Chapter 8 - Eleven Fifty-Nine

Darkness dropped across the west wing. Emergency lamps glowed low along the floor, just enough to show the stairs. Emma held Lily against her chest as Daniel slammed the service hatch shut behind them.

“Rosa, call 911,” Emma said.

Rosa dialed. No service. Daniel's phone showed the same thing. Someone had jammed the signal or disabled the booster built into the property.

“We have a landline in the laundry room,” he said.

They ran through the quiet house. The electronic security shutters were already descending over the main windows. Near the foyer, red numbers on the alarm panel counted down from sixty.

June had vanished. The front door wouldn't open. Emma set Lily down and looked at Daniel. “You told me your mother's people installed this system for safety.”

“They did.”

“Whose safety?”

Daniel picked up a fireplace poker and smashed the panel's glass. The countdown continued.

Rosa emerged from the laundry room with a wired telephone receiver. “Dead.”

Rosa had taught Lily where the flashlights were during summer storms. Emma used to tease her for taking every little precaution so seriously. Now Rosa's practical calm held the family together while Daniel, who owned the house and every shiny security gadget in it, could barely remember where the exits were.

Lily tugged Emma's sleeve. “Mommy, there's a way out where I hide when Grandma gets mad.”

“Show me.”

The girl led them through a side door into a pantry, then to a lower cupboard behind bags of flour. Emma remembered playing hide-and-seek there when Lily was four. Beyond the cupboard was a small dumbwaiter shaft, its service door large enough for a child but not an adult.

“No,” Daniel said. “We can't send her alone.”

“I can fit,” Lily insisted. “It goes to the garage.”

Emma's heart tore at the thought of letting go. The countdown reached twenty-nine. They smelled smoke, sharp and synthetic, from the grand hallway.

Daniel knelt. “Sweetheart, ride down, pull the red latch, and run to the neighbors. Tell them to call the fire department.”

Lily looked to Emma for permission. Emma pressed her forehead against her daughter's. “Run straight to Mrs. Carter's porch. Don't stop for anybody.”

They lowered her in the little lift with her teddy bear tucked beneath her chin.

At zero, a blast shook the front of the mansion.

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