I take a deep breath and pop the trunk and breath out slowly when I see Emma Green isn’t in there. If she ever was folded up into it at any point there’s no sign. If Cooper did take her he could have wrapped her in something. When I walk around the car there’s something plastic on the ground sticking out from beside the tire. I bend down. It’s a camera. There’s a crack running across the back of the display screen and the lid to the battery compartment has busted off. I open up the small compartment covering the memory card and pop it out. I sit the camera back on the ground and look under the car. There’re a couple of papers, a teaching schedule, a sandwich wrapped in clear wrap, and an apple that’s wrinkled and soft. Wedged beneath the edge of the tire are some tiny pieces of paper, disk-shaped with a serial number across them. There are others further beneath the car, and when I stand back up I can see some against the edge of the lawn. They are from a Taser gun. I slip the memory card into my pocket and walk around to the trunk and take out the tire iron.

I don’t knock on the door. Instead I take the keys and pocket them before swinging the door all the way open with my foot. The stench of petrol wafts out. My eyes water as I move forward. There are two empty petrol cans just inside the doorway. I wipe at my eyes while holding my breath. The tiled foyer floor is wet and slippery. To the left are a set of open French doors leading through to a carpeted living room with large dark patches where petrol has been splashed around. Ahead are more French doors, another living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. To the right a staircase twists up to the second-floor landing, a ninety-degree bend halfway up, all of it edged with iron wrought bars connected by a white wooden handrail.

I step back outside. I suck in a breath of clean air. Somebody was shot by a Taser, and somebody is about to set fire to the house. All that petrol—it’s going to burn quick, and it’s going to happen any second now. If Emma Green is inside she’s going to burn quick along with it.

I have no choice. I head back in. I take the stairs, moving quickly past prints and photographs, my feet squelching into the carpet as petrol comes up out of it. If I’m quick I can get in and out of here before this place goes up in flames, or maybe I can stop it from happening. I check the rooms upstairs. A study to the far left, a guest bedroom, two bathrooms, and two more bedrooms. My chest is sore from breathing hard, my legs are aching, the lack of exercise over the months clearly evident. The fumes are much thicker up here. It doesn’t add up—torching your own house doesn’t seem the way a criminology and psychiatry professor would deal with hiding a body. A guy like Cooper wouldn’t have brought a victim here, then become desperate enough to burn down his own house to hide the evidence. He also wouldn’t be foolish enough to leave her car parked outside. Cooper Riley is quickly sliding down the scale from suspect to victim. Something bad has happened to him, or about to if this place burns, and I’m thinking it’s the same bad thing that might happen to Emma Green.

I get through all the rooms. No blood. No Emma Green. No Cooper Riley. No sign of any struggle except for the broken camera outside and signs somebody used a Taser. Every second I expect to hear the rush of flames erupting from below. I head back toward the stairs. Maybe I’ll have more luck on the ground floor.

From downstairs a toilet flushes and the urgency is replaced with caution. I reach the staircase, my grip still tight on the tire iron, looking down into the foyer, when a man I don’t recognize steps into the hall. He has a box of matches in his hand and one of them is already lit. He drops it into the petrol on his way out the door without even seeing me, picking up the empty containers on the way. Before I can move or even yell out, there’s a whoomp as fire erupts over the tiles, through the French doors and onto the carpet and up the curtains. The arsonist disappears behind a haze of heat and smoke. The flames reach the staircase where it forks, heading along the ground floor and at the same time climbing the steps toward me, the flames blue at the bottom, yellow at the tips, the heart of it dark orange, the furniture in the foyer and living room already burning, the air blanketed with smoke and toxic fumes, all of it taking only seconds.

There is no path to the front door. The entire foyer is engulfed in fire. I take a few more steps down toward it. Somehow I have to get through those flames and find Emma Green.

Only I can’t. Those flames are suicide. There is no path through them. The only direction is up.

Smoke rolls like water beneath the ceiling. Petrol splashes from the carpet onto my legs. I start coughing as raw dark air is pulled into my lungs. I run the length of the upstairs hallway to the bedroom at the end where there isn’t any petrol on the floor. I slam the door closed hoping it will form a barrier to give me more time. The flames downstairs sound like a freight train. I can feel the floor heating up but I’m not sure if it’s real or just my imagination. I try the windows. They open but not far enough to climb through. Emma Green’s car is doing a U-turn. Badly. It bounces up over the opposite curb and hits a letterbox then shudders as it stalls. It stays that way for a few seconds before lurching forward again, the engine hiccupping, the letterbox crushed flat beneath the front wheels. The skeleton of the house groans as it weakens, the ground floor readying to have the top floor fold into it. The polystyrene walls are melting as the timber framing crackles and burns. It’s only a matter of seconds until the bedroom is the next victim in the inferno.

I use the tire iron on the window, smashing it, taking out some of my frustration on the glass, angry that on the ground floor Emma may be burning to death. The quicker I get outside, the sooner I can make my way back in downstairs and look for her. Most of the shards of glass rain down outside, but some are pulled back in as the tire iron hooks toward me. A couple of pieces slide into my hand and cut deep. I drop the iron and drag the mattress from the bed and twist it out over the windowsill, shark tooth–shaped fragments of glass biting at it, making it difficult. I get it far enough to let it fall and allow gravity to take over. It disappears through the smoke and I can barely see the shape of it hitting the ground. Landing on the mattress is such a cartoonish thing to attempt, but it’s all I have. The window in the bedroom below shatters and flames erupt outside and heat rushes over my face. I will have to pass through the flames, no choice there. People are appearing on the other side of the road. They’re standing there staring at me with no idea what to do, some of them with their hands over their mouths, others pointing at me, some making calls on their cell phones, others pointing their phones at me and taking pictures or shooting film, some of them probably even annoyed I’m devaluing the neighborhood by being burned alive. None of them come any closer or offer any encouraging words of survival. I drape a blanket over the edge of the window to cover the remaining glass. The bedroom door is on fire. Smoke is being sucked in under it and toward the broken window. I wrap another blanket over my body, covering as much of myself as I can, holding it over my face by putting it between my teeth. I lower myself outside as far as I can to lessen the impact. The flames hit my feet. I let go, pushing back slightly, unable to see the mattress but remembering where it landed. I watch the house race past me. I pull the blanket down further to cover my face as I pass through the flames. I tuck my knees up slightly and I hit the mattress with my feet and butt at the same time, something in my left knee popping. I roll onto my back and away from the fire, leaving the blanket behind. The cuffs of my pants are smoldering. I slap at the flames with my hands and kill them, having to stretch forward because of my already swelling knee. I crawl further from the house, and at the same time two men appear. They grab me under the arms and drag me away, asking if there is anybody else inside.