Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (best ereader for academics .txt) 📕

suffocating. The foot of the bed was now in flames. I dragged at the old man again and screamed at Samuel, “Let go!”

I covered my mouth with my arm as I breathed in, but the acrid smoke tore at my throat, making me cough. Reynolds was thrashing and kicking, fighting to get away from his son, retching and trying to cover his mouth and nose. The smoke was so thick I could barely see the door. A dull pain was splitting my head and I knew it was from lack of oxygen. I grabbed Reynolds with both hands again and despair must have given me strength because I dragged him off the mattress and onto his feet. Samuel was half on the floor, coughing violently between wailing and calling out to God to cleanse him of his sins.

Flames six feet high were engulfing the foot of the bed, wavering through the smoke. The heat was becoming intense. I knew I barely had seconds. Reynolds was clawing and clutching at me like a drowning man, dragging down his savior. He was at least as tall as I was and heavier. There was no way I could carry him. I shoved him and screamed in his face, “Run!” I pushed past him and he clung to me, dragging me back. Flames licked at our clothes. He was screaming in my ear, insane, incoherent noises. His arms were around my throat. My eyes were burning. I grabbed his arms, leaned forward so his feet were lifted off the ground and charged for where I knew the door was.

I collided with a body. I heard Dehan shout, “Stone!” Then, hands were grabbing me, pulling me forward, and I fell in a heap in the hallway, with Reynolds on top of me. I pushed him off. Uniformed cops were seizing him, hauling him up and out of the house. I clambered to my feet, coughing and retching. Dehan was there, pulling on my arm. “We have to get out!”

“Did you call the Fire Department?”

“Yes! Come on!”

I shoved her toward the door. “Go!”

I ran down toward the kitchen. I turned the kitchen taps on full and filled a red plastic basin with water. I tipped it over my clothes and hair, soaked a tea towel and tied it around my nose and mouth and another around my head. Dehan was beside me, clutching my arm, screaming at me, “What the…? For crying out…! No, Stone! No!”

I wrenched my arm free and ran. I think I was bellowing like a demented demon. I plunged into the room, hearing the wet tea towels hiss and steam on my face. The smoke was a dense fog. Through it, I could just see Samuel lying on the floor. The bed was in flames beside him. The flames were eight feet tall and licking the ceiling. All the furniture was on fire and the carpet on the floor was beginning to smolder. I took all this in in less than a second. I grabbed his ankles and pulled. He barely moved a couple of inches. I could feel my hands starting to blister in the heat. I knew in a few seconds, my clothes and the tea towels would dry and then burst into flames. I heaved again. I could see his hair was burning. I screwed up my eyes and heaved a third time, roaring like an insane thing, and now he moved and I was running backward as though his body had become weightless. Then I was crashing out of the room backwards, gasping for air and Dehan was shouting, “Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Keep running!”

But even as we dragged him down the hall, cops were grabbing his shoulders off the floor and we were bundling him out into the blessed cold and the rain. There I half-dropped, half lowered him to the sidewalk and I staggered across the road, bent double, coughing violently and painfully. I took in the two fire trucks, the ambulance and the backup patrol cars, and I took in Dehan, removing the wet tea towels from her head and her face.

“You are,” she said, between coughs, “The most obstinate man in the world!”

I shook my head, wiping the rain from my face. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re welcome!”

“I’m glad you did. Thanks.”

“You’d be dead if I hadn’t, you dumb son of a bitch!”

“I couldn’t let him burn to death, Dehan. Is he alive?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She jerked her chin toward the ambulance. Samuel was on a gurney with an oxygen mask over his face. We went over as he was being lifted into the ambulance. A red-haired paramedic glanced at me as we approached. I asked her, “Will he live?”

“Yeah. He has some nasty burns and he’ll have a pretty bad hangover from the smoke. But he should be fine in a few days.”

“How about his dad?”

She pointed her chin at the inside of the ambulance. He was sitting up with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, watching his unconscious son being settled in beside him. He looked like he was in deep shock. I wiped my eyes and my mouth with the back of my sleeve and asked him, “Who’s your doctor, Mr. Reynolds?”

He stared at me, but didn’t answer. The paramedic climbed in and grabbed the doors. “We have to get them to hospital, Detective. We’ll find his doctor.”

I nodded. She pulled the doors closed and we watched the red rear lights disappear through the drizzle in the failing light of the late afternoon. I turned to Dehan. “You OK?”

She nodded. “You?”

“I want guards put on all their doors. Samuel’s, the dad’s and Helen’s. I don’t want anybody—anybody—going in or out except their doctors and the nurses. I especially don’t want them going into each other’s rooms. Make sure they are separated. If anyone goes