You Can Run...

by Carlene Thompson

  The woman suddenly began to shake and sob, again raising her drenched handkerchief to her face. Diana, still crouching, stretched into the car and enfolded Mrs. Hanson in her arms, making comforting sounds that she would to a child.

  Diana continued to rock and croon absently while keeping her gaze on the uproar around Penny’s house. Emergency workers had hooked up giant lights that somehow made the scene look almost artificial, more like a movie set than Penny’s familiar and very real house—or shell of a house. The right side had completely collapsed, and only two-thirds of the left side remained standing, drenched in water sprayed from the giant hoses. From where Diana stood, the insides of the house were black and glistening. The back of the house disappeared into darkness.

  A few small fires still burned inside, and three firefighters entered, dousing the flames. Beyond the destroyed right wall, Diana could see that the three men walked along the inner left side of the house, taking small steps and repeatedly looking downward. She realized most of the living room floor must have collapsed, and the men were peering into the basement. They looked upward, too, dodging charred boards and shingles crashing from the roof. The men were obviously scanning the ruins for survivors, Diana realized. She closed her eyes. How she longed to hear one of them yell, “We’ve found a woman and a little girl and they’re not hurt!”

  No one said anything about a woman and a little girl, though. They simply moved slowly and silently through the ruin that half an hour earlier had been Penny’s cozy little house where Willow had lain recovering from surgery, and her loving mother had hovered over her.

  They had extinguished the fire at Mrs. Hanson’s house, although Diana couldn’t judge how much destruction the structure had suffered. The woman still didn’t know that the conflagration had reached her own home. Diana dreaded telling her or letting her see it, no matter how minor the damage. The shaken woman seemed as if she couldn’t handle more bad news. Still, someone had to inform her.

  Diana took a deep breath and strove to speak as calmly as possible. “Mrs. Hanson, I’m afraid the fire got to your house. Or rather, to a small part of it.” The woman gasped, but Diana smiled reassuringly. “A chunk of burning debris hit your roof. The firefighters immediately started spraying, and I think they’ve completely put out the fire,” she said quickly. “Still, if you wouldn’t mind sitting alone in the car for a few minutes, I’d like to see how much damage was done.”

  Mrs. Hanson clutched her arm. “Oh, no, Diana! You mustn’t leave the protection of this car. It’s dangerous out there. My house is just a little old thing, not worth getting yourself hurt over.”

  “I’ll be extremely careful. Mr. Raines hasn’t come back for a while. Maybe they’ve found . . . something.”

  “You mean someone,” Mrs. Hanson said dully. “And if they’d found Penny and Willow, I’m sure that young man would have rushed right back to tell us.” Her throat worked as if she were choking back a sob. “Oh, I just can’t bear it,” she blurted.

  “Maybe Tyler Raines is helping and he couldn’t come back. I have to know something, Mrs. Hanson. That’s why I need to go check for myself. Will you be okay if I leave for a few minutes?”

  Mrs. Hanson drew a deep breath and said with feigned strength, “Certainly I’ll be okay, dear. My joints are swollen but my heart is in good shape.” She patted Diana’s hand. “You go take a look if you want. I’ll sit here quietly.”

  And cry, Diana thought as she stood, her legs cramping slightly from the crouching position she’d held so long. She closed the car door, hoping to shut Mrs. Hanson away from some of the noise and smoke. She wished she could just as easily block out the sight of the ruined house.

  She glanced back and saw that she needn’t worry. Mrs. Hanson held her head high and firm. Diana was certain the woman was gazing straight ahead with her lovely eyes—eyes that apparently didn’t need glasses even though she was in her seventies, Diana thought as she tucked her thick, windswept hair behind her ears and tried to walk steadily toward the burned houses.

  “What are you doing?”

  Diana jumped at the sound of Tyler Raines’s razor-sharp voice. She’d been trying to keep her mind off Penny and Willow by thinking only about Mrs. Hanson. She hadn’t even seen Raines striding toward her. She drew herself up to her full five-foot-six frame, but she had to look up at least another six inches to glare at him. “I want to see Penny’s house.”

  Tyler Raines stood firmly in front of her. Sweat streaked his dirty face, soot had settled into three shallow creases across his forehead, and his light blue T-shirt had turned an indeterminate shade of gray and stuck clammily to his wide chest. His damp, longish hair had parted unevenly in the middle and hung below his high cheekbones, almost to his earlobes.

  The man looked exhausted and, to Diana’s mind, surprisingly distressed about people he didn’t know. But worst of all, he looked as if he was going to argue with her. She narrowed her eyes slightly and set her jaw.

  They gave each other long, measuring looks. Then Diana thought she saw a flicker of understanding in Raines’s eyes before he sighed and stepped aside. “Oh, all right, dammit. Go ahead. Be careful, though. Hoses are lying around, everything is soaked—”

  “Which I can very well see for myself. I am not a child. I’m not going to run around willy-nilly—”

  “I’m not afraid of you running willy-nilly. I’m afraid of you fainting.”

  In spite of the situation, indignation flashed through Diana. “I am not one of those silly women who faint! I have never fainted in my life, and I’ve been on archaeological expeditions to Egypt!”

  “Egypt, eh? Well, that’s impressive, but you weren’t far from fainting when you tried to get out of your car after the house exploded.” Raines gave her a hard stare with his azure eyes, and Diana flushed at the memory. “If you insist on getting a closer look at this mess, though, I guess I can’t stop you.”

  “No, you certainly can’t,” Diana huffed, grasping at her waning bravado. “And I’m not just some stranger who wants to get ‘a closer look at this mess,’ as you put it. My friend Penny and her five-year-old daughter were in that house, for God’s sake!” Diana’s voice cracked but she plowed on. “Do you expect me to just sit in my car for an hour until someone gets around to telling me something like whether or not they’re still alive?”

  Diana was almost certain the man flinched. Then his gaze softened a fraction. “Sorry about my wording. It’s natural that you want to see about your friend, Miss . . . I forgot your name.”

  “Diana Sheridan,” she snarled, exasperated with him, furious that again she was on the verge of bursting into racking, useless sobs—just what he’d expect from her. “Now will you stop blocking my way to the house?”

  “Okay, but I’m going with you. I don’t want you falling down and breaking an arm or a leg. People are too busy to stop and patch you up, on top of everything else.”

  “I know to be careful about where I’m walking, Mr. Raines,” she seethed.

  “It’s Tyler. And I’m sure usually you are careful about where you’re walking, but tonight you’re upset and the area around the house is dangerous.” He reached out and tightly closed his hand around her forearm. She stiffened, glaring at him. “Don’t fight me about this,” he said in a steely voice. “If you haven’t noticed, you’re trembling all over. Even your lips are twitching. You’re more upset than you realize.”

  Diana made a sound she hoped conveyed supreme contempt for his appraisal, but secretly she felt grateful for the large, sturdy hand holding her arm as they began walking. Everything inside of her seemed to vibrate and her legs were shaky. She’d always been strong, emotionally and physically, which is why Great-uncle Simon had allowed her to accompany him on her first Egyptian expedition when she was only eighteen. Now, though, she felt weak and vulnerable, although she was doing her best to hide her unusual fragility.

  Diana kept her gaze on the ground, determined not to trip over anything, as Tyler Rain
es had predicted she would. She wanted to show him she was totally in control. But she wasn’t. She jerked to a stop as they neared the house and she heard wood cracking. A man screamed hoarsely before a crash came from inside the house, and Diana knew the floor had given way under one of the three firefighters who’d entered the building.

  A general shout of distress mounted into the night, men rushing to the front of the little house, not daring to step inside and put more weight on what was left of the living room floor. Two firefighters, looking unreal in the glare of powerful electric lamps, stood plastered against the wall. Both gazed into the basement and one shouted, “Davis, you all right?”

  Everyone seemed to hold their breath for at least ten long, silent seconds. “Davis! Are you all right?” the man yelled again.

  After a moment, a feeble, breathless voice floated from the depths of the house. “I’m alive. Landed on my side.” A pause, then a soft moan of pain. “Think I broke . . . couple of ribs.”

  “Don’t move. You might puncture a lung.” Pause. “Paramedics!”

  No one came and someone else called. Once. Twice. Then two men and a woman came around the side of the house pushing a gurney. A firefighter rushed to them and began bellowing as if they weren’t standing three feet away from him. “One of our guys fell through the floor! He thinks he’s broken some ribs. You’ve gotta help him!”

  The female paramedic looked at the firefighter. “I’m afraid your man will have to wait a few minutes until the second emergency team arrives,” she said quietly, her young face immobile. “We found a woman in the backyard.”

  “Penny!” Diana broke away from Tyler and ran toward the gurney where a motionless figure lay. She reached the gurney and looked at the motionless form covered by a white sheet, only the head exposed. The sight hit Diana like a hammer blow. A paramedic had brushed back what was left of Penny’s short mahogany-brown hair to reveal her once lovely face, the left side of which now seemed to bubble with vicious, searing burns that stretched halfway across her forehead, destroying a cheek, annihilating her nose, obliterating the left eye.

  Diana stepped back in shuddering horror. She went cold and rigid, as if turned to stone. Finally, she whispered desolately, “My God, Penny.”

  The female paramedic looked at Diana with compassion. “She was lying in a little rubber pool with a couple of inches of water in it. The right side of her face was in the water, but her nose was exposed or she would have drowned.”

  “Penny?” Diana leaned toward the burned woman, saying uselessly, “Penny, it’s Diana.”

  “She’s unconscious, thank the saints,” the female paramedic said gently with a slight Irish accent. “She can’t hear you, ma’am. Don’t look at her any more than you have already. She wouldn’t want you to see her this way, and you won’t want to remember her this way, either.”

  “ ‘Remember her’ ” Diana asked vaguely, then louder, “She’s not dead, is she?”

  “No, but . . .” The woman trailed off and looked down at the wreckage of Penny’s face.

  A male paramedic intervened. “She’s not dead, Miss, but she’s sustained some bad burns.”

  “Not just to her face?” Diana demanded in agony.

  “The whole left side of her body was exposed.” The man gave Diana a sympathetic but authoritative look. “The burns are bad. Let’s leave it at that. Right now, it’s vital that we get her to the hospital as soon as possible. The doctors can tell you more later.”

  As they began cautiously moving the gurney toward the ambulance, Diana felt herself going limp. By now, Tyler Raines stood behind her and placed a firm hand under her elbow. She sagged against him, barely aware of his presence, only of his strength holding her upright.

  As the paramedics wheeled Penny away into the hot, smothering darkness, Diana drew a deep breath and called, “Penny has a little girl. She’s five. Have you found her?”

  The female paramedic looked back at her. Their eyes met and Diana knew the answer even before the young woman said, “We’ve found no signs of a little girl. Maybe inside . . .”

  Maybe inside, where the fire had raged in unchecked ecstasy, consuming everything in its ravaging path, Diana thought, including a sweet, innocent five-year-old girl.

  And for the first time in her twenty-eight years, Diana fainted.

  CHAPTER TWO

  1

  Diana jolted awake as cold water splashed over her face, into her ears, and across the delicate skin of her neck. She opened her eyes to see Tyler Raines holding a large, empty Styrofoam cup and gazing down at her, his head tilted slightly to the right, a vertical wrinkle lodged between his dark eyebrows. They stared at each other until he finally asked, “You all right, Miss I-Have-Never-Fainted-in-My-Life?”

  “I’m fine. Don’t you dare throw more water on me. And I haven’t fainted until now!” Diana realized she was lying flat on the ground, legs and arms splayed. She pulled together all four limbs and quickly sat up, wiping at her wet face. “Where’s Penny?”

  “The ambulance just pulled away with her.”

  Diana looked around in time to see the ambulance turning the corner. “I should have gone with her!”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.” Tyler grasped her hand, helping her clamber to a standing position. She pushed her long, dripping hair behind her ears and looked around frantically. “Have they found Willow?”

  “No, but—”

  “Oh my God!” Diana felt as if her chest was tightening, squeezing the air from her lungs. “They still haven’t found her?”

  “If you’d stop yelling and let me finish, I was going to say you were out for only a couple of minutes.”

  “You don’t think Willow is . . .” Diana gestured vaguely at the ruin of a house, unable to look at it, unable to say more.

  Tyler hesitated. For a moment, Diana thought she saw him waver behind what seemed to be only a veil of self-possession. “I don’t know about the little girl,” he said finally. “The mother was outside—maybe the child was, too.”

  “No, she’d just had surgery. She wouldn’t have been—”

  “Don’t reject possibilities. We don’t know anything for sure. The firefighters haven’t had a chance to search everywhere. They’re still trying to help the guy who fell into the basement when the floor gave way. They can’t prop a ladder against that crumbling edge of the floor. I think they’re using ropes to bring him up.” Tyler reached out and touched Diana’s arm. “You don’t look so good. You need to go home.”

  “Go home! I can’t go home until I know something about Willow. And if I were going anywhere, it would be to the hospital with Penny!”

  “Settle down and get your breath,” Tyler said sternly. His gaze seemed to grasp hers and hold it unrelentingly. “Now you listen to me. It could be half an hour or longer before they find the child, and there’s not one damned thing you can do for Penny at the hospital besides sit and wait for them to tell you she’s in critical condition.”

  Diana’s face crumpled and Tyler’s voice softened. “You’re exhausted, you’re frightened, and you’ve had a hell of a shock. You’ve already fainted. Unless you want to end up in the hospital, too, you’ll go home. You’re in no shape to hang around here and neither is Mrs. Hanson. Especially Mrs. Hanson. The fire burned a large hole in her roof and destroyed part of the kitchen and living room wall. Also, embers might be smoldering beneath some of the roofing and they could set another fire.”

  “Oh, no,” Diana moaned.

  “Oh, yes. That lady can’t stay in her house tonight. Does she have any place else to go?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve barely met her.” She paused. “I live in Ritter Park,” she said, referring to the seventy-acre park stretching along the Southeast Area and up into the Southeast Hills of Huntington. “She could come home with me.”

  “Ritter Park, eh? The ritzy neighborhood. I should have known.”

  “The house belongs to my great-uncle,” Diana said irritably. “I don’t own it
—I’m just a boarder for a while. Anyway, the house is large. There’s plenty of room for guests.”

  “Fine. I know the area. Just direct me to the house.”

  “Mr. Raines, I know how to drive.”

  “I told you before that my name is Tyler, and I’m sure you’re usually a first-rate driver, but not tonight. Now let’s go tell Mrs. Hanson she’s having a sleepover with her new best friend.”

  A few minutes later, they informed Mrs. Hanson that Penny was alive. “How badly hurt is she?” the woman asked. “She must have gotten burned.”

  “We don’t know any details,” Tyler said quickly, then, before she could ask more questions, he told her she would be spending the night at Diana’s house. Mrs. Hanson widened her eyes and shook her head vehemently. “I can’t just desert my home. Someone could break in!”

  Tyler spoke to her gently and patiently. “Mrs. Hanson, firefighters and probably the police will be here most of the night. You see, they haven’t found the little girl yet.”

  Mrs. Hanson’s slender, thin-skinned hand flew to her throat in distress. “They haven’t found Willow? I just assumed . . .”

  Mrs. Hanson seemed to drift away from them for a moment. Diana and Tyler exchanged looks over the woman’s head. She can’t bear this tragedy, Diana thought. Maybe she’s going to have a heart attack. Maybe we should take her to the hospital.

  Abruptly, Mrs. Hanson interrupted Diana’s thoughts with a crisp voice. “I thought of this when both of you were at the house, then I forgot about it when you came back with news of my house burning. I remember now, though.” The woman took a breath, concentrating. “Earlier, I glanced outside and I’m almost certain I saw Willow climbing out of her bedroom window. Penny had left Willow’s bedside lamp on. That’s how I could see her room.”

  “Willow climbed out of her window!” Diana was incredulous. “But she just had an operation.”