Chapter 11 - SMOKE ON THE TWENTIETH FLOOR
The scream came again.
Then somebody slammed into the glass wall outside the boardroom.
Peter Lang staggered into view with one sleeve on fire.
Emily moved before she thought.
She grabbed the water pitcher from the table and threw it over his arm.
The flame died with a hiss.
Peter collapsed.
“Call 911!” Helen shouted.
The federal agent swore.
“The building alarm already did.”
Smoke thickened in the corridor.
Diane stood frozen beside her chair.
Emily looked at her.
“Move.”
Diane did not.
“Diane!”
That snapped her loose.
The group rushed toward the emergency stairs.
Matthew’s face was still on the boardroom screen behind them.
“Emily!”
She turned.
The audio crackled.
“Don’t take the west stairwell.”
“Why?”
“Fire panel shows the alarm started there.”
“How can you see our fire panel?”
Matthew hesitated.
Even now.
Emily almost screamed.
“Later,” he said.
“Of course.”
She grabbed Helen’s hand and pulled her toward the east stairwell.
The federal agent lifted Peter under one arm.
Everyone crowded through the door.
On the nineteenth-floor landing, they found the first body.
Tom Reeves lay facedown near the fire extinguisher cabinet.
There was blood on the back of his head.
Emily stopped so hard Helen ran into her.
“Tom.”
One of the agents checked his pulse.
“Alive.”
Emily exhaled.
Then she noticed his employee badge was gone.
The badge Helen had given Emily was still clipped to her borrowed sweatshirt.
She looked down at it.
A terrible thought arrived.
“The fire isn’t to destroy records.”
The agent glanced at her.
“What?”
“It’s to get somebody through the building while everyone evacuates.”
Diane’s face changed.
Emily saw it.
“Who?”
Diane shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
“I said I don’t.”
Smoke curled under the door above them.
The agent snapped, “We can interrogate each other outside.”
They kept moving.
On the seventeenth floor, the stairwell door opened from the other side.
A man in a maintenance uniform stepped in carrying a black backpack.
He froze when he saw them.
The federal agent said, “Stop.”
The man ran.
Emily saw the backpack zipper partly open.
Inside was a stack of blue file folders.
Hale Systems audit files.
“Hey!”
She chased him.
It was stupid.
She knew it as soon as she did it.
Her injured foot screamed.
The man shoved through the stair door onto seventeen.
Emily followed.
“Emily!” Helen shouted behind her.
The floor was nearly empty.
Red strobes flashed through smoke.
The maintenance man ran toward the service elevators.
Emily grabbed a wheeled office chair and shoved it into his path.
He tripped over it.
The backpack flew.
Folders spilled across the carpet.
He rolled, came up fast, and struck her across the mouth.
Emily hit a cubicle wall.
Pain flashed white.
The man reached for the backpack.
Emily kicked it away.
He grabbed her hair.
She drove her elbow backward.
It hit something soft.
He cursed.
She twisted free.
Then the federal agent came through the door with his weapon raised.
“Hands!”
The man looked at the gun.
Then at the window.
For one insane second Emily thought he might jump.
Instead he pulled a small metal object from his pocket and threw it.
A flash exploded.
Emily dropped to the floor, ears ringing.
By the time her vision returned, the man was gone.
The backpack remained.
The agent crouched beside it.
“Don’t touch anything.”
Emily wiped blood from her lip.
“He hit me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m aware that was not the smart part.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
He sighed.
“Please don’t do it again.”
“That sounds more realistic.”
They carried the backpack downstairs.
Outside, firefighters swarmed the building.
Matthew arrived three minutes later.
He crossed the plaza toward Emily without running.
That somehow made him look more alarmed.
He stopped in front of her.
“You’re bleeding again.”
“He hit me.”
“I can see that.”
“I made a bad decision.”
“I can also see that.”
Emily glared.
Matthew looked away for half a second.
“Sorry.”
She almost laughed.
Then Diane walked out of the building between two firefighters.
Graham Ambrose was waiting at the curb.
Emily went cold.
He wore a charcoal overcoat and carried an umbrella.
He looked like a concerned family friend.
Diane moved toward him.
Emily stepped between them.
Ambrose smiled.
“Emily.”
Matthew appeared at her shoulder.
Not in front of her.
Emily noticed.
Ambrose looked at him.
“Carter.”
“Ambrose.”
The two names were enough to change the air.
Emily looked at Graham.
“You locked the bedroom door.”
His expression remained pleasant.
“I did no such thing.”
“You reached for me.”
“I reached for the wineglass you knocked over.”
“You told Diane to leave us alone.”
“I was trying to calm you.”
Emily felt her hands shake.
She tucked them into the sweatshirt pockets.
Ambrose lowered his voice.
“You’re tired. You’ve been manipulated by people who want your shares.”
His eyes moved toward Matthew.
Emily said, “You’re not wrong about the second part.”
Matthew did not react.
Ambrose’s smile sharpened.
“But I still know what you did.”
Firefighters rolled a stretcher past them carrying Tom Reeves.
Ambrose watched it go.
Too closely.
Emily noticed.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
Diane suddenly grabbed Emily’s arm.
Hard.
Emily jerked away.
“Don’t touch me.”
Diane’s face was pale.
“Emily, listen.”
“What?”
For once, her stepmother looked genuinely afraid.
Not of Emily.
Not of Matthew.
Of Ambrose.
Diane whispered, “The man who started that fire works for Graham.”
Ambrose’s smile disappeared.
Emily stared at Diane.
Diane took one step back.
May you like
Then a black sedan jumped the curb.
It came straight toward them.
