Perfectly Matched (26 page)

“Ebbie ate a plastic bag, can you come and get her? I have to go.”

“No problem. I’ll be right there.”

I hung up and looked at Ebbie. “Marisol will be right here. Don’t eat anything else.” I picked her up and placed her in the bassinet.

I had to think quickly. What did I need to bring? In the vision, Sean’s feet had been bound with duct tape. I hobbled into the kitchen and rooted around until I found a small Swiss Army knife. I stuck it in my pocket.

I wasn’t exactly schooled on what to bring when facing off with a potential arsonist, so I tried to th
ink like Sean. What would he do?

A gun.

I knew he’d taken his with him last night, but he had a spare in a box under the bed. In my room, I dropped to my knees. My hand shook as I worked the combination dial lock and lifted the lid.

I grabbed the small pistol, made sure it was loaded and stuck it in my purse.

It had been a few months since I’d been to a firing range, but I had no doubt that I could handle the weapon. Especially if my and Sean’s lives were on the line.

In the kitchen, I gathered up the shredded bags and stuffed them in the trash. I grabbed my car keys, my phone, my crutches, and made sure I had Sean’s shirt as I headed out the door.

I’d call the police while on the road. Until then, I mentally prepared myself for the fight of my life. Because I knew that soon Sean and I would be together, surrounded by thick smoke.

And where there was smoke, there was fire.

And I was headed straight into it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Route 3 through the
Weymouth
and
Braintree
area wasn’t bad, but at the 93 North merge, it became bumper to bumper traffic. I’d tried calling the police several times but either my phone would lose its signal or the 911 number had a busy signal.

As soon as I saw the
Boston
skyline, it was apparent why.

Smoke plumed over the city, and it looked like something out of an end-of-the-world action movie. I half expected alien spacecrafts to swoop in and start firing.

Unfortunately, with this scene there would be no director yelling “Cut!”

The scent of the smoke drifted into my car even with the windows rolled up. Cars around me honked, and panic was quickly setting in. I turned on the radio and listened as broadcasters announced that the governor had declared a state of emergency. Millions were without power all across the state, cell phone towers were down, landline phones weren’t working, and looters had taken over many of the streets as dozens of fires burned out of control.

This heat wave hadn’t only brought out the kooks, but every criminally minded resident of the city.

Traffic inched forward. I tried to call Sam, but my cell phone showed no service. I tossed it on the passenger seat and beat my hand against the steering wheel. This couldn’t be happening. Not now.

Several T subway trains had stalled on the track, and I felt bad for those trapped within the cars. They couldn’t be let off—there wasn’t a safe place for them to disembark, and it had to be boiling hot on the train with no air conditioning.

I glanced to my right and off in the distance, the water of Dorchester Sound glittered in the sunshine. With all my heart, I wished I had taken the ferry into the city. There would have been no traffic on the open water.

Tears of frustration built in my eyes, and to keep myself sane, I pulled Sean’s t-shirt from my bag and held it to my nose.

Through his eyes, I saw nothing at all.

I tried to think what that meant and reasoned he was either sleeping or out cold or...

No. I refused to go there. It was impossible, anyway. I’d seen us together in the smoke.

I tucked the shirt back into my bag and angrily zipped my car into the breakdown lane. I’d gone about twenty feet before I realized everyone else and their brother had the same thought. This lane was just as jammed.

Concentrating on taking deep breaths, I tried not to have a full-blown panic attack. I couldn’t very well walk into the city—not with my foot—but there had to be some way to get there.

There was a marina in
Dorchester
that wasn’t too far away. I could probably limp my way there in an hour or so. Which was probably faster than I’d get there by car. Once there, I could offer to pay someone with a boat to take me to Rowe’s Wharf. From there it was a long walk to the office, but it was better than sitting in my car growing more and more frustrated.

I gathered up my purse and pulled my car key off my keychain. I’d leave it in the ignition. If someone wanted to steal it, they had my blessing.

I opened my car door and was just about to get out when in the rearview mirror I caught sight of a motorcyclist weaving in and out of the breakdown lane.

A savior on a Harley.

I jumped out. I glanced at my crutches in the backseat. There was no way they’d fit on a motorcycle. I left them where they were and started waving my hands in the Harley’s direction. When he didn’t look like he was going to stop, I jumped in front of his bike. Tires squealed as he braked.

Lifting his visor, he scowled at me. “Jesus, lady! You have a death wish?”

“A thousand dollars if you can get me to the
Public
Garden
in the next half hour.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Show me the money.”

I fished around in my bag for the envelope Dovie had given me. I flashed the cash.

“Hop on,” he said.

I crisscrossed my bag over my body, and slung a leg over his seat. The man in the car behind me started yelling that I couldn’t leave my car in the middle of the highway. I wanted to argue that the car was in the breakdown lane where it was perfectly reasonable for a car to sit unattended, but instead, I yelled, “The key is in the ignition!”

The man’s wife, in the passenger seat, could take it. Keep it for all I cared.

“Hang on!” my knight on shining Harley said, revving the engine.

I latched on to his jacket and he zoomed off, toward the clouds of smoke hovering ominously above the city.

***

The man dropped me right in front of the Porcupine. There were cars tipped upside down in the middle of the street, and several fires burned nearby.

Miraculously, this neighborhood hadn’t lost its power, for which I was extremely grateful since my keycard to get into the building wouldn’t work without electricity.

I handed over the envelope containing the money. “Can you do me one more favor?” I asked.

Grizzled eyebrows slashed downward. “What’s that?”

“Find the closest police department and report an abduction. Give them this address. Tell them the
Beantown
Burner is inside.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

He studied me.

I said, “There’s another thousand dollars in it for you if you do. I don’t have the cash on me now, but I’m good for it. I work here,” I said, pointing to the building. “Second floor. My name is Lucy Valentine.”

Recognition flashed across his eyes. “The psychic?”

I nodded.

“My wife loves those articles about you written by...” He snapped his fingers.

“
Preston
Bailey.”

“Right. Can you do a reading on me? I lost my watch a while back...”

“If you go to the police, I’ll find anything you lost. I promise. Just go. Please.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He took off.

Now that I was here, I didn’t know how to approach the situation. What if the arsonist was inside, lying in wait for me?

I could wait for the police, but I didn’t have the patience. Despite what Orlinda advised, I was going to have to leap before looking.

I slid my keycard into through the reader and took a second to prop open the door. Everything inside looked the same as always. The cherry wood steps gleamed, and it was hotter than hell. I glanced up three flights of stairs. Nothing seemed amiss.

My foot ached as I took the first step. I debated about taking the elevator, but with the brownouts, I didn’t want to risk getting caught inside. I’d deal with the pain.

Slowly, I climbed the steps, my pulse pounding in my throat.

I took one step at a time, trying to be as quiet as I could in case Sean and I weren’t the only ones in the building.

When I finally reached the third floor landing, I nearly cried in relief. My foot throbbed and my nerves made me feel like I could jump right out of my skin.

I pushed open the door to SDI and scooted inside, keeping my back flat against the walls. The reception area was empty except for a filing cabinet, a sofa and some chairs.

In the hallway, I stopped to listen. I couldn’t hear much other than the beating of my heart. I hoped and prayed that the police were on their way. That my Harley rider had convinced someone to at least check out the building.

Sam’s office door was wide open, but Sean’s was closed tight with a chair wedged under the door handle. I quickly removed it and turned the handle.

Inside was my worst nightmare.

Sean was lying face down on the floor, blood seeping from a head wound. Duct tape bound his hands and feet.

“Sean,” I said, shaking him.

He groaned softly. I made quick work of the duct tape using the handy-dandy Swiss Army knife and rolled him over.

“Sean!” I slapped at his cheeks and tried not to look at the blood on the floor.

He winced and moaned but didn’t open his eyes.

I crawled to the desk and grabbed the phone. I dialed 911 only to once again get a busy signal.

I tried again and again and finally gave up. As I went back to Sean, the lamp in the corner flickered but stayed on.

I wanted to cry, but instead took a deep breath and slipped my hands under his armpits. He was dead weight and it was slow-going to get him out of his office and down the hallway. I paused to take a breath in the reception area. Sweat glistened on my hands, my arms, my chest. My clothes were soaked through.

As I looked at the stairs, I tried again to revive him. There was no way I could make it down those steps with him on my own.

“Sean!” I whispered fiercely. “Mr. Donahue!”

He squeezed his eyes tight, then slowly opened them. He took a look at me, smiled, and passed out again.

I glanced at the stairs, then the elevator. I had no choice.

I pushed the call button, and the sound of the cables in the shaft echoed shrilly in the silent building.

If Graham was lurking and didn’t know I’d arrived, he knew now.

A loud ding punctuated the elevator’s arrival. I wrestled with the doors and dragged Sean inside. I managed to get the doors closed and as soon as I pushed the down button I let out a sigh of relief.

Bending down, I tried again to revive Sean. With no luck whatsoever.

The elevator lurched and the lights inside flashed. It was the longest elevator ride in history. My hands shook as I reached for the doors to open them. The inside door opened easily, but the outer door wouldn’t budge.

I tugged and tugged and finally started kicking at it. Sweat poured off me.

“Temper, temper,” a voice said from the vestibule.

I jumped and let out a startled cry.

Graham sat on the bottom step watching me calmly as he poured gasoline on the stairs and splashed it onto the walls.

“Graham?” I said, unable to believe my eyes.

“You were expecting someone else?” he said. “Like the
Beantown
Burner. Ooh, so scary. The big bad Burner.”

I thought about the visions I’d been having and how they’d all proven true. I’d seen Sam’s house set on fire. I knew Sean was in his office. And I fully expected Bethany Hill to be alive.

There hadn’t been a mistake, a misunderstanding of his shallow-grave vision, at all.

He’d out-and-out lied.

As my brain began to connect the pieces, I realized that when Graham had told me about my license, it had been the afternoon—hours before the arsonist drew a bullseye over my face and set Sam’s house on fire. Yet, Graham could only have visions of past and present events. Not future.

There was only one explanation of how he knew what the arsonist was going to do to my license.

Graham was the arsonist. He hadn’t been predicting anything that day in the Porcupine—he’d been telling me what he planned to do.

I’d fallen hook, line, and sinker for his lies.

Was he even psychic?

“The police will be here any second,” I said, trying to sound as though I was full of confidence and not shaking in my orthopedic boot.

“Sure they will. Just as soon as they deal with the thousands of looters and all the fires.”