Chapter 13: Master Key

Sadie had the truck in gear before the scream stopped.

"Hold on," she said.

I held the dashboard with both bandaged hands.

We came up the hill with the tires skidding on the wet leaves.

I knew the gate code by heart, and the gate was already open.

The front door of the house stood wide.

Joanna's gray coupe was gone from the drive, and the garage door was up on empty space.

"Joanna!" I shouted from the hall.

"Upstairs!" a woman screamed. "Flynn, he locked me in!"

I took the stairs three at a time.

Sadie ran behind me.

The door to Milo's room was shut, and a thin yellow smoke was curling out along the floor.

The key was gone from the lock.

Joanna was on the other side, pounding on the wood.

"I can't breathe," she said, and her voice went to a rasp. "Flynn, the window won't break."

"I know it won't," I said.

I knew it better than anyone alive.

I threw my shoulder at the door, and it did nothing.

Sadie pulled me back by the collar.

"That door is solid oak," she said. "You'll break your own bones."

"There's another key," I said. "There has to be."

Running feet pounded up the back stairs.

It was the housekeeper, with a ring of keys in her fist and her coat on over her apron.

She lived in the rooms over the garage, and she had heard the screaming across the yard.

"Master set," she gasped. "Move."

She tried three keys with shaking fingers.

The fourth turned.

A wall of sour smoke rolled out into the hall.

I remembered every second of that air.

I pulled my shirt up over my face, took a breath of the clean hallway, and went in.

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