Drop Dead Gorgeous (26 page)

The second bedroom! Its windows overlooked the back, which was secured by the privacy fence.

"Can you get out, and direct the fire department to the correct building?" the operator asked.

"I'm upstairs and the whole downstairs is on fire, but I'm going to give it the old college try," I said, coughing on the smoke. "I'm going out the window. Bye now."

"Please stay on the line," she said urgently.

"Maybe you didn't understand," I yelled. "I'm going out the window! I can't do that and talk on the phone at the same time! The fire department will be able to spot the condo just fine, tell them to look for the one with flames shooting out the windows!"

Flipping the phone shut, I tossed it in my bag, then darted in the bathroom and wet a towel, which I tied over my nose and mouth,
then
I wet another one and draped it over my head.

All the experts say don't bother getting your purse or anything, just get out, because you have only seconds to do it. I didn't listen to the experts. I not only grabbed the tote, which held my wallet and cell phone and Jazz's invoices from Sticks and Stones— the invoices seemed horribly important—I also grabbed the chef's knife and dropped it into the tote bag, too. The plan was, when I got out of this death trap, if I saw some psycho bitch out there, leaning against a white Malibu and gloating, I intended to gut her.

I made it to the bedroom door, then turned and made a swooping dive at my closet. Grabbing my wedding shoes, I stuffed them in the tote bag, too. Then, barefoot, I wrenched open my bedroom door.

With a great
whoosh
the flames in the living room seemed to rush up the stairs. Sparks danced in the air, and black smoke already obscured the hallway. I knew exactly where I was, though, and exactly where the door to the other bedroom was. Getting down on my hands and knees, with the braided handles of the tote looped on my shoulder, I crawled as fast as possible down the hall. The smoke burned my eyes like all the fiends in Hell, so I simply shut them. I couldn't see where I was going anyway. I knew by feel when I reached the doorway, and
raised
on my knees to search for the doorknob. I found it, turned, and pushed inward, then all but fell into the relatively clear air of the bedroom.

Relatively clear. Smoke boiled in the open door and I hurriedly shut it again, coughing as the evil black stuff sifted around the edges of my wet towel and through the fabric. At least it wasn't so thick I couldn't see the lighter rectangle of the window. I crawled to it, pushed the curtains aside, fumbled with the latches— "Damn it!" I said hoarsely, when one wouldn't give.
"Son of a bitch!"
I was
not
going to let that bitch burn me to death.

Unslinging
the tote from my shoulder, I reached into it and by some miracle didn't cut my finger off on the razor-sharp blade of the chef's knife. Grabbing the heavy knife by the handle, I began whamming the butt of it against the stubborn latch.

From downstairs I heard more glass shatter from the heat. I whammed harder, and the latch began giving. Two more whams, and it slid open.

Gasping for breath, coughing, I shoved the double-hung window open and hung over the sill, trying to stay below the smoke that poured out of the room so I could find some fresh air. My lungs were on fire, despite the wet towel protecting my mouth and nose.

I heard sirens, I thought, but maybe my own fire alarm was still valiantly shrilling an alert. Maybe the neighbor's alarm had gone off. Maybe the fire department had arrived. I couldn't tell, but I wasn't waiting to see.

I threw the comforter off the four-poster guest bed and stripped both sheets off so fast I pulled the mattress half off the bed with the force of my tugging. Working as fast as I could, I knotted one corner of the sheet around the leg of the footboard,
then
tied the other sheet to the opposite corner of the first sheet, making a sheet rope that reached from the bed to the window, and down the side of the condo.

I didn't stop to see if the sheet rope was long enough, I just tossed my tote out the window, then grabbed the sheet and went out the window.

It's funny how the body works. I didn't consciously think about how I was going out the window, but my body knew what to do from all those gymnastic exercises. I climbed out feet first, then automatically caught the sill and turned so I was facing the outside of the building and could brace my feet against the wall.

Holding tight to the sheet, I began lowering myself hand over hand, my feet "walking" down the wall— until I ran out of both sheet and wall. I hung there for a minute, panicked; to my left, flames were breaking through the kitchen window. The guest bedroom was built to overhang the bottom floor, the bedroom floor providing the cover for the small patio. I had no more
wall
to walk down, and below me was an eight-foot drop.

What the hell. I'd been higher than that when I was at the top of a cheerleader pyramid. And, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm five-four. With my arms stretched over my head I can probably reach six and a half feet, give or take a few inches. That left just a foot and a half to the ground, right?

Not that I was hanging there doing math. I just looked down, thought, "How far can it be?" and let my legs swing down. When my arms were fully extended, I let go.

I think it was farther than a foot and a half.

Still, I landed with my knees bent the way I had trained, the cool damp grass absorbing some of the impact, and rolled.

I came to my knees and stared at the spectacle before me. Sparks were shoot-
ing
into the air like obscene fireworks. The fire made a roaring sound, as if it were alive. I'd never heard a fire before, never been close to a burning building, but it's this… this own thing in itself, something with a whole new identity. For now, while it burned, it was alive, and it wouldn't die without a fight.

I was still trapped, there in the tiny fenced backyard with the flames devouring my home, looming over me, blackened walls threatening to collapse.

Scrabbling around on the ground, I located the dark tote and this time looped the straps diagonally over my head and shoulders,
then
darted for the gate. I shoved the heavy latch open, pushed on the gate— and nothing happened. It wouldn't budge.

"Son of a
bitch
!"
I shrieked hoarsely, so furious I could barely stay in my skin. Forget the knife; if I could get my hands on that moronic psycho nut-case bitch, I wouldn't need a blade,
I'd
do the job with my bare hands. I'd tear her throat out with my teeth. I'd set her hair on fire and toast marshmallows in the flame.

No, wait. That could get icky. Forget the marsh-mallows.

After climbing out a second-story window, a six-foot fence wasn't about to get the better of me. Reaching up, I caught the top of the fence and hauled myself up far enough to hook my right leg over,
then
I pushed upright, swung my left leg over, and vaulted to the ground.

Red lights were flashing everywhere. Men in yellow turnout suits were moving with urgent purpose, stringing out thick fire hoses, attaching them to pumps and fireplugs. People in their nightclothes were spilling into the street, some of them with pants hastily pulled on over pajamas, the fire and flashing lights throwing weird shapes and shadows over them. A fireman grabbed me and yelled something but I couldn't understand him, because the fire trucks themselves made a God-awful amount of noise, added to the roar of the fire and sirens from other emergency vehicles that
came
racing toward us.

I guessed he was asking if I was hurt, so I yelled, "I'm okay!" Then I yelled, "That's my condo!" and pointed to it.

With one arm he literally lifted me off my feet and rushed me away from the fire, away from the showers of sparks and exploding glass, away from the blasting streams of water, the sagging electrical lines, and didn't let go until I was safely on the other side of the street.

I still had the wet towel tied over my mouth and nose; I'd lost the one I'd thrown over my head, somewhere between dropping and rolling. Whipping the towel free, I sank to my knees and sucked in fresh air as deeply as I could, coughing and gagging at the same time. When the coughing subsided a little and I could stand up, I began working my way through the crowd of people, pushing when I had to, wiggling my way through when I could, looking for a psycho bitch who would, obviously, be dressed in regular clothes instead of a nightgown or pajamas.

Chapter Eighteen

Wyatt!

His name flashed in my brain and I paused in my woman-hunt to fish in the tote for my cell phone. This time, damn it, I did nick my finger on the knife. Snarling, I stood the knife, blade down, in one of the inside pockets—why hadn't I thought to do that before? Oh, yeah, preoccupied with trying to escape a burning building—and stuck my finger in my mouth. When I pulled my finger out to examine the damage, there was nothing but a thin hairline of red on the pad of my finger, so no great harm done.

I found the cell phone, and when I flipped it open the little window lit up and told me I'd missed four incoming calls. They were probably all from Wyatt, because someone would
either have recognized the address and
called him, or he'd been sleeping with the police radio beside him. I dialed his cell.

"Blair!" he yelled furiously as a greeting. "Why haven't you been answering your fucking phone?"

"I didn't hear it ring!" I yelled back. My voice was so hoarse I didn't recognize myself. "A house fire and all the alarms make a lot of noise, you know! Besides, I was busy climbing out the upstairs window."

"God almighty," he said, sounding shaken. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm all right. My condo's a goner, though." I looked across the street at the scene of destruction and a horrible realization sank in. "Oh, no!
Your truck!"

"Never mind the truck, I'm insured. Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm sure." I understood why he was double-checking. With my recent history, he was no doubt expecting me to be in critical condition. "Other than cutting my finger on the knife in my purse, I don't think I have any injuries at all."

"Find a police officer and stick to him like glue," he ordered. "I'm almost there, another five minutes at the most. I'm betting this isn't an accident, and the stalker may be right behind you."