Tomasetti comes up behind me, hooks a finger in my belt loop from behind. “The fire department is two minutes away.”

“I think the baby is in distress,” I tell him.

“Goddamn it.” But he releases me.

Glass slices my elbow, but I don’t stop. Then I’m inside a kitchen turned upside down. The refrigerator lies in my way, so I rise to a crouch, ding my head on an open cabinet door. Ahead I see a living room. A shattered television. A sofa lying upside down. A playpen, one side crushed.

The cry comes again. The strangled sound of a drowning kitten. Not right, a little voice whispers inside my head, and I know the infant is either terrified or injured or both. I move past the cabinet door and stand. The smell of gas makes me hesitate. It scares me because I know if there’s enough built up, one spark and the place could explode. But there’s no way I can walk away and leave an injured child behind.

“Hello!” I hear fear in my voice now. Urgency pushes me forward. “Police! Is someone there?”

On the other side of the sofa I see a blanket and bed linens. A stuffed animal. A bunny. I start when I see an adult female lying facedown, a coffee table on top of her. “Ma’am?”

No response.

“Shit.”

I turn my head, see Tomasetti crawling through the window, his expression grim. “I’ve got a woman in here,” I tell him. “She’s not moving.”

“Kate, we’ve got gas in here.”

But in the next instant he’s standing beside me and we’re moving forward, stumbling over a kitchen chair, crunching through broken glass and splintered paneling.

I reach the woman first. She’s wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt. Denim shorts. White legs smeared with blood. “Ma’am?”

She groans, a deep, raw sound. When she looks at me, her eyes are dull and unfocused. “Wha—? I don’t … what happened.” Realization kicks in, and then she screams, “Lucy!” She moves, and then, “Oh, God! My leg! Ohmigod!”

I kneel beside her. “I’m a police officer. Try to stay calm. We’re going to get you out of here.” I run my eyes over her, looking for visible injuries, and wince at the sight of the white-pink bone protruding through the skin at her shin. Compound fracture. Jesus. “Where else are you hurt? Are you in pain?”

“My leg!” she cries. “Oh, God! It hurts like a son of a bitch!”

“Ma’am, is there a child here with you? Anyone else?”

“Lucy,” she whimpers. “My baby! She was right here. I was holding her when everything just … exploded. Oh, God. Ohmigod! Where is she?” She rolls onto her side and lets out a scream that makes every nerve in my body jump.

“I’ll find her. You just lie still.” I look over at the playpen. Fear swirls in my gut when I see a tiny hand protruding from beneath it. Little fingers curled and not moving. In the back of my mind, it registers that I haven’t heard a cry in several seconds. She should be crying.