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When four cans of gasoline were spread all over, Clarice opened the garage door in front of Delta, who gulped in air by the lungful. Clarice then looked at the golf cart. From where she sat, Delta was in line with it and could see the key was in place as Clarice stepped over Ellie, climbed onto the cart, turned the switch. The electric vehicle came to life, and Clarice put it in gear and ran over Ellie’s prone body.
The plug for the vehicle was yanked from the wall. Something sparked.
/> Whoosh! The wall behind Delta erupted in flames. She felt the heat on her back and yanked with all her might. One hand came free, and she frantically sought to untie herself.
She and Ellie were in a ring of fire. Outside, Clarice stopped the golf cart and looked back, her mouth an O of surprise.
Then she saw Delta was free.
She ran back inside as Delta was trying to grasp Ellie’s arm.
Clarice grabbed Delta’s hair. Delta elbowed her with all her might, but the older woman hung on, screaming.
“You bitch! All you bitches! Fucking bitches!”
Clarice slapped Delta hard with her free hand, making her ears ring. Infuriated, Delta head-butted Clarice, which finally got her to release her hair. Clarice jumped at her, and they tumbled to the ground. Heat and roaring flames and this rabid witch were all around! Delta hit her as hard as she could, and Clarice howled, finally released her arm, then staggered to her feet.
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed, but Delta too was getting a knee under herself, attempting to rise.
And then there was someone else there, grabbing Clarice from behind, pinning her arms back like Harry had pinned Delta’s, dragging her from the fire while she struggled like a madwoman. Quin. Gripped on hard. His face set and dangerous.
And McCrae. In front of Delta, helping her up, holding her.
“Ellie,” she cried.
“Get out!” He pushed her to the open doorway. Flames surrounded it, spitting and crackling, catching fire to the structure, racing along the garage doorjambs. Delta hesitated, then saw McCrae picking up Ellie.
She ran through the doorway as something from above crashed down hard behind her.
“McCrae!” she screamed, as he came through the smoke with Ellie in his arms.
Only later did she realize that a piece of jagged wood from the debris falling from the ceiling had speared his shoulder.
Clarice was sobbing, choking, and pleading with Quin to understand that she was an innocent victim in a grand scheme, even while she struggled for freedom. The chief was unmoved.
An ambulance screamed to a halt outside the conflagration of the garage. “Ellie,” Delta moaned as the attendants jumped out. They quickly brought out the gurney and loaded Ellie atop it. That’s when one of the EMTs noticed McCrae’s shoulder just as a police car swung into the drive, lights flashing. Officer Corolla had been called to pick up Clarice, whose screaming intensified, only switching from Quin to Corolla as she was muscled into the police vehicle and locked into the back seat.
“Take her to county. I’ll be right behind you,” Quin directed tautly. “And watch her.”
“You’d better come with us,” the EMT said to McCrae.
“McCrae . . . Chris . . . ,” Delta choked, horrified, seeing the thick spike in his shoulder.
“Can you drive me to the hospital?” he asked her calmly.
“Yes.”
It was the longest, and the shortest, ride to Laurelton General. Delta watched McCrae being pulled into Emergency as Ellie, white and unconscious, was taken to the fourth floor. She’d called her mother, who was desperate to come to the hospital, but Delta asked her to stay with Owen. “I’m fine,” she assured her, “but I’m about the only one.”
“You might want to wash up,” one of the aides, who’d been hovering around, finally had the courage to say.
Delta found a women’s restroom and looked at her smoke- and tear-streaked face. Her normally dark hair was gray with ash. Her clothes . . . forget about them. She looked like she’d been through a war.
She rinsed off her face and managed to smear soot into her hair, but at least it was off her skin. She returned to the emergency room and asked if she could see either McCrae or Ellie. They allowed her see McCrae, who was scheduled for an outpatient procedure to remove the jagged stick that had speared him, which was nevertheless going to require some major cleaning out and stitching. Ellie was going in for surgery to repair a broken tibia and fibula; both bones in her right leg had been snapped by the weight of the cart, but it was her head injury that was causing the most concern.
Though they said she could see McCrae, they asked her to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait. By the time she got into his room, he was bandaged from neck to waist along his right shoulder.
She didn’t stand on ceremony. Just ran right in and clasped his left hand. “You saved Ellie,” she said, her throat raw. “And me.”
