Into the Whirlwind (7 page)

Something about this eager little bird had always appealed to Mollie. She drew closer and admired the peacock-blue plumage of the finch.

“That’s Lizzie,” Mrs. Kazmarek said. “Zachariasz fusses
over that bird like it is a princess. He can’t stand the thought of her alone in that dark office all weekend, so he brings her home every Friday.”

Mollie poked a finger through the iron bars and let the bird peck at the fleshy tip. It was hard for her to imagine that intimidating man fussing over anyone, let alone a little bird. From down the hall Mollie heard the front door open, then a heavy tread and the rich timbre of Zack Kazmarek’s voice from the front of the house.

“There is a fire on the south side of the city,” she heard him say. “You can smell the smoke on the wind. It looks like a bad one.”

Mollie stepped into the hallway to see him kiss his mother on both cheeks. The affection he had for the older woman was evident as he gave her a reassuring hug. “Don’t worry, Mama,” he soothed. “I went up to the top of the bell tower on St. Mark’s to get a good look. It’s on the other side of the river and won’t get anywhere near us.” When he released his mother and saw Mollie, there was a stiffening of the muscles in his face. His humor vanished, replaced by the formality she was accustomed to.

“Miss Knox,” he said cautiously. “What brings you to this part of town so late on a Sunday evening?”

It was awkward to have a blunt conversation in front of the man’s beaming parents, but there was no help for it. “I came to discuss business.”

He disengaged his arm from Mrs. Kazmarek’s shoulders. “Mother, will you get us something to drink? I’m parched.”

As Mr. and Mrs. Kazmarek went to the kitchen, he shrugged out of his overcoat. “Please don’t take this amiss,” he said with his back to her as he hung the coat, “but in the future, I would prefer that you didn’t call at my home. It looks bad.”

“Such a concern for propriety,” she said. “The irony.”

He turned at her sarcastic tone. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

Mollie stepped a little closer and lowered her voice so his mother would not overhear. “I found out
exactly
why you people are so adamant I sell out by Monday morning. It won’t work. At nine o’clock tomorrow morning I will be at the courthouse so I can prove you tried to lie and swindle us out of a fortune.”

He stiffened. His polite demeanor evaporated and his eyes narrowed. “I don’t take words like that lightly.”

“I don’t use them lightly,” she said in a harsh whisper. “We found the deed.”

“What deed?” he snapped.

“The deed to half an acre on Columbus Street. At nine o’clock tomorrow morning, I will be at the courthouse with my attorney to verify my ownership of half an acre sitting beneath Hartman’s store. And if you dare cancel the contract on our quarterly shipment of watches, I’ll assert ownership to a portion of the building as well.”

“Don’t threaten me.” If his tone were any colder there would be ice crystals in the air.

She raised her chin a notch. “You’ve been threatening
me
all week.”

Mr. Kazmarek glanced down the hallway at his parents, but they were still preoccupied in the kitchen and paying them no mind. That didn’t stop Mr. Kazmarek from clenching his jaw and leaning down to speak to her in a menacing whisper. “Miss Knox, here is a piece of free legal advice. Don’t ever show up at my house and call me a liar in front of my parents.”

“I don’t know a prettier word for it,” Mollie said. “Why else would you leave us so little time to make a decision? And right before you were to pay us for the quarterly shipment.”

Mr. Kazmarek turned away from her as though he couldn’t
bear to meet her eyes. With an angry jerk he shrugged out of his suit jacket so quickly a gold cuff link went flying. He tossed his jacket onto the table and scooped up the cuff link. He glared at her as he refastened it.

“Miss Knox, you are a beautiful woman, and I have always admired your commitment to your business, but you know nothing of judgment or of human behavior. If you did, you would never have come into my home and used words like
swindle
and
liar
.”

His tone was scathing, and the heat simmering in his eyes made her pause. She drew her breath to suggest they step outside where they could speak openly when a boom shattered the night.

Mollie flinched and covered her ears. The windowpanes rattled and a vase slipped off a table, smashing on the floor. Mrs. Kazmarek’s screech came from the kitchen. “What happened?” she hollered.

Zack raced to a window, and even from a distance Mollie could see an orange fireball in the sky, pillars of flames shooting straight upward. His face went white. “The gasworks have exploded.”

“No!” Mollie’s eyes widened with horror. The gasworks were at least five miles away, but such an explosion would be a catastrophe. Chicago was accustomed to dealing with fires. All through the hot, dry autumn it seemed as if there had been an outbreak almost daily, but nothing ever lit up the sky like this. The gas would fuel a roaring blaze for hours.

Mrs. Kazmarek moaned and twisted her hands. “What about our work? All our work?” she said weakly.

“Come, let’s go up on the roof so we can see better,” her son said in a grim tone. Mollie followed the family as they climbed up two flights of stairs. The stench of acrid smoke filled her nose the moment she stepped onto the roof. On the other side
of the river, an angry orange blaze illuminated the night sky, chunks of burning debris flying on the wind.

Mrs. Kazmarek clasped her hands and moaned, but her son tried to console her. “It is on the other side of the river, Mama. We will be safe here.
Your work
will be safe.”

From here, it was easy to see how the Chicago River divided the city into three distinct sections. A huge swath of the south side was ablaze, but the river would keep the north and west sides safe. Her apartment was north of the river, but with the way the wind was blowing and the size of that blaze, everything south of the river was at risk.

Her gaze followed the rapidly blowing smoke, watching in horror as it tracked straight toward her factory. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she said as she whirled around and scurried down the stairs. Heavy footsteps pounded behind her.

“Tell me you aren’t headed where I think you are,” Zack said.

“I’ve got inventory at the factory. And equipment. I’ve still got plenty of time to get it out.”

They reached the ground floor, but he blocked her exit. Firm hands clamped around her shoulders and gave her a brisk shake. “Don’t be an idiot,” he growled. “You don’t have a prayer of getting all that equipment out of the building. Stay here where it is safe.”

“Mr. Kazmarek,” she said through clenched teeth, “I’ve got fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of watches sitting in that building. The train depot is only three blocks from my factory door. I expect that every factory on East Street is now loading their inventory into boxcars and sending it out of the city. I intend to do the same. Get out of my way.”

The older Kazmareks came barreling down the staircase and raced to fling open the doors leading to the parlor. They threw
traveling cases on the floor and began plowing through the stacks of papers, throwing some stacks to the side and stuffing others into the traveling bags. Zack did not release her shoulders, but threw a frustrated glance at his parents.

“Mama, I told you. Our house is safe.”

The charming, tiny Mrs. Kazmarek reared up with fury in her eyes. She held a fistful of papers aloft. “This is my life’s work!” she roared. “Our people depend on these papers. Our hope. Our dreams!”

The elder Mr. Kazmarek stepped away from a tower of papers. The whites of his eyes were wide with panic, but he latched on to Mollie’s arm. “A train?” he asked her. “You know of a train leaving the city?”

Mollie nodded. “I expect every factory south of the river is stuffing them now as we speak. I need to get south so I can get my inventory aboard.”

Mrs. Kazmarek stumbled forward. “Can you take our bags? Zack! You must take our bags and get them on that train. You must!”

Zack’s mouth thinned to a hard line. He glared at the half-stuffed traveling bags, then down at Mollie. “Miss Knox, I would be happy to go with you to the factory and help load your equipment, provided you can get my parents’ bags on that train.”

It would be a blessing to have a strong man to help her get space on that train. Mollie tried to hold down her panic as she took in the chaos of the parlor. “Hurry. I can try to get your bags out, but you have to hurry.”

A quiet rage simmered through Zack as he marched alongside Mollie. At least there was no need to speak to her. The clang of church and school bells pealed nonstop in an effort to rouse the
city. It was nearing midnight and some of the people straggling onto the street were still wearing nightclothes.

They made good time until they crossed the river, where people fleeing the fire clogged the streets. He and Mollie were like fish battling upstream, as they seemed to be the only two people heading toward the fire. Everyone else was fleeing to the safe side of the river, carrying packs over their shoulders, hauling trunks, navigating around wagons and carts piled high with furniture, bags, even mattresses. With a huge satchel hoisted over his shoulder and a smaller one tucked beneath his arm, Zack plowed forward, Mollie trailing in his wake.

He didn’t even want to look at her. All he wanted to do was get to her factory, load those watches onto a train, and then see the last of her. The deal to buy the company was over. After this evening, she probably would no longer have a factory to continue making those ridiculous overpriced watches.

“Could you move a little faster?” she said from behind him.

It was the third time she had ordered him to speed up. He was plowing forward through a sea of humanity, making good progress clearing a path for her, and she had the nerve to complain. A glance at the skyline showed that the fire was less than a mile from her factory.

Zack took a shove against his ribs as a man carrying a cage full of chickens toppled against him. He glared back at Mollie. “Would you like to take the lead?” He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one.

It was a good thing he couldn’t see her. If she had been a man, he would have tossed her out of his house the moment she had called him a liar. As it was, he had stood there in stunned disbelief as a woman he’d idolized for the better part of three years flung vile accusations at him.

“Mr. Kazmarek, could you please move a little faster? I’ve got
fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of watches in that warehouse. I’ve already accepted that I’m going to lose my equipment, but if we hurry I can save the watches.”

He stopped in his tracks. He dropped the satchel under his arm and then bent to let the huge bag on his shoulder roll to the ground with a heavy thump. He dragged in a lungful of air. “I’m carrying two hundred pounds. Do you want to help by taking one of them?”

Before he even finished his sentence, she grabbed the smaller bag and lugged it forward. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she made good progress as she pushed her way through the crowd. “What is in this thing?” she gasped.

“Papers.”

She struggled to haul the bag but did not slow her pace. “I know it is papers, I saw your parents stuff them inside. What on earth are they? The key to finding the Holy Grail?”

They were to his parents. “Never mind what they are. Just keep moving.” He didn’t expect Mollie’s no-nonsense brain to be able to appreciate his glorious, foolhardy parents. Zack had been bailing them out of one disaster after another for years, but the one thing they had done right in their life was in these two bags. And littering the floor of his parlor. Filling his attic. Stuffed beneath beds and in closets. This was not the first time they had been terrified by the threat of a fire, and each time they had packed up their most valuable pages and begged Zack to get them to safety.

He would do so, even if that meant he had to spend an hour in the company of Mollie Knox. His mother really owed him for this one.

A gust of wind sent a wave of heat toward him. The fire was moving fast, and a glance at Mollie’s face showed him the terror reflected in her blue eyes. She heaved the bag forward and
quickened her pace. No complaints, no whining. She was scared out of her wits but kept moving forward. Against his better judgment, a twinge of pity took root.

“Give me the blasted bag,” he growled. He tucked it under his arm and strode forward.

“Are you sure?” She was breathless as she struggled to keep up with him. “You’ve been carrying it forever and must be exhausted.”

“Miss Knox, I worked for seven years as a longshoreman hauling two-hundred-pound crates off the wharves of Chicago. A few satchels of paper aren’t a problem.”

“You did?” She sounded as shocked as if he’d suggested he had built the Pyramids. “I never thought of you as anything but a lawyer.”

He tightened his mouth. He’d been thinking of her as a woman whose hair he wanted to run his hands through. A woman holding a watch in a summer garden. “I’ve never thought of you as someone who could tear herself away from her accounting ledgers.” Not really true. He thought of her sitting beside him on a blanket beneath the stars. Or at a baseball game. Holding a baby. He’d long ago accepted that he was a hopeless sap over this woman, but he would get over it.