Chapter 18 - Fire Again
The flare struck a stack of old paper rolls.
Flame climbed instantly.
For one horrifying second, eighteen years collapsed on top of me.
Smoke. Alarms. A child somewhere I could not reach.
Not again.
"Emily!"
She dropped the flare gun and ran toward me.
Thomas grabbed the document case and sprinted toward the rear loading bay.
Police shouted from both sides of the building.
The old paper burned faster than anyone expected. Dry fibers carried the fire along the wall, and black smoke rolled across the ceiling.
I pulled Emily low.
"Stay with me."
"I'm here."
Those two words almost broke me.
We moved toward the nearest exit, but a burning section of ceiling crashed between us and the doorway.
Emily coughed. "Back stairs! There's another door near the office."
We ran through the smoke.
Behind us, Thomas shouted.
He had reached the rear loading area and found police blocking the exit.
Instead of surrendering, he climbed a metal staircase toward the roof access.
Brooks yelled for him to stop.
He kept going.
Emily and I reached the side corridor. The exit door was chained from the outside.
"Why would anyone chain this?" she cried.
I grabbed a rusted fire extinguisher and smashed the narrow glass panel beside the handle. Emily reached through and fumbled with the outer latch until it opened.
Cold air hit us.
Firefighters pulled us clear.
I turned back toward the roof.
Thomas stood at the edge, trapped between smoke and two officers coming through the access door.
The document case hung from his hand.
"Thomas!" I shouted.
He looked down at me.
Even from three stories away, I could see the hatred in his face.
"You took everything from me!"
I stared up at the man who had stolen my child and then accused me of theft.
"No," I yelled back. "You spent eighteen years taking it from yourself."
An officer reached him.
Thomas swung the case like a weapon.
The officer ducked.
Thomas slipped on the wet metal roof.
Emily screamed.
He slid toward the edge--
and stopped when another officer caught his wrist.
They dragged him back and handcuffed him while the mill burned behind them.
Later, wrapped in a blanket beside an ambulance, Emily leaned against me.
Brooks approached with soot on her face.
"Thomas is under arrest for kidnapping conspiracy, obstruction, fraud, and several other charges the prosecutor is still counting."
I closed my eyes.
"Is it over?"
Brooks looked toward the burning mill.
"The running is over."
Then she handed me a sealed evidence bag recovered from Thomas's case.
Inside was one last document.
May you like
A letter addressed to Emily.
Written by Thomas eighteen years ago.
