Leslie LaFoy (15 page)

“I have to have my mama's Bible and the family christening gown,” Lucy cried, stumbling toward her and thrusting the baby into Lindsay's arms. “Take the baby while I get them.”

Lindsay watched, her heart racing, as Lucy snatched the black leather-bound book from its place on the cabinet shelf. Lucy had so little and to lose it all … As the young woman dashed to the low chest of drawers, Lindsay moved quickly into the kitchen area of the apartment. With the baby held securely in the crook of one arm, she pulled linens from the drawers and flung them toward the bed. The tinware followed.

Above her head came the heavy thudding of running footsteps and Lindsay looked toward the open door of the apartment, suddenly aware of the cacophony of sound around her. People were moving up and down the staircase and past the Rutherfords' door. Judging by the shouting, some weren't moving as swiftly as others would have preferred. Through the front windows, Lindsay could see a noisy crowd gathering to gawk from the opposite side of the street. Traffic was snarled in the street itself and drivers were shouting at one another and making rude hand gestures. Horses whinnied and shied in their traces. On the walkway in front of the building, people were racing around like agitated ants. Mothers searched for children, husbands for wives, and everyone sought to protect the haphazard piles of belongings they'd managed to haul out with them.

Over all the sounds of chaos was the billowing crack of flames. Surely someone had already thought to summon the fire brigade.

Lindsay took the baby back to Lucy and handed the infant into her mother's care while shouting, “Out! My carriage is half a block down. I'll bring the bundle.”

Lucy went as instructed, pulling first the blanket over the baby's face and then her shawl over her own nose and mouth as she stepped across the threshold and into the smoky chaos of the vestibule. Lindsay dumped the contents of the dresser
onto the coverlet, yanked the corners of the bedding into the center, slung the whole lumpy thing over her shoulder, and lugged it toward the door.

The vestibule was crowded as men pushed their way through it, raced up and down the stairs, jockeying and jostling past each other with vicious oaths and desperate anger. Lindsay reeled as a shoulder connected against her own. Her balance already made precarious by the weight of the Rutherfords' belongings, she staggered back into the wall and caught a heel in the hem of her dress. She was bumped again and righted just before she fell.

“Jack!” she called, leaning against the plaster wall for support and searching the sea of faces rushing past her. “Jack!”

No one answered. He had to be upstairs still. He wouldn't have gone out without first looking for her in the Rutherfords' apartment. He wouldn't leave without checking on her. She knew that to the center of her soul.

Her heart racing, her lungs and eyes burning from the acrid smoke, Lindsay lurched forward into the tide of bodies. Arms and shoulders impacted her upper body as she pressed forward. Her hat was knocked askew and long stands of hair slipped from their pins. With a whimper of relief, she reached the current of humanity sweeping out the front door and let it carry her along.

She caught her heel in her hem again as she was all but pushed down the front steps. Unable to catch her balance, she slung the bundle ahead of her as she pitched forward. It largely cushioned her fall, preventing her upper body from fully impacting against the wooden walkway. Her lower body, however, took the full brunt. Her knees struck hard and she heard the cloth of her skirt tear. The wind knocked out of her, Lindsay struggled to get a breath, vaguely realizing that her hat had slid farther sideways on her head and more hair was tumbling out from underneath. She saw a hairpin bounce on the walk ahead of her, but in the din, it made no sound. Someone kicked her ankle as they rushed past and the sharpness of the pain drove her to her feet.

With a deep breath, she hefted up Jeb's and Lucy's belongings again and turned down the sidewalk, choking
back a cry of relief when she picked out her carriage and driver among those parked a short distance away. Lucy stood beside John on the walk, clutching her baby and frantically searching the melee. John darted forward the instant he caught sight of Lindsay, taking the bundle from her as though it weighed nothing.

“In the carriage, John. If you'd be so kind,” she gasped as she made her way through the crowd to Lucy's side.

“Jeb,” Lucy half-cried, half-whispered, her gaze riveted on a spot beyond Lindsay's shoulder.

Lindsay turned, looking back for the first time. The smoke was a dense, roiling, wide column of black rising from the back of the building to twice the structure's height. Red-orange tongues of flame roared upward, leaping and snapping at the smoke, casting an eerie light over the black the world had become. Still, men moved in and out the front door. In the distance Lindsay heard the insistent clang of the fire bells. A cheer went up from the onlookers. Lindsay closed her eyes and sighed, knowing the effort would be far too little, far too late.

“It'll be all right, Lucy,” she said, rallying herself. “You'll come to my house and stay there until you and Jeb can find another place to live.”

“Jeb,” Lucy half-sobbed.

“He's helping others get out. He'll be along shortly. So will Jack,” she assured the younger woman as they both scanned the crowd, searching.

It was several long moments before Lucy let out an excited yelp and then exclaimed, “There's my Jeb! And he's got Mrs. Kowalski and her cat.” She strained up on the tips of her toes, waving her free arm over her head.

Jeb saw them, but didn't have a free arm to wave back. With one hand, he toted a bundle over his shoulder just like the one Lindsay had brought out with her. His other hand was grasping the elbow of a tottering, heavyset, older woman who was struggling mightily to keep her hold on a yellow-striped cat who seemed equally determined to escape her clutches.

Lindsay signaled the driver to open the carriage door, saying, “Get in, Lucy. You're on your way out of here.”

Lucy started to obey, then stopped, her eyes brimming with tears. “Mrs. Kowalski doesn't have any family. She's old and hard of hearing and I don't think she has anywhere to go.”

“She'll come with us, then,” Lindsay promised, removing her hat and blindly tossing it into the shadowed interior. “Get in the carriage and I'll have Jeb bring her over.” She didn't wait to see if Lucy finally did as instructed, but gathered her skirts firmly in hand, lifted them well above her ankles, and plowed her way forward through the crowd.

God, it was noisy. And why weren't these people moving away from the fire instead of running around back and forth in front of it? It was only a matter of time—Lindsay looked up at the building. The smoke was blacker and higher. The flames wider and brighter and louder. A
short
time before the building was fully engulfed. This wasn't the first structure fire she'd seen and she knew how it would progress. Once the floor joists burned through, it would collapse. If it came down on the sidewalk … Her heart rose, hammering hard against her breast, and she quickened her pace, jostling and pushing with a fervor every bit as forceful as those around her.

“Jeb!” she called above the noise as she reached her junior bookkeeper. “Lucy and the baby are in the carriage.” She pointed in the direction from which she'd come. “Take Mrs. Kowalski and the cat and join them. Have the driver take you all to my house. Tell Mrs. Beechum what's happened and that you all are staying with us until we can make other arrangements. Where's Mr. Stennett?”

“He's right behind me!” Jeb shouted back, taking the cat from Mrs. Kowalski and unceremoniously stuffing it into the bundle. “Sean O'Malley's got a busted leg and has to be helped out.”

“We'll wait here for the carriage to come back for us. Get out of here before it all comes down!”

“I'll be back as soon as I can!” Jeb called as he pushed his way down the walk with Mrs. Kowalski lumbering in tow.

“Jack, where are you?” Lindsay asked softly, still holding her skirts above her ankles and watching the smoke
thicken and darken as it rolled out the front door and down the steps. “It shouldn't be taking this long.”

S
WEET
J
ESUS AND ALL THE SAINTS
, Jackson silently swore. The son of a bitch with a broken leg would have to live on the third frickin' floor and weigh at least three hundred pounds. Slinging him over his shoulder and carrying him down the stairs had been out of the question. They were mincing their way downward, the smoke thickening around them by the second, the sound of the flames getting ever louder and punctuated by the long, groaning wails of the joists and beams.

His eyes were burning; the tears running down his face doing nothing to lessen the painful stinging. Holding his forearm over his nose and mouth wasn't doing much good either. His lungs hurt and he couldn't get enough good air to keep his head from spinning.

Lindsay. Had she gotten out and then stayed out as he'd told her to? He wasn't going to have the time to go looking for her if she hadn't. Surely she had a healthy sense of self-preservation. Hopefully. Good sense he wasn't so sure about.

The man beside him missed a step and lurched sideways, slamming Jackson's body into the plaster wall and bringing his thoughts back to the immediate situation. Good God Almighty. If he didn't get the man moving any faster, they were both going to die on a second-floor landing in a New York City apartment house. He could think of a lot better ways and places he'd rather go. Maybe he should just pitch the Irishman down the last flight and tell him that a second broken leg was better than dying—because it sure as hell was.

Jackson glanced over his shoulder and up the stairs. The smoke was too dense to see very far, the sounds of the flames and popping wood too loud to hear anything beyond them. What he needed—and needed desperately—was a second pair of hands to balance and haul the burden. He recalled the backs of the men who had pushed past him as he and the Irishman had started down the stairs. No one had
paused to so much as offer to help. Jackson gritted his teeth and looked at the expanse of steps leading downward. How far they had to go, he couldn't tell. The bottom and the vestibule lay somewhere in the blanket of darkening black. It could be two steps. Or it could just as well be a hundred for all he could see. What he
could
see was the faint light coming in the front door and it drew him down like a beacon.

Please let Lindsay be outside. Please let Jeb come back in and help him get this man out.

The smoke before him rolled backward and as a human shape took form and emerged from it, Jackson's heart slammed hard and wildly hopeful against the wall of his chest. It wasn't Jeb, he realized as the man reached the other side of the Irishman. Jackson didn't care.

The man didn't stop, though; he kept on going. Jackson turned, “No!” he shouted. “There's no time! I need—”

The blur made him blink and flinch. The pain in his head washed the world in a wave of white and then red. Jackson heard the Irishman scream, felt him tear away from his grip, and then he heard and felt nothing at all.

L
INDSAY STARTED EACH TIME
as three men ran in quick succession from the building. None of them were Jackson Stennett. She paced, breathing hard and never taking her eyes from the doorway. Something was wrong. She
knew
it. Jeb had said Jack and O'Malley were right behind him.

She saw a glimmer of paleness near the threshold to the vestibule in the same instant that a man standing nearby shouted for help and dashed forward. Two others ran with him and together they dragged a large, sooty man down the front steps. Lindsay swallowed a cry when she saw that his left leg was wrapped in grimy plaster.

“Are you Mr. O'Malley?” she asked the man as he was dragged past. “Where's Jack Stennett? The man who was helping you.”

He gestured with his head, indicating the front door of the building and the cloud of smoke. He coughed violently and through it managed to gasp, “Stairs.”

Lindsay's heart lurched as she stared at the entrance to hell.

H
E COULDN'T BREATHE.
He was choking to death and the heat was inching closer by the second. He could see the glow of it over his head, rolling down the underneath side of the stairs above him. The rush of fire was so damn loud. And his head … Jesus. His head had to be in two pieces. He couldn't think, couldn't move past the pain.

“Jack, where are you? Answer me!”

A soft voice, desperate. Lindsay. Oh, God. Lindsay. She was in here somewhere. He tried to move and couldn't and he wanted to cry. A sensation penetrated his pain; a touch, a grasp by something small and weak. It moved by inches up his legs, his torso, his chest. It touched his neck and then came to rest on either side of his face.

“Jack! Wake up! Talk to me, Jack!”

“Lindsay,” he whispered, forcing his eyes open. Through the shimmering of his tears he saw a curtain of light amidst a cloud of black. Not Lindsay. An angel. He coughed and struggled to draw another breath into his lungs.

“You've got to get up, Jack!”

“Where's the man—”

“He's crawled out on his own.” The sweet angel suddenly grabbed the lapels of his coat and yanked him upward as it shouted in his face, “On your feet, Jack! Get your feet under you or so help me God I'll roll you all the way down the stairs and drag you into the street by your pant legs!”

It
was
Lindsay. “I told you to stay out,” he said as he felt his head being hefted off the stairs.

“And I told you I don't listen well.”

If she dropped him, his head would come off his shoulders; he was sure of it. Jack desperately struggled to get his legs under himself. He felt her shift her hold on his coat, felt her body come fully against his side. “Lindsay, get—”

“Put your arm over my shoulders,” she commanded, roughly taking it and accomplishing the task for him.

He clung to her because he had no other choice, because he believed in her strength. They careened down the stairs, at the edge of out of control, only a half-breath away from falling. The pain in his head blinded him, made him sick to his stomach. They stopped when they careened into a wall.