Woman in Black (49 page)

When she got to him, he was on his hands and knees, coughing so hard that he was retching. He lifted his head to look up at her, a string of saliva hanging from his lower lip, scarcely appearing human, his face was so blackened by soot. He looked frightened, too—the white-ringed orbs of his eyes like those of a calf being led to slaughter. He managed to gasp, “She's … she's still in there.… I couldn't get her to wake up.…”

Someone was still inside!

Milagros
, she thought, in her fevered state. Somehow time had reversed itself, and it was her daughter who was inside that burning building. “
Dónde está?” she
cried, forgetting her English.

The boy pointed toward the upper story, where the flames hadn't yet reached, his arm jerking and twitching like an epileptic's, it was trembling so. He muttered thickly, “Please. Help.”

Concepción took off like a shot and ran, her coattails flapping. As she plunged into the burning house, there was no thought in her head of her own personal safety. Her fevered brain was consumed with a single objective: to rescue Milagros. It was only after she'd gone a few feet and the heat and smoke came rushing at her like a locomotive that she was momentarily repelled. She hung back, coughing, her throat and lungs feeling as though they'd been soaked in kerosene and set on fire. Then she was shedding her coat, still damp from the rain, and throwing it over her head. Holding its hem over her mouth, like an Arab woman's veil, to filter out the worst of the smoke, she stumbled toward the staircase.

Upstairs, it was even hotter than below, unbearable almost.
Dios!
Was it possible for anyone to survive this? Nevertheless, she forged on. Her eyes were watering so badly that she wouldn't have been able to see where she was going if she hadn't kept a hand on the wall, using it to guide her along the smoke-filled corridor. What spurred her on was the mental image of her daughter.

“
Milagros, mi hija!
” she cried in a voice so hoarse, it was scarcely recognizable as her own. “
Estoy aquí! Tu madre!
”

No reply. The only sound was the devilish cackling of the flames as they tore through the lower part of the house, where the fire appeared to be contained for the time being. Finally she came to an open doorway. Inside, she could dimly make out the figure of a girl lying sprawled on a bed. For a terrible instant, she thought she might have arrived too late. Then she saw one of the girl's legs twitch. With a choked cry, Concepción rushed to her side, her heart swelling with relief.

But it wasn't Milagros, she saw.

The dark hair, the slender limbs, belonged to someone other than her daughter. In that moment of recognition, Concepción felt as though she'd been rudely awakened from a nightmare into another, even worse nightmare. But there was no time for despair. She couldn't leave the girl to die.

Concepción seized hold of her and shook her. But the girl's only response was to mutter something unintelligible, her eyes briefly fluttering open. Even when Concepción grabbed her by the wrists and managed to haul her upright, the girl only sat there swaying for an instant before she toppled backward onto the mattress. “
Ayúdame!
” Concepción cried … to God … to the spirit of her daughter … to anyone who would listen. She couldn't do this alone.

Yet somehow, she found the strength to hoist the girl off the bed and onto her shoulder. Carrying her to safety would be another matter, for however small and slender, the girl was dead weight. But Concepción didn't pause long enough to give it much consideration before she began staggering back the way she'd come, using the coat draped over her head and shoulders to cover what she could of the girl as well. It would provide scant protection against the inferno below, but she couldn't stop to think about that now.

As she painstakingly descended the stairs, the girl slung over her shoulder might have been a sack of concrete. Concepción's legs wobbled with each precarious step. One wrong move and she and the girl would go tumbling down the rest of the way. And that wasn't the only threat. When she looked down, she saw flames licking at the banister on the ground floor below. Moments later, there was a tremendous crash, and part of the wall along the corridor to the kitchen—a corridor she had traversed what seemed like an eternity ago—collapsed in a shower of sparks. Sparks that crackled about her like a swarm of biting insects, stinging the exposed skin of her cheeks and forehead wherever they landed.

A strange calm descended on her.
Dios, take me if you must, but spare this girl
, she prayed.

As if in response, the girl stirred suddenly to life, limbs jerking and flailing like those of a marionette. Concepción was thrown off balance and would have been pitched into the well of flames below, taking the girl with her, if she hadn't steadied herself just in time. Oddly enough, it hadn't seemed as if
she
were in control in that moment, but more as if an invisible presence had taken over her body, a force that was protecting her—them—from harm.

God might have deserted her once, but He would not fail her this time.

She was nearing the foot of the staircase when she saw, with a shock, that the greedy mouths of the flames had consumed the bottom two steps. She hesitated, engulfed by fear—more for the girl than for her—but she knew that if she didn't act quickly and fearlessly, she would have no choice but to turn back, and there would be no escape from this inferno.

Concepción lunged the last few feet. She heard a crack and felt something give way underfoot a split second before she landed, miraculously on both feet and even more miraculously without having dropped her precious cargo. But her sense of relief was short-lived. When she glanced down, she saw that the hem of her coat was on fire. And not just the coat. The doorway to the house was consumed by flames. It was like peering through the gates of hell itself.

They were trapped.

Abigail had searched
everywhere, but Phoebe wasn't in any of her usual hangouts. Nor was she at any of her friends' houses; all of them had expressed surprise, in fact, when Abigail had phoned, that she would think Phoebe might be there. Phoebe's best friend, Brittney Clausen, had reported that it'd been months since she'd last seen Phoebe outside school. (
And why am I only just learning this?
Abigail wondered.) But she hadn't grown truly alarmed until the owner of the deli where Neal worked, a heavyset, middle-aged man named Mr. Haber, had informed her in a disgruntled voice, as he'd been locking up for the night, that he hadn't seen Neal's girlfriend—or Neal, for that matter—since yesterday. It seemed that Neal hadn't shown up for work that day.

For some reason, Abigail had found this bit of news more disturbing than the fact that her daughter was missing. Neal seemed like such a responsible kid. It wasn't like him to not show up for work. Had something happened? Something involving Phoebe? Suppose they had run off together?

But however worrisome the idea, it was preferable to what Abigail been dreading until that point. At first, when she'd failed to spot Concepción Delgado along the road into town (she must have taken a shortcut through the woods), her fears had run rampant. Now she could console herself with the thought that, if Phoebe had run off with Neal, at least she wasn't in any physical danger.

Briefly, she considered alerting the police, but they'd only tell her to check back in forty-eight hours if her daughter still wasn't home. It occurred to her then that Phoebe might have returned home by now, and with that in mind, she turned her car around and headed back.

She was nearing the turnoff to Rose Hill when she heard the distant wail of sirens. A sound rarely heard in this sleepy backwater, where crime was limited to the occasional break-in and car wrecks generally occurred out on the interstate. An instant later, she caught the smell of smoke. Not the pleasant smoke of firewood curling from a chimney or a pile of brush being incinerated in someone's backyard but that of an uncontrolled burn. A forest fire? Unlikely, after all that rain. It must be someone's house on fire. It didn't occur to her that it might be hers. When seconds later the thought did enter her mind, it brought a jolt of panic.

Oh, God. What if it
was?

She pressed down harder on the gas pedal.

As soon as she turned onto her drive, she could see it in full, vivid Technicolor, her second-to-worst nightmare after that of an accident befalling Phoebe: her house going up in flames. She picked up speed, her mind spinning like the tires seeking traction on the muddy road. An accident? Or had someone purposely set fire to her house? If so, who in God's name would do such a thing?

A clear image rose amid the whirling chaos in her brain: the dark look Concepción Delgado had given her just before she'd taken off into the night. Suddenly it all made sense. Of course.
This
was the eye for an eye. Not the kidnapping of her daughter but the torching of her house.

The BMW had barely skidded to a stop before Abigail was leaping out. The fire engines hadn't arrived yet, but Karim's Dodge pickup was parked in front of the garage. There was no sign of Karim, but amid the smoke billowing from the house, she caught sight of Lila, kneeling beside a prone figure on the grass out front, silhouetted against the backdrop of flames. It wasn't until Abigail drew closer that she saw that the prone figure was Neal.

“What happened? Is he hurt?” Abigail cried in alarm.

Lila leaped to her feet at Abigail's approach. She was dressed as though for a night out, in a dressy black skirt and sweater, but she was a mess, her hair and clothing disheveled and smudges of soot on her face and hands. “He's a little out of it, but I think he'll be okay. Thank God he made it out in time,” she informed Abigail in a shaken voice.

“Where's Phoebe? Was she with him?” Abigail glanced wildly about her.

Lila took hold of her shoulders as if to steady her. “It's going to be all right, Abby. The fire department is on its way. They should be here any minute. In the meantime, try not to panic.” She spoke in the low, soothing voice that Abigail had heard her use in the past with spooked horses.

But Lila hadn't answered her question, and now panic kicked in with a vengeance. “I don't give a shit about the house! Where's my daughter?” Abigail's voice rose on a hysterical note.

Lila eyed her steadily, as if she could calm Abigail's fears simply by holding her gaze. “We think she's still in the house, but we don't know for sure. Karim's looking for her now.”

“Oh, my God. Oh, Jesus.” Abigail sank to her knees, a hand over her mouth to muffle the cry that rose. At first she couldn't think straight, her mind was whirling so, then she was on her feet again, shouting, “Don't just stand there!
Do something!
If we don't get her out of there, she'll
die!
”

Abigail dashed off in the direction of the house, but Lila was quick to intercept her, grabbing hold of her elbow and jerking her back with such force, it brought Abigail spinning around. When Abigail attempted to free herself, Lila clamped both arms around her to hold her in place. “You can't go in there, or
you'll
die,” she managed to gasp between breaths as Abigail struggled wildly against her.

“Try and stop me,” Abigail hissed through gritted teeth.

Lila's only response was to tighten her hold. Who would have imagined she'd be so strong? “I can and I will,” she insisted. “Do you think I'm going to stand by and let you kill yourself?”

“
Let go, you bitch!
” Abigail managed to jerk one arm free, with which she began whacking at Lila's head and shoulders in an effort to get her to release her hold. Lila did her best to duck the blows, but even then, she didn't let go. She held on as if her own life depended on it.

“You'll thank me later on,” she said, grunting when one of the blows connected.

“Fuck you! I'll kick your ass!” Abigail screamed, continuing to flail.

“You can kick my ass all you want, but I'm not letting go.”

“
That's my daughter in there!
”

“I know, which is why I can't let you do this. She needs you, Abby, and you won't be much good to her if you die trying to save her.”

“If I don't,
she
could die!”

Lila stood firm. “You don't know that. We don't even know if she's in there for sure.”

“And if she is? Oh, God, I can't … I can't …” All at once the resistance went out of Abigail, and she crumpled to the ground. Huddled bonelessly on the muddy lawn, she began to weep hysterically.

“I know … I know … hush, now.” Lila knelt down before Abigail, cradling her and stroking her hair, her arms gentle now. “It's going to be all right, you'll see,” Lila murmured in reassurance. “If she's in there, they'll get her out. You have to believe that, Abby.”

Abigail moaned, “Please tell me this isn't happening.”

“Don't think the worst. We don't know anything yet.”

Abigail clung to her, and they rocked from side to side. When Abigail's sobs had subsided somewhat, she drew back to choke, “Was … was Neal able to tell you anything?”

“A little, but, like I said, he's pretty out of it. He's not making much sense.”

“What happened, do you know?”

Lila's face took on an even more somber cast. “Not the whole story, no. All I know is that they took some pills. Neal said something about trying to wake her, but I'm not sure if he knew what he was saying.” She cast a worried glance at her son, still prone on the grass.

“Jesus.”

In horrified disbelief, Abigail stared into the blazing inferno, thinking it wasn't just her house but her whole life going up in flames. Her marriage, the daughter she'd once thought she'd known better than Phoebe knew herself, her career, even. If Concepción Delgado had done this, maybe it wasn't so much revenge as divine retribution by the hand of His messenger. Punishment for the life that had been taken in the name of ambition.
If anyone is responsible for this
, she thought,
it's me
.