She got up and stood staring down at the tiny body in the bed. After a long minute, she backed away. She wondered if Steele had found the DNR form buried deep inside Francesca’s dresser. She wondered if he’d found her secret, too. And she wondered if he’d keep it. Why should he? That’s a sure ticket to fame. If she stood in his shoes, she’d find it tough not to splash the evidence of the Morelli sin all over the front page. What better time to unearth a goldmine of secrets? Bury Edoardo and dig up his mistake all at the same time, so he never really died at all but was just remembered for his fatal error in judgment twenty-five years earlier.
Kira found her way to the lobby. In one corner, Miles slumped in a chair, eyes closed. Just beyond the door stood a gruff-looking man, gray at the temples. He scowled at a younger man beside him dangling a camera.
Reporters. She froze, but it was too late. The older man caught her gaze through the window. Steele’s father. It had to be. She could see a strong resemblance around the eyes and mouth. He crooked a finger and pointed at her with a smile. Please? He mouthed the word, and she could see how he might have charmed women in his younger days.
She walked into the lobby.
“Isabella Morelli.” He grasped her hand with one warm, oversized palm. “So nice to finally meet you.”
She said nothing.
“I’m so sorry for your situation,” he went on. “Your father was an outstanding actor. I had the good fortune to interview him once.”
“Is,” she said.
“I’m sorry?”
“He is an outstanding actor. They haven’t confirmed his death. I’d prefer to talk about him in the present tense, if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course. I’m so sorry.” He paused. “Would you mind answering a few questions?”
“I’m not giving a formal statement.”
“Off the record, then.”
“I have nothing to say. Really.” To your son, maybe. Not to you.
“Doctor give you any prognosis on your grandmother?”
She shook her head. “She’s unconscious.”
“Does she know about her son?”
Kira almost laughed. What doesn’t she know about him? At one point, they’d explored every inch of each other’s body. “Yes. She knows.”
“Was it a suicide attempt?”
The words ate into her. How would he know that? “No comment.” He was fishing, that was all. Typical journalist maneuver. “I’m sorry, but I have to get back to her,” she lied. “When Dr. Meadham comes out, maybe you can speak with him.”
The tall man scratched the back of his neck. A vein in his temple throbbed, the only visible sign she’d displeased him by not answering. “If you feel up to it later, maybe we can go on the record.” He paused. “It’s only a matter of time before people know you’re back in town. You realize that, right? If you have something to say, The Chronicle’ll do right by you. We’ll tell the story the way you want it told.”
“Sure you will.” Stories were made and remade every day. No guarantee the truth was ever part of any of them.
“I can see you’ve been through a lot,” he said. “I’ll leave you alone.” He paused. “Maybe you’ll feel like talking to Steele?”
“Maybe.”
David Walker’s cell phone rang. “Walker. Yeah.” His eyes widened. “What the hell?” He glanced at her. “Fire department on its way?” Pause. “Is Steele still there?”
“What’s going on?”
He slid his phone into his pocket. “Your house is on fire,” he said without emotion. “And my son is inside.”
STEELE TIGHTENED HIS fist around the two sheets of paper, one verifying Francesca’s right to die, the other verifying Kira’s true parentage. His mind was still reeling, trying to make sense of the names on the birth certificate. What a hell of a scandal. He imagined the cover page of The Chronicle if he wrote the piece. He imagined the photos that would run alongside the words. Then he imagined the pain in Kira’s gaze when she realized he’d betrayed her.
“Damn it!” He kicked the baseboard. Tabloids paid thousands for this kind of information. Hell, his own father would probably throw a weeklong party if they turned this hellish night into an award-winning story.
But Steele wasn’t sure the story was his to tell, even if he had been the one to find it. He looked down at the birth certificate, smoothing it between his palms. Then his eyes began to burn. He coughed and tried to draw a breath. Something hazy slipped around his feet. Smoke? But from where?
“The candles. Holy shit.” He stumbled from the bedroom, but the details of the scene below him took shape even as they sealed off his exit. He’d lit candles in the kitchen during the power outage. Now he could see smoke covering much of the first floor.
Oh, my God. The fucking house is on fire.
Panic drummed in his chest, and when he leaned over the railing, he saw the entire hallway leading back to the kitchen engulfed in red and orange. The smell of smoke grew stronger. He raised one arm and held it over his mouth. He’d written enough pieces on fires to know the dangers. People died of smoke inhalation long before the flames ever burned them.
Below him, the fire swept across the precious inlaid floor and up the heavy drapes that framed the entrance. He could hear it now, cracking and climbing, sucking air from the room as it grew. The smoke thickened. For an instant, he watched it, brilliant and deadly. What a hell of a shot.
Then his chest tightened, and fear got him moving. If he stayed here any longer mesmerized by the show, some piss-ant intern would be writing his obituary. “Simon?” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Rex? Anyone?” He felt around his pockets for his cell. Was the security system auto-hooked to 911? Had someone called the fire department? He thought he heard a siren, but it might have been just his imagination.
He couldn’t find his phone.
He checked front and back pockets and his shirt front. Nothing. Fuck. Had he left it inside the office? Had he lost it somewhere out in the hall? He looked around for a landline instead. Francesca must have had one somewhere. But he saw nothing. He returned to the bedroom, shoved the door closed behind him and collapsed against the bed. The smoke hadn’t gotten up here. Yet.
“Think, Walker. Get a grip.” He was on the second floor, right? So he’d go through a window. He’d jump onto the lawn, aim for a hedgerow. Breaking a leg was infinitely preferable to perishing inside this goddamned tomb. He went into the adjacent bathroom, yanked a towel from the linen closet, and ran it under the faucet. Back to the bedroom door, where he shoved it, dripping wet, against the jamb.
How long did he have? Smoke traveled faster than fire, right? But the way that animal had crawled up toward the ceiling in the foyer, he didn’t think he’d last longer than ten minutes trapped inside this room.
He went back into the office and took a longer look around. No cell phone on the desk. Or on the chair. He dropped to his knees and searched the floor. “C’mon...” Finally he pulled open the chest of drawers and went through Francesca’s things for a third time. At the bottom of a hatbox, he found it.
Dead.
Steele pressed buttons desperately. It didn’t even turn on. “Son of a bitch!” Seriously? He was stuck inside a bad movie, looking at actually jumping out a window to save himself? Outside, clouds cloaked the sun. He looked straight down and tried to measure the distance from window to ground. Below him sat two stone lions, rearing and roaring at an unknown enemy. Between them sat a miniature reproduction of the Sphinx.
Damn landscapers. Damn Francesca. Couldn’t have a nice soft shrub down there, could they? If he did actually jump, he’d have to aim his body left or right to avoid breaking more than a leg. A breeze brushed in, moving the curtains. He slammed the window shut He didn’t need to let in any wind to feed the fire.
Steele squeezed his eyes shut. Images of his mother, young and smiling, flashed into his mind’s eye. She swung him into her arms and cooed into his ear. She ruffled his hair, too long for a
six-year-old, but he didn’t care. His brothers laughed and pointed at him, the baby of the Walker family. His father tsked under his breath. “You’ll spoil him, you keep doing that.”
“I don’t want to die.”
He hadn’t lived the noblest life, not by a long shot, but he was barely thirty. He was supposed to get second and third chances, wasn’t he? Fighting for air, trying to fend off panic, Steel gripped the windowsill with both hands and tried to figure out how the hell he was going to get out of the Morelli house alive.
KIRA STARED AT DAVID Walker. “What did you say?”
“Fire. At your house.” The man’s face blanched. “Fuck.” He spun away from her, back into the waiting room and out the other door before she had a chance to react.
“Wait!” Kira ran as far as the parking lot and stopped. He didn’t even look behind him. He jumped into a dark SUV and pulled away, spitting gravel as he headed toward her childhood home.
She folded her hands beneath her chin. Please. I know I’ve asked for a lot. And I know I’ve screwed up. But please, please, don’t let Steele die. Seconds later, sirens wailed. She turned toward the rising sun, following their path across town. She didn’t see anything yet, no flames or smoke clouding the horizon. But it might only be a matter of time.
Kira pounded on the office door until a nurse appeared.
“Goodness, how did you get out there?” The nurse buzzed open the door and let her back in. “I’m sorry. Dr. Meadham hasn’t returned yet. I’ll send him down to your room when he does.”
“No,” Kira said. “It’s not about that. Something’s happened, and I need to leave.”
“The doctor needs to check you out before you go.” She glanced at her watch. “He shouldn’t be too much longer.”
“I can’t wait. Carl Oxenberg has the DNR form for Francesca,” she lied. “He’s supposed to be faxing it over.”
The nurse leveled her gaze onto Kira. “It’s important that family’s here, in the event that a decision like that needs to be made.”
Family. Kira wondered how one defined that, in a moment like this. Her heart contracted and missed a beat. Was it the person who gave you life? Or the person who gave you hope?
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said. “But this is an emergency.” She wrote her cell number on a slip of paper. “Here. Just in case.” Kira fled down the hall before the nurse could say anything else.
Steele, hang on. She wondered how on earth she was going to get back to the house. She didn’t know Simon’s cell number. She didn’t have a vehicle here. And the one person who might have given her a ride was speeding up the hill to save his own son.
She stopped outside Francesca’s room. I know it just happened. That was the truth, after all. Darkness, masks, a mistake, a morning after—after tonight she could understand the crazy, chaotic way life tore all control out of your hands and forced you to simply go along for the ride. She couldn’t hate herself anymore. She couldn’t carry around the weight of her parents’ long-ago mistake. And she couldn’t spend the rest of her life so angry that she shut everyone else out.
Police and fire sirens wailed again, closer, and a lump grew in her throat. Hang on, Steele. I’m coming.
“Goodbye,” Kira said to the closed door. She hurried down the hallway and was gone.
STEELE PULLED A SHEET off the bed and tore it in half. Then he tied the two halves together as tightly as he could. Jesus, this was ridiculous. He wasn’t a hero who could rappel down the wall of a burning building. He glanced at the bedroom door. He’d wet multiple towels three times, and still wisps of smoke slipped through the crack near the floor. His gaze shifted to the office. All those papers... They’d catch fire at once.
A complete life, about to turn to ash. But for the birth certificate and the DNR form he’d stuffed into his pocket, the rest would vanish in a matter of hours, if they couldn’t get this fire under control. And all proof would be gone.
He tied a double knot and jerked. The sheets held. He leaned out the window again. He couldn’t believe he was about to hoist himself out the second story of the Morelli house and try not to break both legs or his neck on the way down. Sirens screamed, and a red light pulsed on the lawn for a second before disappearing again.
“Thank God.” Maybe they’d see his car and realize he was trapped inside. They’d have a ladder truck, and he could climb to safety the normal way. For a moment, Steele thought with regret of his Mercedes and the cameras on the back seat. He wondered if they would come through the disaster unscathed.
The wood beside the door cracked with a sickening, splitting sound, and Steele looked over his shoulder. The smoke in the room was growing thicker. He added another bed sheet, but his fingers cramped as he tied the knot, and he had to try three times before it took. Now four sheets long, the makeshift rope would have to do. He couldn’t wait for rescue any longer. The sheets wouldn’t get him to the ground, but he hoped they would get him close enough to jump clear of the stone statues below.
He buried his mouth in the crook of his elbow and coughed. How much time did he have? Five minutes? Less? He kneeled and wrapped one end of the rope around the post of the great oak bed. At least that heavy piece of furniture should hold. Smoke continued to drift under the door, in slow but deliberate waves, as if trying to fool him. Just taking my time. Look away. You won’t even know I’m here.
Sweat soaked his shirt to his chest and back, and he wriggled free of the hundred-dollar button-down. It landed in a rumpled pile, and the white edge of a paper peeked out of the front pocket. Her birth certificate. The proof. He reached toward it. Funny, the things that became important when you could see the end of your life right in front of you. His lungs felt tight, and he closed his eyes for a moment to banish the panic. Think of Kira. Think of Mom. Think of getting out of here.
More cracks split the doorframe. More smoke filled the room. Steele counted to ten, hopeful that a fireman might come bursting through the door and hose down the room. Christ, he didn’t want to jump. But what choice did he have? He checked the sheet and the bed frame one last time, tossed the other end out the open window, and prayed.
8:00 a.m.
It was worse than she’d imagined. Kira stared, unable to breathe as the cab driver barreled up the hill to the mansion. The iron gates stood half-open, as if fire had reached out from the walls of the house and choked their mechanism as well. Some of the black iron bars curled back, and she wondered if they’d been bent the rest of the way by fire engines forcing their way onto the property. Firefighters trained hoses on the house, and water sprayed through a gray haze that surrounded the entire grounds. The east side of the house had already started to collapse. As she climbed from the cab, the roof caved in above what had been her bedroom all those years ago.
Kira stumbled from the car and fell to her knees. She looked around for Simon, Rex, anyone who might be in charge or know what had happened inside. She didn’t see a familiar face anywhere. Then a police officer rushed over.
It’s gone. All of it. Walls, chairs, tears, anger, childhood toys and adolescent dreams.
“Ma’am, you can’t be here.”
“It’s my—it’s mine...”
His eyes widened with recognition. “Isabella Morelli?”
“Do you know—” she started to say before hiccups interrupted her. Do you know if anyone’s still inside?
The officer helped her to her feet and wrapped an arm around her waist. “I can’t believe you’re here.” He put an arm around her shoulder and helped her to a cruiser a few yards away. “You shouldn’t be. I’m sorry.” His voice, soft and kind, soothed her. “Were you in the house earlier? Do you have any idea what might have caused the fire?”
She rested her forehead in her hands without answering. Was she in the house? Her whole life began and ended there. “I came back...” she began. “When my father...” She gulped and swayed against him. She couldn’t put anything else into words. He patted her on the shoulder an
d led her to a spot by the gate, behind a fire engine and two other police cars.
“Stay here, okay?” he said before she could ask about Steele again. “I’ll have a paramedic come over and take a look at you.”
He jogged over to join a group of firefighters, and she reached for the hood of his cruiser to steady herself. She couldn’t believe the scene before her. Shouts punched the air. Men ran across the grass. A siren wailed as another fire truck wheeled through the gate. Kira scanned the driveway and saw Steele’s car. Its bright yellow paint had begun to peel. Her gaze moved to the west wing of the house, still standing. Francesca’s bedroom. The office. The place where he would have gone to find the DNR form. She didn’t want to think about what else he might have discovered.
“Steele!” she screamed. She wrapped both hands around the back of her neck and called his name again. And again.
Two windows on the bottom floor burst outward, and showers of glass scattered onto the flowerbeds. An oak tree fell across the lawn, its trunk split in half, and the ground shook. The whole surreal scene resembled a movie. Not real. It couldn’t be. Kira scrubbed away tears. She had to find Steele. Why wasn’t anyone looking for him? The policeman who’d recognized her stood a few feet away, talking to a familiar-looking man. She realized a second later it was David Walker. He saw her and gave a quick, somber shake of the head. No, they haven’t found him yet.
Kira wanted to die.
The editor-in-chief nodded at something the policeman said. He scratched his chin and studied the house, then pointed at the roof. She wondered for an instant what he’d been like as a father; she wondered how Steele might have looked up to him or loved and hated him all at once. She wondered how different Steele’s childhood had been from her own.
Countdown: Steele Page 16
