Chapter 28
The secretaries and foremen answered phones and Kane’s questions from the offices on the second floor, while the police got statements from all the workers in the cafeteria. Kane was kept well supplied with coffee and cigarettes, but he couldn’t even summon up a smile of thanks for the mousy little woman who timidly handed him another cup every twenty minutes. He knew he looked frightening, but that was how he felt.
He’d been sitting on the side of his bed, staring into space, when the call had come in. He hadn’t even noticed that day was breaking, that he’d been sitting there all night. He couldn’t lie down without smelling her on the other pillow, and he didn’t have the energy to change the sheets.
When his cell phone rang, the hope that it was her leaped into his mind one last time. But no; she wouldn’t change her mind, and he wouldn’t blame her. As sickening as it was to hear that another building was on fire, he honestly welcomed the distraction.
Coming out of his room, he went into the kitchen to see if he could grab something to eat before leaving. Food was hard to get hold of at these things, he’d learned. He must have disturbed Carl with the opening and closing of cabinets, because when he turned around, Carl was at his own bedroom door. “What’s up?”
“Another fire. Inner Belt.” Kane pulled out a leftover carton of takeout from the night before. He didn’t remember eating it the first time.
“Damn,” Carl said. “I have no idea where that is, but anyway. You were right.”
“Yay for me,” Kane said. He seriously contemplated having a slug of scotch. But then he remembered the hot toddies Ellen had plied him with, and his stomach turned over.
“I have to go.” He reached for his jacket and keys, grabbed a scarf and gloves. Freezing rain was coming down, and he didn’t know how long he’d have to stand outside. The weather matched his mood perfectly anyway; ice sat in his chest, and it wasn’t because Tennant was obviously still active.
Carl came over to him. “I’m sorry, man,” Kane said. “This wasn’t how I imagined this weekend would go.”
“Don’t be an ass. Did you sleep at all?” Kane had given him the barest facts about the breakup, and Carl had done what he did best: sat with him, watched a movie where a lot of people got shot, and drunk a six-pack. Realizing that he couldn’t remember how many beers he’d drunk, Kane was even more glad he hadn’t had the scotch. He did remember feeling nothing but sober when he’d finally gone to bed.
The roads were terrible. He’d have done ninety if he could, but black ice lay all over the place. When he finally got to the address, he skidded on a patch right in front of the building, sliding to a halt between the fire truck and the police car. The water coming from the hoses was already freezing on the sidewalks and roads. He couldn’t even run over to the first official he saw without losing his footing.
He spent most of an hour sitting in the cafeteria with the workers, on the first floor of the auxiliary building. He’d had opportunities to talk to his employees at the other mills and warehouses, but most of these people had grown up where he had, and it was restful to sit and let his vowels broaden, to joke about the roads and the Bruins.
Not that they let him get away with small talk. Half the men were done with their shift and wanted to go home; the other half were pissed because they obviously weren’t going to get to work today. He was asked point blank if they were getting paid for their lost shifts.
Before, he’d been able to continue to pay the workers who could travel to other buildings (most of the night shift were from the New Hampshire building). The secretaries were working overtime to get the paperwork sorted. He’d even asked the cafeteria staff to come in this morning. But he was straining the company’s reserves to a breaking point. And the police hadn’t told him anything about where Tennant might be now. He figured the man had done his usual trick of orchestrating from afar, and was long gone.
Finally, the foreman and building manager were done with their statements, and they came to bring him upstairs to the offices. They all looked worried. Everyone looked like that when it was their home town that had been hit. No one believed it would happen to them until it did. But they’d all counted on being so close to Boston to keep them safe. Everyone knew this was a home-grown business, that no one would help someone destroy that.
At least this time the damage was minimal, only really affecting one side of the building. Of course, the inventory was ruined, between the sprinklers (which had worked, for once, as had the security cameras, but they were still going through those) and the quick arrival of the fire department and their hoses. The fire had really only caught in the lobby and the supervisors’ offices that lined one wall. He was told that it was out now. There had been two minor injuries, from guys slipping on the ice as they ran out of the building, but that was it. If it weren’t for the idea of Tennant still out there and perhaps ready to do this again another day, he might have relaxed.
He was rolling his neck on his shoulders, trying to tell his muscles to chill, when the explosion came. It blew a hole in the wall on the first floor, sent the doors to the stairwell on the second bursting into the office area, and knocked Kane and everyone else to the ground. He fell to his knees, caught himself on a desk, and then had to use his arms to cover his face as the windows, including the one he’d had been smoking at two minutes before, shattered, scattering safety glass over their heads.
Kane, shedding the glass, managed to stand. He could feel heat through his boots, and hear people screaming downstairs, smashing through doors and windows to get out. Three others were with him in the open cubicle space on the second floor, down the hall from the conference room where the police were conducting interviews. The two officers ran out of the conference room with one of the workers and toward Kane and the others. But smoke from the stairwell was already coming into the room through the blasted doors. Kane helped the mousy woman to stand; her eyes were enormous, but she had set her jaw and suddenly didn’t look so timid anymore.
“Where’s the other fire exit?” shouted one of the policeman.
The building manager, who was just getting to his feet, waved back the way they’d come. “Through my office,” he said, beginning to cough as the smoke thickened.
“I’m an EMT,” the not-so-mousy woman said clearly to the officer. “I can help.” He nodded, and they turned back to the other end of the hall.
But as Kane passed the last cubicle, he saw another woman, crouched down between her chair and desk, whimpering, gripping the chair as if it would protect her from the smoke that was starting to gather on the ceiling. “Hey!” he shouted, and tried to fold himself into the tiny space left in her cubicle. “Come on, now,” he tried to say calmly, but panic made him harsh, and she stared at him and keened and held on tighter. “Come on,” he insisted, but she shrank back at the edge to his voice.
He was going to get her killed if he kept this up. “Help!” he yelled down the hall. Thankfully the EMT came back; Kane extricated himself and let the expert soothe the secretary and ease her out of the space.
While he was listening to her, cursing his own uselessness, he heard another voice, another frantic plea. It was coming from the damaged staircase. A corridor on the other side of the stairs led to offices that he’d assumed were empty.
So maybe he could be useful after all.
He ran to the water cooler in the corner, heaved the bottle out from the base, ripped out the cap, and let the water pour over him, soaking his shirt and jeans. Then he pulled his shirt off and wrapped it around his mouth and nose, tying the sleeves as best he could behind his head. When he ran back past the cubicle, the EMT and the frightened woman he hadn’t been able to help were gone.
He had just forced his way through the doors to the stairwell when another explosion came from the fire escape end of the building, knocking him backward into the stair rail and making him yell out at the hit to his back.
For a moment there was just noise, a roar and screaming and shouting. Kane swore and pulled himself upright. He hoped the others had made it out before the second blast.
In here a sour, chemical odor threatened to knock him back again. He held his shirt more closely to his mouth and shouted as loudly as he could, “Is someone here?”
