Chapter 21: Fire at the Warehouse

Mara's POV

Lacey called me at nine that night, from a payphone, crying.

"He's at the warehouse," she said. "He took two cans of gas from the garage. He says if the books are gone, there's nothing to charge him with."

"The agents sealed it."

"He has a key. He's always had a key."

I was in the car before she'd finished.

Lucian drove, because he refused to let anyone else.

The big guard sat in the back and said nothing the whole way down the expressway.

We reached Long Island City at ten.

The tape across the warehouse door had been cut, and there was a thin orange light moving behind the high windows.

By the time we came around the side, the light had stopped being thin.

Smoke was rolling out of the loading bay.

The extracts stored in those pallets were dry plant matter, and they burned fast.

I ran.

Lucian caught my arm at the door.

"Mara, wait for the fire trucks."

"I hear him."

I did.

Somewhere inside there was a man coughing, hoarse and high.

Lucian's grip tightened.

He looked at the smoke and then at me, and I understood what he was giving me.

"He doesn't deserve you going in," he said. "Say the word and we stand here until it's done. Nobody on earth would blame you."

"I'd know."

"Mara."

"I'm a doctor. I'm not leaving him for the fire."

He let go of my arm.

"Then I go first," he said. He pulled his jacket over his face and went into the bay.

The big guard followed, and I came behind them with my sleeve pressed over my mouth.

The inside of the warehouse was an orange tunnel.

Conway lay in the office doorway under a fallen steel shelf, with the can of gasoline beside him and his sleeve alight.

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