House of Blues (41 page)

Maybe it's just a small fire.

But she knew better.

They let the mattress go, and it landed well, spread
out under the window, one end on top of the television set, but that
was the breaks. It was as good a cushion as they were going to get.

"
Let's go," said Skip. "You first."

"Let's push the other mattress out." For a
double cushion. Skip had thought of it, but discarded the idea as
frivolous. They were going to die of smoke inhalation if they stayed
much longer, and so were Evie and Sally.

There was something else as well.

If Reed wanted to, she could remove both mattresses
after she jumped, effectively trapping Skip in the burning house.

She said, "No. Go."

Reed glanced wistfully at the other mattress.

"
Think of Sally."

She climbed up on the sill and hung there.

Skip pushed her.

She wasn't quite ready, and landed slightly short,
half off the mattress.

"Are you okay?"

"I don't know." Her voice was small and
panicky.

"Well, roll to the side. I'm coming."

"I think my ankle's broken."

Shit!

"Reed, get up, go next door and call 911.
Sally's in here."

No answer.

"
Crawl if you have to."

Reed began to crawl, propelling herself on her
elbows. As soon as she had clearance, Skip climbed up on the sill,
but she didn't jump right away. It occurred to her at the last second
to gather up her purse and its contents. She climbed down and then
back up.

She jumped.

She landed hard, her system shocked. She'd been
taught how to fall, but it hadn't worked quite right. And no one had
told her her teeth were going to bang together with a crash that
rattled her skull.

Reed was still trying to maneuver on her elbows, but
at least she'd thought to start screaming.

"
Help! Fire! Help!"

The window looked out on a huge backyard, and beyond
it, on the bayou itself. From inside, Skip hadn't seen the houses on
either side. But now she saw that they weren't far away. The Dragons
house simply seemed isolated because of its wall and the
soundprooflng.

Someone leaned out the window of a huge Tudor on the
left.

"Are you all right?"

"
The house is on fire. Call 91 l."

There was still apparently no smoke outside. The
peeker, a white-haired woman, craned to see some.

Skip hollered, "Police! Its an emergency."
She got up and made sure nothing was broken. Every muscle in her body
shook; she was a human chihuahua.

But she forced herself to move, to try to find a way
back in. She found a garden hose and wet herself down. From Reed, who
was now lying crumpled, moaning her daughters name, she demanded her
shirt.

Reed was clutching her ankle, as if to keep it
attached. "My shirt?"

"Goddammit, give it to me. I'm going in to get
Sally."

Reed didn't question the sense of that. She simply
took off her shirt and handed it over. Skip wet it and draped it
around her neck, to be used to cover her face.

She could see thick, curling smoke through the
kitchen window, but at least she didn't see flames. She held onto the
porch rail and kicked the door as hard as she could. It didn't budge,
but the pain in her ankle was so excruciating she had to sit a moment
while it subsided. She'd once sprained an ankle that way, but this
time she recovered fast: it wasn't a sprain.

She could no longer use the TV as a bludgeon, but
found a heavy flower pot, containing several colors of impatiens.
She285 heaved it through the Window, unwittingly feeding the blaze a
giant meal of fresh oxygen. Fierce, scorching, almost yellow-white
flames leapt to the trough, a savage fireball that made her suck in
her breath, searing her throat. But suddenly she was cooler, and she
realized she'd jerked back reflexively and fallen to the ground,
under the flames, which had begun to retreat after their first
ravenous surge.

She rolled out of the way and sat up. The shriek of
sirens mixed with the roar.

"Omigod," said Reed, "your eyebrows."

Skip touched a hand to her forehead and felt the
crumbling of singed hair.
 

26

Reed had struggled to her feet, and now turned the
garden hose on the blaze, which produced only a pathetic sputtering
under its thunder. The sight and sound seemed to Skip unbearably sad.

"Come on. Let's get out of here." Gently,
she put an arm around Reed's waist and helped her to the front of the
house. Reed's ankle didn't seem broken, hadn't started swelling much,
but it had gotten a nasty twist.

The white-haired woman from next door offered ice.
While they waited for that and the firemen, Skip looked for her car.
She found it in a garage on the right side of the house, and as the
firemen arrived, she radioed headquarters, saying only that she was
okay and would call back from a land line.

Then, mind racing, she asked the white-haired woman
if she could use her phone.

Anna Garibaldi had taken her money, credit cards, and
driver's license. Then she had probably pulled on a designer dress,
stepped into a pair of Italian shoes, and set the house on fire,
endangering the lives of one police officer and at least one citizen,
probably two.

Skip could not bring herself to think about Sally, to
consider the kind of woman who'd burn a baby alive.

Since there was no bridge to bum, the house was the
next best thing. Surely no one who did such a thing, or series of
things, intended to stick around. Anna had to be smart enough to know
the cards and license were good for one day only, if that. But if she
was desperate, she could use them once, at least the cards. To buy an
airline ticket, for instance.

She had to be leaving town.

Skip didn't know how much time had elapsed, but maybe
not that much—maybe there was a good chance of catching her at the
airport.

How could she be anywhere else?

She thought it through again, trying to make any
other sense out of what Anna had done, or, assuming it was true,
imagine how she'd travel if not by plane.

But nothing else added up.

She called the airport police before she called
Cappello. "This is Detective Skip Langdon, NOPD. I need help on
an attempted murder."

She gave them Anna's description, had a bad moment
explaining that the suspect might claim to be Detective Skip Langdon,
and said she'd call back soon.

Looking out the window, she saw that firemen were
hacking apart the house next door and drowning it. Two climbed
ladders at the back, apparently trying to find signs of life.

She called Cappello.

More bad moments. No police officer wants to admit
being surprised, overpowered, and imprisoned.

But Cappello was so glad to get her back alive she
didn't make any remarks, just listened, alert as always.

"Okay, fine," she said, as if this were a
routine report. Skip could see her nodding. "You need to come in
and give me your statement. "

God, shes unflappable. "I hope that isn't an
order. I've got to go to the airport."

Cappello sighed, and for a moment there was silence
on the line. Finally she said, "I'll see you when you get here."

Skip let out her breath; she hadn't realized she'd
been holding it. "Can you call Jefferson Parish?"

"
Sure."

Though the city owned the airport, it was technically
out of her jurisdiction—she needed sheriff's deputies to meet her
there. Outside again, she saw firemen working to resuscitate someone.
Evie.

Reed was nearly hysterical. "They didn't find
Sally. They went through every single room. Not a sign of her."
 
The hard thoughts that Skip had put off,
about the kind of woman who'd try to burn up a baby, took a
ninety-degree turn.

"She must have taken Sally with her."

"
But why?"

The answer wasn't pretty. "Reed, I need you for
something. Are you up to going to the airport? We could probably get
you a wheelchair once we get there."

"
You think that's where they are?"

"
Maybe. I think you need to be there for
Sally—if Anna sees her crying for you, it might do something."
She shrugged. "It's a shot in the dark, but it's all we've got
to work with. But here's the thing—you have to agree in advance:
You take orders from me. Don't do anything unless I tell you to;
don't interfere with me or any other officer in any way. Understood?"

Reed nodded. "Of course."

They got in the car, put the light in place, turned
on the siren and burned rubber.

Skip radioed the airport police, saying she was en
route—and that the description had changed. They were now looking
for a woman with an eighteen-month-old child.

They were nearly there when the airport police
radioed back: They had found Anna and Sally. Anna was holding a gun
to Sally's head, demanding a plane to New York.

Skip made a fist and slammed the steering wheel.

"Shit! I knew it!" Horrified at herself for
losing it, she sneaked a glance at Reed, whose head lolled back
against the seat, whose eyes closed briefly, then opened again.

At least she's still conscious.

"Reed, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

She'd been through a lot, but there was a lot more to
get through. If her mind stayed clear, she'd be fine. She was worried
her control was slipping.

"It's okay," said Reed. "The Dragon
won't hurt her."

Skip said nothing, wishing she believed it, marveling
at the relentless power of the human mind to detour around disaster.

"Evie told me she loves Sally. I've been
thinking about it. She said the Dragon was like some grandmother
who'd finally found someone to love."

Skip remembered the child to whom she'd talked on the
phone, the one who must have been the Dragons niece, who had spoken
so lovingly of her Auntie Anna. But she didn't dare to hope. They
were talking about a woman who was holding a gun to a baby's head.

The airport was closed to all except emergency
traffic, of which there seemed enough to control a prison riot, and
more was converging. Sirens and red lights were coming out of
nowhere. It didn't seem to Skip the best way to handle a hostage
situation with a woman who'd seemed unstable and shaky before she
even went into action.

She radioed again: "Langdon here. Arriving with
the child's mother. Could someone meet us with a wheelchair?"

A female officer met them, apparently pissed at
missing out on the action. "Dietrich, Jefferson. We gals do the
fetchin' and carryin' here."

Skip raised an eyebrow. "Thanks for your help,"
she said coldly, thinking Reed didn't need Dietrich's problems.

She was itching to get there herself, but she took
her time helping Reed get settled, making sure she was comfortable.
As she opened the footrest on the folding chair, helped Reed balance
her injured leg, she noticed for the first time that her feet and
legs were horribly scarred.

Dietrich's cheeks were pink, with embarrassment
perhaps, for her
faux pas
.
"Come, I'll take you there. It's not far. Apparently she didn't
want to go through the metal detector till the last minute, because
then she'd have had to dump her gun. At least that's what we think.
She bought a ticket on the next plane to New York and waited for her
flight outside the search area even though she only had ten minutes
before it took off. She was playing with the little girl when we
found her." Dietrich shook her head. "She looked up and saw
us, and that was that. It's like she's a multiple personality, you
know? All of a sudden everything changed. Like she became a different
person.

"Just put her hand in her purse, came out with
the gun, and stuck it to the kid's head. Must have gone to Plan B is
what we figure."

What was she thinking of? Is she nuts?

Maybe not, but something. Under pressure, maybe.

Not maybe—certainly. She had three prisoners
that she didn't know what to do with.

So why'd she try to bum us up? It doesn't make
sense.

It does if she was desperate.

Which she must be, but I wonder why. What's up
with her? Where'd she get off thinking she could just kidnap a child
and get away with it?

There's the human mind, doing it again.

Don't you remember you and Reed nearly burned to
death? If we hadn't escaped, she would have been in fat city. Once on
that plane, no problems. Nobody would have known where she'd gone,
and by the time some bright person figured it out, she'd have been
engulfed by the city.