Annie exhaled slowly, then nodded.
As she turned toward the stairs, Jack remained where he was, eyes moving, cataloging exits, sightlines, and shadows. The message on her door replayed in his mind. The timing of Eric’s assault. The way surveillance had tightened around her without her noticing.
Someone believed the past was about to surface.
Jack intended to make sure it did—on their terms.
Chapter 5
Annie woke to the smell of smoke. It invaded her lungs before she was fully conscious, harsh and chemical, scraping down her throat and sending her into a violent coughing fit that dragged her out of sleep and into terror. Her eyes flew open, but darkness met her gaze—thick, oppressive darkness—broken only by a thin, pulsing line of orange light seeping beneath her bedroom door.
For half a second, her mind refused to accept what her body already knew.
Then the heat brushed her skin.
Fire.
Her heart slammed so hard against her ribs it hurt as reality crashed into place. The building was burning. Her building. The shop downstairs. Her apartment. Everything she had spentfour years rebuilding after loss, after fear, after running—every sacrifice, every long night, every fragile hope—was turning to ash beneath her.
Please, God. No.
She threw back the covers and hit the floor, bare feet slapping against hardwood as she ran for the door. Childhood safety lessons surfaced just before instinct betrayed her, and she yanked her hand back from the knob, already imagining blistered skin. She grabbed the shirt from the chair, wrapped it around her fingers, and twisted.
The knob turned, but the door didn’t budge.
She braced her shoulder and shoved. The wood didn’t give. Panic surged and she slammed into it again, harder this time, driving all her weight forward.
Nothing.
The door hadn’t stuck once in the two weeks she’d lived here. She’d heard somewhere that a wooden door could swell and warp during a fire because of the extreme heat. Was that why it wouldn’t budge? Or had someone trapped her in here deliberately.
The police could investigate that later. Right now, she needed to get out of here.
Jack.
The thought struck like lightning, igniting a deeper panic that nearly buckled her knees. He was downstairs. In the storage room. If they had blocked her exit, if they had planned this, then they had planned for him too.
Had they already—
No. She wouldn’t go there. Jack was trained. Alert. Capable. He would find a way out. But she needed to worry about herself first.
She spun back into the bedroom and reached for her phone, only to find a dead screen staring back at her from thenightstand. Guilt and frustration stabbed through her. She’d forgotten to plug it in. Forgotten, even after Jack told her to.
The smoke thickened, rolling in slow gray waves across the ceiling before lowering toward her face. Each breath burned. Each second tightened the walls of the room.
She didn’t have long. Her gaze went to the dresser.
The locket.
Even as survival screamed at her to get to the window, she dove for the drawer, hands shaking as she wrenched it open. The small velvet pouch lay where she’d left it, warm from the encroaching heat, heavy with the only proof they had managed to uncover. The locket. The tiny key. The folded scrap of paper that had raised more questions than it answered.
If she died tonight, if Jack died, whatever truth Eleanor Blackwood had hidden would vanish with them. Her fingers closed around the pouch just as a violent crack split the air as part of the living room ceiling gave way. Embers showered down beyond her doorway, sparks skittering across the floor. The fire was chewing through the building with terrifying speed.
The window.It was her last hope of escape.
She shoved the pouch into her pajama pocket, grabbed her scarf, and tied it over her mouth and nose. The smoke burned anyway, thick and suffocating, each breath like swallowing ash.
She staggered to the window and shoved it open, gulping as cooler night air rushed against her face. Below, the alley yawned into darkness, three stories down, the distance enough to make her vision blur and her stomach revolt.
