In front of him, Jeff turned right and shouldered his way through a door, then jumped back. Flames covered the far wall and in seconds licked across the ceiling.

Go back. The room was seconds from flashover. He reached for Jeff’s coat, but Jeff was hunched over and moving forward. David followed, ax handle down. He hit something soft, but it wasn’t the floor.

A body. “Zell!” he yelled. He grabbed the man under the arms and started dragging him out into the hall. “Get his feet,” he shouted to Jeff.

Jeff turned to get the man’s feet when the room went up.

And the ceiling came down.

“Zell!” David dropped the man and lurched forward. A beam had come down, pinning Jeff’s torso. Jeff lay on his back, not moving. David wedged his ax under the beam, lifting it so that Jeff could drag himself out. But Jeff wasn’t moving.

“Firefighter injured,” David said into his radio. “Need assistance in the bucket.”

David grabbed Jeff under his arms and dragged him out, around the unconscious man, until they were back in the child’s room and at the window. He knelt beside him. His partner was breathing, but it appeared through the mask that his eyes were closed.

“I’ll be back,” David shouted, unsure if Jeff could hear him or not. He went back for the woman’s husband. The bedroom in which they’d found him was now fully engaged.

David got him back to the kids’ bedroom to find Myers at the window.

“Zell’s down,” he shouted, pointing to the floor. “Unresponsive.” Together he and Myers lifted Jeff into the bucket and Myers laid him as flat as the small space allowed.

David knew they couldn’t fit the woman’s husband in the bucket as well. “Take him down and come back for me and the victim.”

It seemed an eternity, watching the bucket descend. Waiting paramedics moved Jeff to a stretcher. Then Myers started back up.

The entire hall was now engulfed in flames and the fire had licked its way into the kids’ bedroom. Fifteen more seconds ticked by while the fire raced up the walls. Finally Myers was back and the two of them lifted the woman’s husband into the bucket. David climbed through the window and into the bucket just as the room went up.

Myers maneuvered the bucket several feet from the building as he took it down.

“You okay?” Myers shouted.

David nodded mutely. His chest felt like it was going to explode. His fingers itched to rip off the mask now that he was out, but he quelled the need, breathing evenly.

They got to the ground and David opened the bucket door, letting the medics drag the victim out and to a waiting stretcher. David yanked his mask from his face.

“Zell?” he asked loudly and the medics pointed to a retreating ambulance.

“He’s conscious but can’t feel his legs. He said to tell you that you’re even now.”

David’s chest felt frozen. Oh God. Spinal injury. God. He thought about the way he’d dragged Jeff out but knew it had been the only way to get him out of the fire. Please, don’t let me have made it worse. He looked back up at the building. Six more windows had terrified residents waving frantically for rescue. Zell’s in good hands. Those people are in yours. Do your job.

He strapped his mask back on and looked at Myers. “Back up?”

Myers nodded tiredly. David took the controls and sent them back up, casting worried glances at the ambulance as it screamed away.

Wednesday, September 22, 1:35 a.m.

“Olivia.” Noah Webster burst into the ER, pale. “Abbott called me.”

She was leaning against a wall outside the room in which Kane lay. She looked up, met Noah’s eyes. “They called it.” Kane’s time of death. As she’d stood and watched, helplessly. “There was nothing they could do.”

Noah closed his eyes for a long moment. “When?”

“Five minutes after we got here. I don’t know the exact time.”

“What happened?”

“I was too late. I wasn’t there.”

Noah grabbed her shoulders. “Stop that. Right now. This is not your fault.”

“Fine.” In the minutes since they’d taken Kane from the ambulance, her mind had moved from chaotic to precise. Clear. Logical. Still, her heart pounded like hell. “It doesn’t matter now anyway.”

Noah pinched her chin, made her look up at him. “You’re in shock.”

“No. I’m not. I’m waiting for Jennie and then I’m catching a ride back to the scene.”

“No, you’re not,” Noah said.

She jerked her chin from his fingers. “I’ll function. I owe Kane at least that much.”

“Olivia, you didn’t cause this.”

“No, but I might have prevented it. And I know damn well who could have prevented it.”

“Who?”

“Kenny Lathem. That’s who this guy was after. That’s why he called in a bomb threat. One of the cops at the scene followed us in. He said when the evac started, the staff had all the kids together. One of the staff told him that a guy dressed like a cop gave Kenny a note that said the detectives wanted to talk to him again. He led him away and forced Kenny into a white van at gunpoint. And no, nobody got a plate,” she said before he could ask.

“And Kane?”

“Kane called ahead, told first responders to make sure Kenny was okay. It was the first thing we thought of when we heard about the evacuation. Kenny was the only dorm kid we talked to and he knew something. When Kane got there, dorm staff told him Kenny had gone with the cops. He chased and got to them just…” Her voice hitched and she sternly controlled it. “Just in time. Kane got the van open, Kenny got away. Kane was shot twice, close range. He was probably dead before he hit the ground.”

Noah swallowed hard. “Shit.”

“Yeah. And there’s more,” she said wearily. “You remember at the end of our five o’clock meeting yesterday, when I got the text from the sign language interpreter?”

“She had another commitment.” His expression twisted. “Oh God, no. That’s how this guy found out about Kenny?”

“I don’t know, but that’s my guess. Her kids say she never came home. Around ten they called a family friend who’s been sitting with them. Val had texted them, too, saying she wouldn’t be home for dinner. Her agency didn’t have any record of any other assignments, so they filed a missing person shortly after midnight. Last I saw her was when we broke for lunch yesterday, right before K-”

She had to stop a minute. Breathe. Wait for the spasm in her chest to ease. “Right before Kane and I went up to David’s to bring back that Lincoln character.”

“Liv, were you with David tonight?”

She nodded, looked away. “Yeah.”

“That wasn’t wrong, you know. That had nothing to do with this.”

“If I’d been at home, I would have been there faster.”

“And maybe I’d be standing over your corpse right now,” Noah said sharply. “You know it doesn’t work like that. You could have been caught in traffic, Kane could have waited for backup. A million different things could have happened.”

“I know.” But that didn’t change facts. If she’d been there, Kane would have had backup and he’d be alive. But she hadn’t and he wasn’t and she couldn’t change that now. She could only do what he would have wanted her to do. Her damn job.

“Did you tell David you were all right?” he asked. “He’s going to hear an officer was killed. He’s going to wonder if it’s you.”

Yes, he would, she realized. And he’d worry. “No, I didn’t think to tell him, but I doubt he’s heard about this yet. David was already gone when I left. There was a big fire…” She stopped and looked up, frowning. “There was a big fire out in Woodview. Didn’t you say something about Woodview at the meeting yesterday?”

“Yeah. That’s where Tomlinson bought a house for his mistress. It’s possible, isn’t it? That they could have set one fire deliberately to divert attention from the evac?”

“It’s possible. It was a bad fire with an explosion. Let’s find out if Tomlinson’s house was the target.” She straightened abruptly when the doors from the outside opened and Abbott entered, a small woman sobbing in his arms. “Jennie,” she murmured.