City of the Lost (35 page)

It’s Mick. His shirt is kerosene soaked, sparks already lighting it up. I let go of his foot, and I’m out of my jacket and slapping it on his now-flaming shirt as Dalton drags him from behind the burning pyre.

Dalton doesn’t wait to be sure the fire on his shirt is out. Doesn’t check for a pulse, either. There’s no time. We’re in a building filled with dry wood and doused in accelerant. He hoists Mick over his shoulder, and that’s when I see the blood. The back of Mick’s shirt is soaked with it, the fabric shredded. He’s been stabbed in the back. Repeatedly.

Mick. Oh God, Mick.

Any thoughts of him as a psychotic killer vanish, and all I see is the guy I knew. The sweet, quiet guy. Devoted to his friend, Abbygail. Devoted to his lover, Isabel. A guy I’d liked. Really liked.

We’re moving fast for the exit. The fire is roaring now. Whoever lit it didn’t stick around to be sure it caught properly, and when we first opened the door, the rush of wind must have caught the smouldering flame, finally bringing it into contact with the kerosene. Not that the
how
matters. It’s just my brain processing, trying to keep calm and centred and temporarily forget the fact that there’s a massive fire in a building filled with wood, in a town
built
of wood.

Dalton slaps the radio into my hand as we move. The smoke swirls so thick I don’t even realize what he’s given me until my hand wraps around it. I fumble for the Call button, but my eyes are streaming and I’m coughing too hard to speak. Dalton shoulders me forward. Get the hell out first.

We reach the door. I push him through, and I’m about to follow when I see something move in the smoke. Someone’s still in here.

Shit! The woman who followed Mick.

The smoke has already forced me into a crouch, and even with my shirt pulled up over my nose and mouth, I’m hacking convulsively. I shove the radio in my pocket, get down on all fours, and start toward her. For a moment, I can make her out—a pale face and light hair—but then she’s lost behind the smoke and the tears streaming from my eyes. I continue forward, feeling my way.

“Butler!”

I barely hear Dalton’s shout over the roar of the fire. I move faster. I have to get to her before he comes back into this burning building.

“Casey!”

The door opens with a whoosh, the wind and the change in pressure making the smoke clear long enough for me to see the woman. She’s sitting propped against a stack of wood, her hand resting on something red.

Resting on a gas can.

Shit, oh shit.

I just risked my life to save a goddamned killer.

“Casey!” Dalton shouts.

I try to answer but can barely whisper. I cover the last few feet to the woman. I’m here now—I can’t turn around and leave her.

Under her dark coat, she wears a pale blouse. It’s covered in blood. One hand clutches the knife, the other rests on the gas can. I grab the wrist holding the knife, and she makes no move to resist. Her fist opens. The knife falls. I take it. Then, as I reach to grab her shirt, I see it again. Pale pink blouse. Peter Pan collar. Embroidering down the front.

I know this shirt.

Blinking hard, I rise up on my knees until my face is inches from hers. Only then do I see more than a pale blur. I see Diana’s face.

Her eyes are open, and she’s staring right at me, but she doesn’t seem to see me. She hacks, doubling over, and her coughing ignites mine, and it’s a beacon for Dalton. His hands grab my shoulders and yank me back.

“No!” I croak. “Di—”

I can’t even get the rest out. I’m coughing too hard, and he’s picking me up, running for the exit, and I can’t fight, don’t dare. There’s no way to communicate, and every second lost is a second we don’t have.

He kicks the door open and we’re through. Then he throws me to the ground. Literally throws me, like a sack of flour. I hit the grass, knife falling from my hand as I’m hacking and groaning, half blinded by the smoke. I twist around and say, “Di—”

But he’s gone back for her, and I shout, “No!” and push to my feet.
I’ll get her. I’ll do it. I’ll take that risk.
I don’t want him taking it for her. I don’t want anyone else taking it for her after what she’s done.

It’s too late. He’s inside, and I’m left stumbling toward the shed, hacking so hard I can barely move. I reach the door, and I pull it open, and I’m about to go in when I hear running footfalls. Anders appears, others following, brought by the smoke seeping through the cracks.

They see the smoke billowing from the open door. Anders is on me, scooping me up to get me away from the fire.

“No,” I croak. “Eric.”

“Eric’s—? Fuck!” He sets me down as fast as he can, shouting, “Get Beth! Now!” but I’m right behind him.

He vanishes into the smoke before I make it. Then I see him again, a stumbling figure. I leap to grab him, to direct him, but I realize it’s not Anders. It’s Dalton, with Diana over his shoulder. He manages one last step and collapses. Then Anders is there, thank God, and he’s grabbing Diana as she falls, and I have both hands wrapped in Dalton’s shirt, dragging him farther from the door. Anders shouts, and someone’s there to help me. I don’t even look up to see who it is.

We manage to get Dalton out of the smoke and away from the inferno pouring through that open doorway. I put out the fire on his shirt and jeans. That’s when I realize he still isn’t moving.

He’s not breathing.

I start CPR. I don’t even think whether I remember it well enough. I start and then Anders is there, saying, “I can do that,” and I say, between breaths, “Am I doing it wrong?” and he gives a strained chuckle and says, “No.”

“Chest,” I say. “Take over—”

“Chest compressions. Okay. But if you need me to—”

“Got it.”

“You’ve swallowed a lot of—”

“Got it.”

I might have barely been breathing a minute ago, but all that evaporates as I focus on my task. Breath-one-two. Nothing.

Goddamn it, Dalton!

Anders’s chest compressions are hard enough to crack a rib, but I say nothing. The look in his eyes tells me he’s freaking out. Hell, we both are. I let him continue his compressions and tell myself a cracked rib is nothing.

My turn. Breath-one-two.

Goddamn—!

Dalton coughs.

We flip him over fast, and Dalton coughs up smoke-blackened mucus. He’s on all fours, supporting himself, waving Anders away when he tries to help.

“Oh my God,” a voice says. Footsteps run over and I look up to see Beth, her eyes wide with panic. “Eric!”

“Mick’s dead,” he says, his hand going up when she tries to kneel beside him. “Check Diana. Then Casey. I’m fine.”

“You are not—”

“Diana first,” he says with enough snap that I wince as Beth flinches. “Then Casey. I’m fine.”

She backs up, looking confused and hurt, until Anders leads her to Diana.

“You okay?” Dalton asks me as he sits.

“I’m not the one who passed out.”

“I’m not the one who caught on fire,” he says, and reaches out to catch a lock of my hair, rubbing it between his fingers, the singed pieces raining down.

“It’ll grow.” I cough. “Shouldn’t have gone back in.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have.”

“I mean you. She—” I hack again, hard enough that I feel like I’m going to cough up lung tissue. He thumps my back and looks toward Beth, but she’s busy with Diana, so I say I’m fine, then, “She killed Mick. Diana. I—” I look over at the knife, the blade covered in blood. “She was holding that, and she had her hand on a gas can. The blood on her shirt … I don’t think it’s hers. I tried to tell you.”

“Would
you
have stayed out?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “Hell, no, you wouldn’t. So I’d have gone in anyway. We have no idea what happened in there, Casey. An hour ago, we were considering Mick a suspect.”

I stop. Blink. I just jumped to the conclusion that Diana murdered a man when I have no idea if that’s what happened. Mick could be the killer and Diana saved herself from becoming his next victim, and all I thought was,
She’s guilty
. My best friend. The woman I’ve known half my life.

Dalton leans toward me, voice lowered. “You okay?”

I nod. “Some smoke inhalation and—”

“Not what I mean. And a fucking stupid question anyway, isn’t it? You’re not going to be okay, either way this played out.”

“Boss?” It’s Anders.

Dalton pulls back fast. He’d been leaning in to be heard over the chaos. It wasn’t as if everyone was standing around watching the lumber shed burn. A dozen men and women were fighting the fire with buckets of water and blankets.

“Eric?” Anders says, and we both push to our feet. “Mick’s gone, like you thought. Someone should tell Isabel before she—”

At that very second, Isabel comes running around the building.

“Shit,” Anders says, then, “I’ll handle this.”

He takes off to intercept her. Someone shouts for Dalton, and he looks over, squinting through the haze. His gaze follows the man’s finger up to the roof, where flame has broken through … a scant few feet from the next building.

“Goddamn it!” Dalton starts running toward the others. “Sam! Kenny! Get everyone you can find. Tell them to bring all the water they can carry.”

I jog up behind him. “Give me a job.”

He looks me up and down, assessing damage, and then nods. “The building two doors down has more fire blankets. Grab two guys and bring all of them.”

I nod and take off.

As soon as the fire is under control, Dalton tries to send me to check on Diana. I pretend not to hear and keep hauling water. When the blaze is finally out, he says, “Get your ass over to the infirmary, Butler. If you don’t want to admit you’re worried about her, then I’m your boss ordering you to make sure a suspect is secured.”

We’re alone when he says that. No one else knows we’d found Diana with the murder weapon and accelerant.

“Sure as fuck don’t need that,” he said earlier. “Got enough problems without worrying someone’ll try to lynch her.”

I could say he was being colourful, but Rockton has taught me that you can’t underestimate the speed with which we humans can undo a thousand years of civilization. We aren’t nearly at
Lord of the Flies
level inside the town limits, but if you walk a mile into the wilderness, you’ll find Golding’s world come to life.

The changes that come with living this way are not all a
regression
, though, and I see proof of that tonight. Everyone pitches in, whether it’s helping with the fire or bringing wash basins and cold drinks and fresh clothes for those fighting the fire.

As for Diana, she’s been taken home and sedated. I pop my head in, but she’s unconscious. Beth’s busy at the clinic treating burns and smoke inhalation, and I’m not going to interrupt her to ask about Diana’s condition. So I head out to find Dalton. When I hear that Val has summoned him, I pick up my pace.

A lantern glows in Val’s house. Voices drift from a partly open window.

“—one resident dead, another half dead,” Val is saying.

“His name was Mick. Hers is Diana.”

“Don’t correct me.”

“I’m reminding you. I know how hard it is for you to remember people. Well, I’d say that you just don’t give a shit, but it’s been a fucking horrible night, Val. Otherwise, I’d also complain about how you didn’t even leave your goddamn house, and that’s a conversation best left for a more respectable hour.”

“Five people are dead, sheriff, and—”

“Here, let me save us both some time. Five people are dead, and I’m a fucking lousy sheriff because I haven’t stopped a killer.”

“We hired you a detective, and I don’t see that it’s made any difference.”

“Butler is doing just fine. Without her, you’d have had another body in that fire. I’m also not convinced tonight’s crime is connected to the others.”

“So your lack of progress is emboldening others—”

“It’s been two fucking weeks, Val. Do you know how often we catch killers faster than that? Only when they’re standing beside the damned body, sobbing a confession. That’s pretty much the only sort of murders we get. This is different. Let us do our job—”

“The council is not pleased.”

“Fucking shock of the century. Tell them I don’t give a shit. Those exact words, please.” Footsteps as he heads for the door.

Val calls after him. “One building destroyed. Another damaged. Our entire stockpile of wood gone. Half our supply of water depleted.”

“Yeah, it’s called a fire. Which is why I’ve been telling the council for years that we need to be better prepared for one. If Casey and I hadn’t been there in time, we could have lost half the fucking town. I’ll pass on the council’s thanks.”

More footfalls. He is heading to the rear door. I back up past the corner.

“Murder, drugs, fire—this town is a mess, Eric. If you can’t do the job—”

“The council will boot my ass out the front gate. Heard it. Not concerned. I’m the best damned sheriff you’ve had since this place opened. And yeah, that includes my father. Otherwise, the council would have hauled him back to deal with these murders. Good night, Valerie.”

He saunters out the back, his head high. The door slaps shut behind him, and he thumps down the porch steps. In a few long strides, he’s beside the house. Then he stops, out of sight, and that steel melts from his spine and there’s a moment there, of turmoil and fear, so unguarded and raw that my gut twists in shame for watching. I’m backing away when he notices the movement.

“I’m sorry,” I say as I walk to him. “I heard voices and—”

“It’s fine.”

He starts walking and motions for me to keep up. At the road, he pauses to look at the still-smouldering lumber shed, at the smoke creeping over the town, at people with scorched jackets and soot-streaked faces on porches catching their breath, no one talking, everyone realizing how bad it could have been. He falters, that unguarded look returning for a moment before he blinks it back. Down the road, someone sees him and steps off a porch to wait. Someone else follows.

“Fuck,” he says.

“I’m sure they just have questions, but you don’t need to deal with that right now.”