Chapter 24: The Cameras

Lydia was standing across the street.

I saw her from the gurney, over the edge of the oxygen mask.

She had stayed to watch.

She stood on the far curb in her long coat and her red scarf, with her hands folded.

She was looking at the tower.

Then she saw Dylan kneeling beside me, alive, and she saw me, breathing.

Her face changed.

It was the first honest thing I had ever seen on it.

"Marco," I said through the mask.

He was already running.

He had been on his feet the whole night, black to the elbows, and he went straight to the two detectives at the barricade with his phone held high.

"She's across the street," he said. "The woman in the red scarf. She locked my friend in the tower."

He held up the phone.

"I have it on a recording. She says she lit the fire five years ago."

The detective didn't look at him.

He looked at the phone.

"Play it," he said.

Marco did, standing on the street in front of the lights.

Lydia's voice came out of the small speaker, warm and clear.

I put a can of lamp oil and a lit candle behind the filing cabinets, and I walked out at nine-forty.

Across the street, Lydia's hands came apart.

The detectives crossed the road, one on each side.

News vans had pulled up behind the fire trucks, and the cameras swung to follow them.

"Lydia Rhodes?" the first said.

"This is absurd," she said. "I'm a trauma specialist. I came to help."

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