Page 7 of Rescued Heart

Eddie put his arm under her elbow and did a quick sweep of the smoky hallway, but there was no fire extinguisher hanging anywhere. He didn’t remember seeing one in his quest here either, but he’d been focused on finding the mayor.

Where had he gone?

The dispatcher’s voice vibrated over his phone’s speaker. “Your fire crew is pulling up the drive.”

Out in the hall, Bianca stared at the phone in her hand as if she’d never seen it before. “We could have?—”

Eddie pulled the door shut to keep the fire from escaping faster. The how and why of the arson would have to wait.

With a glare at her broken heel, Bianca kicked off her shoes. “This is why I shouldn’t ever wear heels.” She glared at the smoke detector up ahead on the ceiling. “Shouldn’t that be going off?”

“A great question.” Things were adding up, and not in a good way.

Eddie clenched his jaw and examined the woman as he took her hand in his, setting off in a run. Her dress had ripped up her leg on one side, and a portion of her sleeve was stained with blood. “You should have stayed in the ballroom. This isn’t a movie stunt.”

She exhaled. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I think someone might need my help. I’ll let them know I can only pretend.”

Eddie shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

While keeping up with his pace, she pulled his blood-soaked handkerchief away from the wound on the side of her head, and the broken skin glared at him. “Pretty sure you needed me in there. I helped get the other firefighters here. But more importantly, how did the fire start? Who was that man? And what was that exchange we saw between those two men?”

“Right now, I’ve got to get you and everyone else out of here. And you need to put pressure back on your head. Use my jacket now.” Eddie’s dress shoes slid on the floor as he rounded the corner. What he wouldn’t do to have his boots on.

At the start of the paneled hall, a light-blue-suited man, not a black-suited one, strolled toward them, still wearing his masquerade mask, a cigar in his mouth.

He frowned. “Bia? We’re about to miss our opportunity to…is that blood?”

Bianca released Eddie’s hand. “Carter, there’s a fire! We have to get everyone out.”

No wonder Bianca had thought Eddie had been Carter, with their similar build and hairstyle.

Eddie ran around Carter and through the same doorway that returned him to the ballroom only for Janice to block his path.

Not the grouchy lady. Again.

Eddie put his hands up around his mouth. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.”

The music stopped. People lifted their glasses at him as if awaiting him to raise a toast.

The angry woman huffed beside him. “What do you think you’re doing? I knew you were trouble with that truck of yours. I never should have allowed you to enter. Invitation or not.”

Eddie motioned for the main doors. “There is a fire in the building. Please proceed to the exit in an orderly fashion.”

A collective wail erupted, and then the door to the ballroom flew open. A wave of suits and dresses thundered through the exit.

Janice took off for the door.

Eddie checked over his shoulder. Where was Bianca? Carter?

Carter sprinted past him as Bianca jogged toward Eddie with her dress tangling around her bare feet.

She blinked at him. “Don’t you need to get a fire extinguisher?”

“Lives are more important than buildings.” He reached down and grabbed the section of her dress off the ground. “I can’t let you be trampled by the stampede of frightened people leaving the mansion. Especially not after you helped rescue them by calling the fire department.”

That and the fire was past the point of a typical extinguisher.

She sent him a faint smile as they trailed the others.

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