Drop Dead Gorgeous (27 page)
Startled, I spun around and stared right into the face of an elderly gentleman who had been standing behind me, watching the fire with wide-eyed interest and horror. He jumped back in surprise.
"That's why I have the knife," I said, fury roaring through me again. "When I find that bitch—" The old man's eyes got even bigger and he began backing away.
"Blair,
put the knife away and do only what I told you to do
," he barked. "That's an order."
"You weren't in that fire," I began in hot defense of myself, but the sound of dead air told me he'd disconnected.
Phooey on him; I wanted some face-to-face time with her. I closed my phone, dropped it in the tote, and resumed my weaving pattern through the crowd of on-lookers, staring at their clothes instead of their faces. Men were automatically not in the running. She might not be here. She might have left immediately after throwing her fire-bomb or whatever through the window, but I'd read that killers and arsonists often hung around afterward, mingling with the crowd of onlookers, so they could enjoy the uproar they'd caused.
Someone touched my arm and I whirled. Officer
DeMarius
"Blair, are you all right?" he asked, his dark face tense under his baseball cap.
"I'm fine," I said for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, though my voice was becoming
more raspy
by the second.
"Come with me," he said, taking me by the arm, his head swiveling as he constantly looked around. Wyatt must have radioed in, told them I was in danger. With a sigh, I gave in. I couldn't very well hunt for a psycho with
DeMarius
at my side, because he was sure to prevent me from gutting her. Cops are weird that way.
He led me away from the crowd, toward a patrol car. I tried to be careful where I stepped, because there was so much debris on the ground and I was barefoot, but with him pulling on my arm I didn't always have a choice. My left foot came down on something sharp and I yelped with pain;
DeMarius
whirled, his hand moving toward his service weapon as his gaze darted around, looking for the threat.
"What happened?" He had to half yell, because of the din.
"I stepped on something."
He looked down and for the first time noticed my bare feet. He said, "Oh, hell," which wasn't very professional of him, but like I said we've known each other forever—since we were six, in fact. I took another step and yelped again as soon as my left foot touched down. Held upright by his grip, I sort of hopped around as I lifted my foot to peer at it. All I could tell was that the bottom of my foot was dark; God only knew what I'd stepped in.
"Hold on," said
DeMarius
, and he half-carried, half-hustled me to the patrol car. Opening one of the rear doors, he set me down sideways on the seat, with my legs and feet on the outside, and took his flashlight from his belt as he hunkered down.
The flashlight revealed that the bottom of my foot was red, and wet. A sliver of glass protruded from just behind the ball. "I'll get the first-aid kit," he said. "Sit tight."
He returned with both a first-aid kit and a blanket, which he draped around my shoulders. I hadn't been aware of being cold; there's something about fighting for your life that throws you into high gear. Now the early-morning chill was sinking in as my adrenaline level dropped, and for the first time I was aware of my bare arms and shoulders. All I was wearing was my usual tank top—no bra, of course—and thin drawstring pajama pants that hung low on my hips and showed my belly button. Not what I would have chosen to escape a burning building in, but I hadn't had time to change clothes; I'd barely managed to rescue my wedding shoes.
Those were now the only shoes I owned.
I pulled the blanket tight around me while I twisted to stare at my burning home. The urgency of escaping had taken priority over everything else, but now I realized that I had lost everything: all my clothing, all my furniture, my dishes, my cookware, my
stuff
.
DeMarius
whistled sharply, and I looked up to see him waving a medic over. I said, "It's just a little sliver of glass, I can probably pull it out with my fingernails."
"Sit tight," he said again.
So the medic came over, and
DeMarius
held the flashlight while the guy—he was neither Dwayne nor Dwight—poured antiseptic over my foot, then extracted the sliver using a pair of tweezers. He slapped a gauze pad over the puncture wound, wound some of the crinkly stuff that sticks to itself around my foot, and said, "You're good to go."
"Thanks," said
DeMarius
, leaning down to scoop my feet and legs into the car, then he closed the door.
For a minute I just sat there, suddenly so exhausted all I could do was slump against the seat, glad to be out of the cool air, not able yet to absorb the complete enormity of the fire and everything it meant.
I watched a small black car approach the entrance to the condos, roll to a stop as a patrolman held up a hand to stop, then a familiar face appear in the window as it slid down. The patrolman stepped back and waved him forward, and Wyatt zipped my sharp little convertible past him, parking it on the grass a safe distance from the fire. As he unfolded his long legs and got out, I reached for the door handle so I could get out and go meet him. Suddenly I wanted nothing in this world so much as I wanted his arms around me.
My searching fingers found only smoothness. No
door handle
, no window control, nothing.
Well, duh. This was a
patrol
car. The whole idea was that whoever was put back here wouldn't be able to get out.
I knocked on the window.
DeMarius
turned and looked at me, his eyebrows raised. "Let me out," I mouthed, and pointed toward Wyatt. He turned and looked, and I swear an expression of relief crossed his face. He signaled Wyatt, Wyatt saw him—and me— and my dearly beloved gave a single sharp nod of his head before turning away.
Realization left me speechless. Wyatt had radioed in and told them to put me in a squad car and hold me there.
That
sneak
. That complete and utter
sneak
! How dare he? Okay, so I'd been stomping around barefoot, armed with a chef's knife, searching for the sow who tried to turn me into a crispy critter; that's an understandable reaction, right? Turning the other cheek is one thing, but when someone burns down your house, what are you supposed to do? Turn the other house? I don't think so.
I tapped on the window again, harder.
DeMarius
didn't look around.
"
DeMarius
I said a sharply as possible, given my throat felt like sandpaper. If he heard me, he made no sign, but he took a few steps away from the squad car and turned his back.
Thwarted and furious, I flung myself back in the seat and grumpily pulled the blanket tight around me again. I thought about calling Wyatt with my cell phone and giving him what-for, but that would mean
speaking
to him, and right now I wasn't. I might not speak to him for the next
week
.
I couldn't believe he'd had them lock me in a squad car. Talk about misuse of power! Wasn't this illegal, or something? Unlawful
detainment?Only
criminals were supposed to be closed up in the back of one of these things, which, come to think of it, the backseat did smell sort of
criminally
.
My nose wrinkled, and automatically I lifted my feet from the floorboard, holding them in the air. God only knows what kind of germs were back there. People puked in the back of squad cars, didn't they? I was pretty certain I also smelled urine.
And feces.
He knew what sort of things went on in the back of squad cars, and still he'd had me put in one. The callousness appalled me. I was thinking of
marrying
this man, a man who would jeopardize the health of his future wife for a power play?
My God, the things I could put on his list of transgressions.
Because I'd been so worried about the list, the thought of its revival almost cheered me up.
Almost.
This was so bad not even the list could make up for it.
I beat on the window with the side of my fist.
"
DeMarius
!"
I yelled—or rather, croaked. My voice was getting so bad I sounded awful.
"
DeMarius
!
I'll make you a
Krispy
Kreme
doughnut bread pudding if you'll let me out of here."
From the way his shoulders stiffened, I knew he heard me.
"Just for you," I promised as loudly as I could.
He barely turned his head, but I saw the agonized look he rolled my way.
"I'll give you your pick of rum glaze, buttermilk glaze, or creamed cheese icing."
He stood frozen for a few seconds, then heaved a big sigh and came over to the door.
Yes
! Happily I began preparing to leave my stinky prison.
DeMarius
bent down to the window and looked in, his dark eyes mournful. "Blair," he said loudly enough for me to hear, "as much as I love your doughnut bread pudding, I don't love it enough to cross the lieutenant and get demoted." Then he turned his back and returned to his previous position.
Well, damn. Bribery had been worth a try, but I couldn't blame
DeMarius
for not falling for it.
With nothing else to distract me from what I'd been trying not to think about, I arranged the blanket beneath me, got on my knees in the seat, and turned to look out the back window at my home. The firemen were putting up a valiant effort to prevent the fire from spreading to the next apartment, but I knew my neighbors would have massive smoke and water damage at the least. Wyatt's truck and the car next to it were both
scorched,
the heat had been so intense. As I watched, the front wall collapsed with a roar, sending sparks cascading up and out like the fireworks at Disney World.
The sudden flare of light illuminated a face—a woman's face, in the midst of the crowd. She wore a
hoodie
, her hands tucked in the pockets and the hood pulled loosely around her head. I noticed the paleness of her blond hair first,
then
I looked at her
face.A
twinge of uneasiness snaked up my spine. There was something vaguely familiar about her, as if I'd seen her somewhere else but just couldn't place her.
She wasn't staring at the spectacle of fire, though. She was staring straight at the patrol car, and at me, and for a split second there was nothing but triumph in her face.
It was
her
.
Chapter Nineteen
