Page 62 of Scorched

By the time he reached the hallway leading toward the exit, other hands took over. Firefighters in yellow jackets and oxygen masks lifted the man off the floor and carried him the rest of the way out of the building. Another fireman hooked an arm beneath Paul’s and hefted him to his feet, leading, half-carrying him out into the rain, where they laid him on the soggy ground.

Blessedly cool water pelted his face, washing away a layer of soot and smoke, clearing the raw stinging sensation from his eyes. Paul dragged clean, fresh air into his lungs, coughed and sat up. “Elise.” He stared around at the crowd of emergency responders tending to the fire and the injured.

Where was Elise? When he tried to stand, his legs shook and he staggered, landing on his knees.

“Here.” An EMT shoved an oxygen mask over his face. “Breathe.”

Paul didn’t want to breathe, he wanted to find Elise. What if the explosion had been intentional? What if the killer had set it off to confuse everyone?

He sucked in a deep breath and handed the mask back to the technician. “Where’s the guy I pulled out of there?”

“They’re loading him into the ambulance over there.” The EMT pointed at a group of medical technicians shoving a gurney in through the back door of a waiting ambulance.

While watching out for Elise, Paul lurched to his feet and caught the door before it closed. “Is he alive?”

“Yeah, you know this guy?” one of the techs asked. “You a relative or something?”

“No. I’m just concerned. I got him out of the gymnasium.”

“Oh, well thanks. You probably saved his life. The principal was concerned about him, said he would need family around when he came to.”

“Why?” Paul asked.

“She said that he is mentally disabled, and he’ll be scared. I was hoping you were family.”

Paul backed away and the door to the ambulance closed. The lights flickered on, and the siren flared.

George was mentally disabled.

Which took him off the list of suspects, although he could have been tricked into dropping a letter into Elise’s mailbox, if he could read well enough to know which was hers.

Back to square one. Paul forced himself to think through the facts. The M.O. wasn’t exactly the same on the killings. The method was close, but not exact. Even if it were the Dakota Strangler, how would he have found Elise? Did he stalk Brenna, Elise’s sister, and glean information from her phone records?

Brenna was too good a cop to let it slip where her sister was. If not from Brenna, how did someone learn the whereabouts of a person in the witness protection program?

An insider?

Paul’s heart stuttered in his chest. Who had sufficient motivation to kill women other than the original Dakota Strangler? Someone angry at Elise? He shook his head. She’d done nothing. Her husband was the killer, not her. If it were an insider, could it be someone involved in the original case? The FBI agents on the case had been Paul, Melissa and Nick. Brenna had been working for the state on the crimes. He’d trust everyone from the team with his life and Elise’s.

Then who? Someone who wanted the Dakota Strangler to be alive again. But why? Who was he really after?

Paul filtered through the crowd of emergency workers and victims, frantically searching for thewoman he was as near as he’d ever come to falling in love with. Where was Elise?

The firefighters had forcedall onlookers back to clear the way for them to perform their search and rescue routine.

Unlike so many others, Elise had been fortunate enough to escape her classroom with her purse and keys.

She strained to see over the shoulders of the parents searching for their children and past the firefighters running hoses to the fire. The cool rain helped to keep it from spreading quickly, but it also chilled her to the bone. Still, she stood in the rain and waited for Paul to emerge from the smokey building.

Her cell phone vibrated in her purse against her leg. She scrambled through her purse to find it. When she did and read the text message on the screen, her blood ran colder than the air outside.

Where’s Paul?Luke is missing. It was from Melissa Bradley.

Elise ran to the nearest fireman. “Did Paul Fletcher come out of there yet?”

“Lady, I couldn’t tell you if the Pope stepped out right now. Please stay back while the emergency personnel work.”

Desperate to find Paul, Elise placed a hand on the fireman’s arm. “But I have to find him. It’s an emergency.”

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