Bang!
Through the archway to the living room, he witnessed a shower of flame exploding as another window shattered. Sparks rained. Heat billowed.
No damned way would he let this happen!
Through the kitchen he propelled himself, expecting someone to leap out at him and knock him flat. His gloved fingers dug into the chunk of oak, his makeshift weapon.
No assailant sprang from the shadows.
No dark figure pointed a gun at him.
Without thinking twice, he yanked the fire extinguisher from the wall in the hallway.
Still no assailant.
Maybe he’d gotten lucky.
Trent dropped the chunk of wood to free his right hand. Deftly, he engaged the extinguisher, setting off a fume of CO2 throughout the hallway and living area.
As black smoke billowed and coiled around him, dancing crazily and searing his lungs, he headed farther into the shambles that had been his house. Fire was crawling along the living room floor, catching in the upholstery. Eagerly, the flames ate through a blanket that had been spread from the fireplace to the mattress he’d left in the middle of the floor. Clearly someone had worked to make it look as if the fire were a careless accident.
Heat swelled and shimmered as he sprayed the fire.
Another window popped, glass spraying.
The dining room table was a pyre. Already blackened pages were turned to ash, once legible files burning wildly. A broken kerosene lantern, the source of the blaze, lay in the middle, shards of glass glinting bloodred.
It was all destroyed. All of Lynch’s damning notes. All the proof Jules had risked her life procuring. All up in smoke!
“Goddamned son of a bitch!” Trent muttered as he kept extinguishing the flames, fighting the ever-encroaching fire. He trained the nozzle on the table, a hissing spray of CO2 clouding the air.
He coughed and tasted smoke. His eyes watered. Still he sprayed, forcing the flames down, killing the fire, trying to salvage something, anything from Lynch’s damning notes.
Something moved in his burning, peripheral vision.
He blinked, disbelieving, but there it was again, just out of focus, caught by the corner of his eye. Spinning, he pointed the nozzle warily. What had he seen? Was someone inside? Had Flannagan arrived?
“Hey!” he called out.
Crunch. Glass splintered as if someone had stepped on it.
Oh, crap!
Bam!
Pain exploded in the back of his skull.
His knees buckled.
Trent fell to the floor, his head slamming against the floorboards. The fire extinguisher clanged as it banged against the floor beside him and rolled away. Flames and smoke rose before his eyes and a deep, searing blackness threatened to pull him under.
Stay awake! Don’t pass out! For God’s sake, Trent, hang the hell on!
His eyes swam. He blinked as the fire swept closer, shimmering, slithering waves of flame.
He tried to get up, to roll over and get his knees beneath him, to gut it out and stand, but his body wouldn’t move an inch.
Still fire crept closer. Teasing. Toying. While he lay motionless.