Ballet Shoes and Engine Grease (12 page)

The thought came too late to halt the
action
, and the doors
flew open on their hinges. Mercifully, she could see at once, the
fire was small, not fully spread. At the far end of the enormous
manufacturing hall, beside a row of five Panthers with only the
undercoat on the bodywork, flames leaped from a collection of paint
tins on the floor. As she watched, a bottle of solvent exploded,
sending fiery fingers toward the half finished cars.

She didn’t know what to
do
. Someone should have
thought to give her health and safety training. Even as Crimson
berated her lack of knowledge, she knew it was foolish. No one
could have predicted that she’d be here at this hour, alone.
Everyone in the factory would have been trained, but where was the
security guard?

She hurried closer
to the burning tins of paint. The heat
from the flames scorched her skin. Thick curls of smoke billowed up
toward the ceiling. It was dangerous to spray water on some typed
fires, she vaguely recalled as she raked her gaze around the vast
space.

R
ed fire extinguishers stood along the wall, at regular
intervals like soldiers on parade, and a few black and silver ones
clustered at each end. She raced to the nearest red one, snapped it
free from the clip on the wall. Lugging the heavy metal cylinder in
her arms, she hurried back to the fire, her eyes on the
instructions printed on the side.

Pull ou
t the pin. Direct the nozzle, not to the flame, but to the
burning material. Press the lever. She went through each step,
panic ringing in her ears. A jet of foam spurted out from the
nozzle. As she attacked the fire, her lungs filled with acrid
smoke. Her breathing grew wheezy. Damn. Her asthma. The smoke was
triggering an attack.

Damn, damn,
damn
. She doubled over
in a coughing fit, carefully holding the fire extinguisher to
direct the spray away from her. She mustn’t inhale the foam that
was now coating the burning containers in a thick layer. She had
been warned that some chemicals might make her airways swell up,
badly enough to choke her to death.

In the ceiling
, a bell burst into a shrill ring. Fire alarm. The
plume of smoke must have triggered it. She should have thought of
the alarm first, smashed the glass, pressed the button, that’s how
the drill went, didn’t it? Raise the alarm first, and then tackle
the fire, but only if one could do it without endangering personal
safety.

The smoke
stung her eyes, burned in her lungs. She
concentrated on controlling her rapid breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
Her vision dimmed. Her knees threatened to buckle under
her.

Running footsteps
. Shouts. Strong arms seized her from
behind.

“
Let go. It’s empty.”
The fire extinguisher was knocked from her
hands.

“
I need to…” Each word hurt her throat,
like barbed wire.

“
Here. I’ve got your medication.” Nick let
go of her and held the inhaler out to her. She crumpled to the
floor. His movements were rough and urgent as he wrenched the cap
off the inhaler and pressed the nozzle to her lips. “Breathe. Come
on, Crimson, breathe.”

Grabbing the tiny device
, she flapped his hands aside, exhaled,
long and deep, emptying her lungs first. Then she inhaled, at the
same time pressing the button to deliver a premeasured dose of
medication. The panicky, choking sensation began to
ease.

“
You fool,” Nick muttered as he picked her
up and carried her out, shouldering open the back door that gave
out to a small patio. He propped her to sit in a sturdy teak chair
at a garden table. “What should I do?” he asked, a notch of concern
between his dark brows. “Should I push your head between your
knees? Loosen your clothing? Give you mouth to mouth? Get you a
glass of water?”

“
Leave me in peace and put out the fire,”
she croaked.

“
Don’t be stupid. I’m not going anywhere
until I know you’re all right.”

“
I’m okay.” She leaned forward in the chair
to ease the pressure in her chest. “Really, I’m just shaken. It’s
the panic of not being able to breathe, more than the actual lack
of air. I’ll just have to sit here for a while, and keep taking my
medication.” She glanced up at him and tried to offer him a smile,
to prove she was recovering. “It’s better to leave one or two
minutes between doses.”

Nick waited
, hovering beside her, until she was ready for the
next puff from her inhaler. She gave the little canister a shake.
It seemed fuller than she remembered—and she always checked, making
sure to avoid running out. She sat up straight again and arched her
spine to inflate her lungs. Nick’s hands rested on her shoulders,
steadying her. She tipped her head back, exhaled, and administered
the medication on the next long breath.

“
Thanks,” she said. “Did you get the
inhaler from my office?”

He eased her
forward again, one hand curled around her arm, the
other hand flat between her shoulder blades, rubbing gently,
delivering warmth. “No. I saw a couple of spares around the house
this morning and slipped one in my pocket. It’s small enough to
carry around, and I had noticed that you keep yours in a desk
drawer. With the factory, there are hazards for air quality—dust
from polishing metal, fumes from testing the engines. I thought it
might be easier to keep one in my pocket instead of rushing back to
your office if you ever were caught without one.”

“
I’ve never had a severe attack
before.”

“
Tomorrow, you’ll take the day off and see
the doctor.”

She
straightened, took another puff of medication, and felt
strong enough to lift her hand in a mock salute. “Aye, aye, Captain
Constantine.”

Nick gave
her a wry smile. “Will you be okay, if I go inside
and help Hank?”

Only now
did she look back into the factory. Through the
floor to ceiling windows, she could see that Hank had finished
putting out the flames. He had switched on the ceiling lights—apart
from two broken sections, the fluorescent strips appeared to be
working as normal—and was now spraying the undamaged cars from the
silver fire extinguisher.

She spoke without taking her eyes off
him.
“What do the
different colors on the cylinders mean? Hank is using the silver
one. I used the red. Did I use the wrong one?”

“
You used the correct one. Foam. Powder can
be more effective on some fires, but foam is easier to direct, and
to clean up afterwards. The black cylinders are for oil fires, and
the silver one is just water. Hank is cooling the paintwork on the
cars, to prevent the surface from bubbling in the heat.”

Shoulders
rigid, Nick stared at the destruction through the
window. “Someone has a lot of explaining to do. The paints and
solvents should have been put away in a secure cabinet for the
night. It’s a health and safety breach to leave flammable materials
out like that.”

When Crimson
insisted that she was fine on her own, Nick
returned inside to join Hank. She watched, huddled in the chair,
the night cool and fresh around her, as the two men searched among
the debris. Heads bent together, they paused to confer, holding up
a twisted length of metal with a cone shape topping one
end.

It looked like a desk lamp, anglepoise
type.

A shudder ran over Crimson.

What was
a desk lamp doing in the factory?

****

Nick drove through the midnight streets,
the headlamps of the Panther cutting yellow shafts through the
darkn
ess. It had rained
all day, a steady drizzle that had only stopped a couple of hours
ago. Once or twice, when they passed beneath a tree, droplets fell
onto them in the open car.

B
eside him, Crimson remained pale, with a blue tinge on her
lips, but her breathing had calmed back to normal. “I was going to
mention that I took the inhaler,” he told her. “It might be a good
idea to keep one in the glove compartment of the car,
too.”

“
Fine. I’ll get a few more
spares.”

He flicked her a
glance. “Sure you’re okay?”

“
I’m fine.”

She huddled in the seat, cradling her big
canvas tote in her lap, arms clasped around it, as if guarding a
treasure. They’d gone back to her office to collect her things. She
had insisted on taking, not only her laptop, but also some of the
old advertising brochures.

“
Do you think you were a bit hard on that
security guard?” she asked him.

T
he agency guard in blue uniform had finally strolled up
after the fire had reduced to nothing but blackened walls and a
million dollars’ worth of damaged cars. Short and muscular, in his
late twenties, he looked like one of those obsessive body building
types who spent every spare moment pumping iron. Shifty hazel eyes.
Puffed up face. Pockmarked skin that hinted at steroid
abuse.

The guard had
been belligerent in his claim that he had
fulfilled his duties.

Rightly or wrongly, Nick
had lost his cool and had given
the man an earful.

He shot Crimson another look. “You think I
went too far?”

“
You had him shaking in his
boots.”

“
I didn’t like him. There was something…”
Unable to pinpoint the cause of his dislike of the security guard,
Nick finally said, “...something not quite right about
him.”

“
He’s supposed to do a round every hour,”
Crimson pointed out. “There’s no evidence that he was negligent.
It’s possible the fire broke out after he had done his first
round.”

“
Or it’s possible that he was chatting to
his girlfriend, or calling his bookmaker, or taking a nap, or
surfing porn sites on his smart phone,” Nick said and exhaled a
sigh. Perhaps the guard really had acted with due care, and he was
just trying to find someone to blame.

“
You’re right,” he said after a pause. “I
was just letting off steam. I’ll call the agency and apologize.
I’ll save my anger for the jerk who left those paints
out.”

A
fter they turned off the main road, a gust of wind stirred
the tall oaks and sycamores that lined the gravel drive, scattering
water over them. “Sorry,” he said, and wriggled his shoulders as a
few droplets slipped inside his shirt collar to run down his back.
“I should have raised the top. The Panther is really a fair weather
vehicle.”

Crimson
made no reply, merely tipped her head back,
letting the moisture collect on her skin. Nick could see that there
were no lights on in the house, except for the twin lanterns that
always burned on either side of the front door at night. He pulled
over by the terrace steps, jumped out, and rounded the long hood to
let Crimson out.

“
I’ll put the car in the garage,” he told
her. “Will you wait for me?”

“
Sure. I’ll go in the kitchen and put some
coffee on.”

A
s soon as Nick had dealt with the car, he pressed the
button to bring the garage shutters rolling down again and went
inside through the connecting door. He found the kitchen bathed in
bright light. Crimson was on her feet, leaning back against the
countertop, a coffee mug clutched between her hands.

He walked up to her. Now,
when the surge of adrenalin had
ebbed, his rational mind recognized how frightened he’d been. Not
of the fire and the threat of material damage, but for Crimson.
Even at this moment, a shiver ran through him as he recalled her
wheezy breathing, how close she’d come to collapsing in his
arms.

He halted before her, his
bod
y almost brushing
hers. She cradled the bone china mug against her chest and looked
up at him. Warm, brown eyes, with a flicker of fear in them.
Residual fear from the danger? Or, fear of what was happening
between them? She was trembling, Nick could tell, even without
touching her.

He smiled down at her.
“You have a storm in your
teacup.”

“
Storm?” She peered into her mug, saw the
liquid sloshing about in her unsteady grip. She gave a small,
breathless gust of laughter. “It’s coffee, anyway.”

He lift
ed a hand and slid his fingers down her cascade of silvery
locks, past the singed ends that felt rough against his palm. “Your
beautiful hair…it’s burned…”

Looking
down, she picked up a handful of the pale strands
in one hand and inspected them. “It’s just a bit scorched at the
ends,” she told him. “It will trim off easily, just a couple of
inches, maybe a bit of layering. But I smell like a wet
poodle.”

“
You have smudges on your skin.” He
released her hair and touched her forehead lightly with his
fingertips. Then he trailed his hand down to her cheek. Softly.
Gently. To the corner of her mouth, and said, “Your lips are dry
from the heat and from breathing so hard.”