Dark Horse

"Who are 'they'?"

He looked away and heaved a sigh, agitated. Sweat greased his forehead. "I don't know. She only talked about Paris. And now she's scared Paris will try to take her down with her."

"So you'll burn the crime scene and everyone calls it even. Is that it?"

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "I know how it looks."

"It looks like you're in it up to your eyeballs, Junior," I said. "Up against the wall and spread 'em."

"Please don't do this," he said, blinking back tears. "I don't want any trouble with the cops. I'm supposed to go to Brown next fall."

"You should have thought of that before you agreed to commit arson."

"I was only helping Erin," he said again. "She's not a bad person. Really, she isn't. She just- It's just that- She always gets a raw deal. And she wanted to get back at my father."

"And you didn't?"

"I'll graduate soon. It won't matter what he thinks. Erin and I can be together then."

"Up against the wall," I said again.

"Can't you have a little sympathy?" he asked, crying now, taking a step toward the wall.

"I'm not the sympathetic sort."

I moved farther into the room as Chad moved toward the wall that divided the spaces. A slow dance of unwilling partners trading places. I kept the gun on him. My gaze darted to the side as I stepped past the open door.

Paris Montgomery was coming up the steps.

As I turned my head, Chad turned and charged me, his face twisted with rage.

My gun went off as he hit my forearms and deflected my aim. I stumbled backward, his weight coming against me, paint cans and stacks of old newspapers tripping me. My breath went out of me as we hit the floor, the back of my head banging so hard I saw stars.

The Glock was still in my right hand, my finger jammed through the trigger guard. The gun was out of position, my trigger finger bent at an u

I swung and hit him again, the barrel of the Glock tearing across his right eye. The eyeball exploded, fluid and blood raining out of the collapsing tissue. Chad screamed and threw himself off me, hands over his face.

I rolled away from him, trying to get my legs under me, slipping through paint thi

"You bitch! You fucking bitch!" Chad screamed behind me.

Grabbing the leg of the metal desk, I pulled myself up. I glanced back to see Chad, one hand pressed against his ruined eye, the other swinging a paint can. The can caught me on the left jaw and snapped my head sideways.

I fell across the desktop, grabbed the edge with one hand, and dragged myself over as Chad struck at me with the empty can again and again.

Hitting the floor on the other side, I fumbled to pull my gun free of my broken finger. Adrenaline blocked the pain. I would feel it later-if I was lucky.

I expected Chad to come over the desk, but instead as I looked up I saw the translucent flash of orange and blue across the room as the paint thi

Gripping the Glock, my left forefinger on the trigger, I pushed myself to my feet and fired as Chad went out the door and slammed it shut behind him.

The far side of the room was in flames, the fire licking hungrily up the cheap paneled wall to the ceiling, catching on the piles of paper on the floor. It burned toward me. It burned toward the second room. The trailer would be fully engulfed in a matter of minutes. And as far as I could see, there was no way out.

L andry could see the glow of the fire a mile away, though he hoped against hope-even as he stepped on the gas and went with lights and sirens-that the source of the blaze would be something else, somewhere else. But as he neared the address Elena had given him, he knew it wasn't. The county dispatcher was calling the code over the radio.

Landry pulled in the yard, jumped out of the car, and ran to the back of the property.

The walls and windows of a small house trailer were silhouetted against the backdrop of orange.

"Elena!" He screamed her name to be heard above the roar. "Elena!"

Jesus God, if she was inside…

"Elena!"

He ran toward the trailer, but the heat pushed him back.

If she was inside, she was dead.

Coughing, I ran for the second room, flames chasing me, flames already shooting up the wall around the doorway. I could smell the paint thi

Another exit door was located in the far back corner of the second room. The smoke was so thick, I could barely see it. Stumbling over chairs, I ran for it, hit it ru

The fire rolled into the room like a tide on the flimsy ceiling.

Jamming the gun in the back of my jeans, I grabbed the video camera off the tripod, tossed the camera on the bed and swung the tripod like a baseball bat at the window where Erin Seabright had written the word HELP in the dust. Once. Twice. The glass fractured but stayed in the frame.

I slammed the end of the tripod against the glass, trying to knock the glass out, afraid that when I did the flames would rush to the fresh oxygen. It would char my skin and melt my lungs, and if I didn't die instantly, I would wish that I had.

I saw the flames coming and thought of hell.

Just when I'd thought I might redeem myself…

One last time I rammed the tripod against the glass.

Elena!" Landry screamed.

Once more he tried to approach the trailer and was knocked flat as something inside the place exploded. Flame rolled out the broken windows in billowing clouds of orange. In the distance he could hear sirens coming. Too late.

Shaken, sick, he pushed himself to his feet and stood there, unable to do anything or think anything.

M y first thought was that it was Chad standing in the yard, watching his handiwork, thrilled with the idea that he had killed me. Then he started toward me and called my name, and I knew it was Landry.

Clutching the video camera against me, I tried to run toward him, my legs like rubber, weak from effort and relief.

"Elena!"

He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me along with him, dragging me away from the burning trailer toward Paris Montgomery's patio.

"Jesus Christ," he breathed, sitting me in a chair, going over me with his eyes, with his hands. His hands were trembling. "I thought you were in there."

"I was," I said, coughing. "Chad Seabright set the fire. He's in this with Paris and Erin. Did you get him? Did you get them?"

He shook his head. "No one in the house but her dog." The Jack Russell was at the patio doors bouncing up and down like a ball as it barked incessantly.

Sirens screamed at the front of the house. A deputy came ru

"Are you hurt?" he asked me as he came back and crouched down in front of me again. He touched my cheek where the paint can had struck me. I couldn't feel it, didn't know if any damage had been done. I guessed not as Landry moved on, inspecting me.

"I broke my finger," I said, holding up my right hand. He took the hand gently and looked at the finger. "I've had worse."

"You goddam knothead," he muttered. "Why didn't you wait for me?"