“Dad!Dad!”
She saw the flames now. Mostly white and yellow. High heat.
The kitchen.
Jesus, it was hot. So fucking hot.
“Dad!”
She found him. Ran to his crumpled body. Inhaled smoke, broke into a coughing fit. Dropped down.
“No...”
He was gone. Face was practically melted off. Blood dripping from his forehead. Boiling. Blood on a rook paperweight off to one side.
Sobbing, she checked for a pulse. Pulled her hand back. Her father’s skin was as hot as a stove element.
“No! Please...”
Her own flesh was starting to crisp.
From somewhere above, she heard a thump. Eyes shot up. It came from the second floor.
The laptop, Ivy. Find Steve’s laptop.
The words so vivid that it was like the dead man in her lap was saying those words rather than her remembering them.
Ivy reluctantly lowered her father’s head to the hardwood and went up the stairs. The flames that engulfed the kitchen had yet to reach the top floor, but the smoke was thick.
She covered her nose and mouth with the neck of her shirt, but this didn’t do much. Every breath was like inhaling acid. Put her on the verge of a coughing fit.
Steve was on the upper landing.
Like Gene, he was face down. His skin was even more scorched than the man’s downstairs. But he was still alive. Unbelievable.
The thump she’d heard was Steve collapsing on his stomach.
“Where’s the laptop?” Ivy demanded. “Where’s your laptop?”
The man couldn’t answer. Was barely breathing. But he’d come upstairs. There’d been a confrontation on the floor below, and then Steve, instead of running out, had comehere.
The laptop.
Ivy left the man where he lay and went to the first room she found. A bedroom.
No laptop.
She went to the next room. Black smoke everywhere.
Moved her hands around blindly, knew she was accomplishing nothing other than getting closer to asphyxiation.
If the laptop was here, she’d never find it.Ifit was here.
Her father’s laptop wasn’t—he’d told her as much on the phone. Told her where he’d stashed it. Trusted her with it. No one else. Not even his wife.
Hid it in plain sight.
Ivy retreated back to the man in the hall.
