’s claustrophobia.
“Calm down. Breathe,” I told myself aloud.
I did a few inhale/exhale exercises.
I could probably wait out the fire here in this well-sealed closet, where very little smoke had followed in after me. When the fire was out, I could exit the way I came in, I told myself logically. Of course, that was assuming it was a fire that could be put out before it destroyed the rest of the house. Flashbacks of a flaming mansion on High Ridge a number of years back, rumored to be arson, trailed in my brain. That fire had flattened the entire structure like a pancake of ash and debris.
I felt back for the door I had come through, and sure enough, there was a normal knob. Thank goodness the door still felt cool. The fire hadn’t spread inside the room where I had been trapped. Okay, I thought. Stay in control, and all will be fine.
As tempted as I was to crawl back and retrieve my jeans, I left the door closed. Fine or not, I was not reentering that smoke-filled coffin. Instead, I continued feeling my way around the closet. My fingers moved over what felt like a three-hole punch, extra file folders, and so on. Mrs. Arlington could compete with Squashes, our former office supply store on Main Street.
And then, suddenly, I heard the unmistakable sci-fi ring of my cell. How could that be? I followed the sound. No light flickered anywhere to indicate where it might be. If I could find it, I could turn on my flashlight app. I could text 911 with the address. Maybe this high up on the second floor, I’d even have enough of a signal to call the fire department to let them know the house was occupied.
I worked my way around the closet, passing over more shelves of supplies and something that felt soft, like a blanket. Where had that been when I needed it? Finally, I reached the opposite side of the cramped space where the ringtone was loudest.
And then it stopped.
In this blackness, there was no way I would find it. Still, I continued feeling toward the direction the sound had come from.
A moment later it started again. Still no light indicating that it was here in the closet, although it could be hidden under something. I picked up my pace as I continued to feel my way toward the ringing phone. Just as it stopped again, I reached what felt like another door. Moving my hands over it, I easily found a knob. I touched the door to feel for heat. Nothing. Slowly I pulled the door open, ready to slam it against any deluge of smoke. However, the large room diluted what smoke there was. This was the room farthest from the master bedroom and closest to the back staircase. As I took one step inside, I tripped over something and went flying into a face-plant.
My hands smarted where they had slapped the floor to break my fall, and my shoulders hurt. My jaw didn’t feel broken, though it would be bruised. I ran my tongue over teeth that I was relieved to find still intact.
Pulling myself to my hands and knees, I looked to see what had caused me to trip. The smoke mixed with the light from the window made the room look like a misty morning, and I blinked several times to refocus eyes that stung. And then I blinked again.
Mark Goodwin lay in front of the door I had just exited. The loosening of his muscles made his cheek bones protrude, as if he had had too many fillers injected by an incompetent physician. His deeply tanned face was now the color of unbleached flour, and his head was contorted at an odd angle, with blood pooling beneath it.
My cell phone rang again.
Mark’s back pocket lit up like Broadway. Just as I pulled my cell from his pocket, the door cautiously opened and a firefighter in full gear entered. He squawked something into his radio, took in the scene, and came straight for me. It was then that I remembered the two files I had left on the desk in Mrs. Arlington’s study. Too late to go back now. And also too late to retrieve the iPad hidden under the seat cushion in the sunroom.