Page 65 of Roark
Roark ran past the parlor and the formal living room. He turned down the hallway that led to the bedrooms facing the back of the house. But before he could get to the first one, there was a blast, and a door flew off its hinges. Flames quickly followed blocking his progress. Roark reared back so fast he stumbled and landed on his ass, heat from the flames causing his skin to sweat instantly.
“Fuck!” he yelled. He had to get to Suri and Aunt Birdie. He wasn’t going to leave them in here.
There were noises all around now. He thought the front door may have been kicked in or there was more thumping. Smoke was definitely thicker now, and he choked after inhaling quite a bit of it.
“Suri!” he yelled. “Suri!”
Maybe if she heard him, she could at least find Aunt Birdie and lead her out the window or something. There was nothing on this side of the house but bedrooms. Down the opposite hallway was the pool area and the exit to the back veranda.
“Suri! Suri!”
Nothing. All Roark heard was thumping. All he smelled was smoke and just ahead of him, all he could see were the glowing flames licking against the walls and everything else they touched as they traveled. He had to get up, and find them some help. He stood and ran back the way he’d come, but there was even more smoke in that direction now.
Tamika had waited long enough. She had Tuppence remove her robe and nightgown. Then she put the robe back on and zipped it up to her neck. She used the nightgown to wrap around the bottom half of Tuppence’s face, protecting her from the smoke.
“We’re gonna walk now,” she instructed her. “We’ll take it slow, one step at a time, but we need to get downstairs and out the front door.” Because there was no way Tuppence could jump out of a window. It wasn’t Tamika’s best idea either, but she would’ve done it if she had to. What she wasn’t going to do was leave Tuppence.
They made their way slowly down the curving staircase until she knew they were on the ground floor because it was covered with smoke. The front door was open, and security guys were filing in.
“Over here! We’re here! Get her out!” she yelled.
A guard ran over and lifted Tuppence into his arms. Tamika watched them go toward the door when out of the corner of her eye she saw another guard coming her way.
“Come on, you can get out this way!” he yelled to her.
She was shaking her head, even though she wasn’t sure he could see or understand her. “Not without my mother!”
“Ma’am, the Fire Brigade is on their way. We gotta get you out of here.” He grabbed for Tamika’s arm, but she pulled away from him and ran in the opposite direction.
“Mama! Mama, are you in here?” she screamed and ran down the hallway until she slammed into something hard and fell back on the floor.
Roark picked her up. “You can’t go back there,” he was yelling. “There’s too much fire. We gotta get help. Let’s go out the front door and get help!”
“Not without my mother, Roark. I won’t leave this house without her,” she said. “The pool, did you check the pool? It doesn’t look like the smoke’s coming from down there.”
She pushed past him and ran down the hall, only to be stopped by a strong arm around her waist. Tamika protested when he lifted her off her feet and carried her back toward the front of the house.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled.
She was screaming at him and trying to break free when they were both knocked back by a blast. On their hands and knees now, Roark pointed to a door. She’d pulled her nightshirt up over her face to block the smoke and followed him. Roark kicked the door in and pushed her inside before closing the door behind them.
“Welcome to the party.”
They both stopped dead in their tracks when they saw him. Dressed in full firefighter regalia and holding a blowtorch in his right hand was Kaymen Benedict. And strapped to the chair in front of him was her mother.
Tamika screamed and tried to run toward her, but Roark caught her around the waist again as Kaymen lifted the blowtorch and aimed it at her.
“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll burn your ass too.” His voice was a raspy snarl, but she didn’t care. All that mattered to her now was getting her mother to safety.
“He’s not gonna kill her in front of us.”
She heard Roark talking from behind her, but her heart was beating so fast every part of her body was shaking. Why was he talking to him? What did he think that was going to do? The man was obviously a lunatic.
“I don’t give a damn about any of you, just her. She’s the last one. You were last that night too, weren’t you, Sandra? You’d been sitting right next to me, and I felt when your body eased away from mine. You never touched me, never checked to see if I was still breathing.” Kaymen moved closer to her mother, putting the torch beside her right ear as he spoke.
Tamika tried to calm herself as Roark spoke. “Why didn’t you call out to them? Why didn’t you tell them you were alive, Kaymen?”
Okay, he was going to try distracting the psychotic killer. She guessed there were worst things to do, but again she focused on her own breathing. There was gasoline in here. It was all over the place—on the floors, the furniture, probably even the walls. That meant he was planning to burn the place down. The question now was how did he think he was going to get out in time if he’d already started fires in other areas of the house?
