Chapters (68)
- Dedication
- Title Page
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Copyright
AS best I could tell, the entire beach house was surrounded by fire. Something flammable—maybe gas, maybe something else that didn’t smell quite as strong—had been poured around the perimeter of the building. Flames licked above the first-floor window ledges.
“Cal!” Jeremy shouted from upstairs.
“Hang on!”
“Fire!” he said. “There’s a fire!”
I ran into the kitchen area and started throwing open cupboards. Even without any lights on, the glow from the flames was bright enough to make out shapes. I remembered seeing a fire extinguisher somewhere when we were opening cabinets and closets to see how well equipped the place was.
I found one under the sink. Not a huge one, but something that would do the trick to put out a small kitchen fire. The canister was no thicker than a soup can, and about a foot and a half tall. Maybe it would be enough to get us out the door. I grabbed it and pulled the pin that would allow foam to be propelled from it once I squeezed the trigger.
Then it occurred to me that there might be another way out.
Taking the extinguisher with me, I went up to the second floor, where I found Jeremy with his backpack slung over his shoulder.
“This way!” he said, heading toward the sliding glass doors that led to the elevated deck.
That was what I’d been thinking. The fire was at ground level, but the deck was attached to the second floor. We could escape through the glass doors, take the stairs down the side of the house and jump over the flames. If they were too high to do that, we could leap off the deck into the sand. I was confident it would break our fall.
Jeremy was heading for the doors when suddenly I reached for his arm and said, “No.”
“What?”
“That’s the way he wants us to go. It’s the one way out he’s left for us.”
Jeremy looked at me wide-eyed. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying he wants us to go out that door.”
“Who’s he?”
The smell of smoke was getting stronger. The flames surrounding the first floor of the house were casting light into the second-floor windows.
“What’s gonna happen if we go out that way?” Jeremy asked, pointing to the deck.
We get picked off, I thought.
“It’s not safe.”
“It’s not safe to stay here!”
That was true, too.
If this guy Duckworth had warned me about was outside waiting for us to come onto the deck, where would he be?