Chapter 3 - Flames on Euclid Avenue
The sirens wailed as Daniel’s SUV tore down the narrow, congested streets of East Los Angeles, tailing Detective Vance’s unmarked cruiser. The morning sky was beginning to streak with a sickly, bruised purple, but over the rooftops of Euclid Avenue, a thick, billowing column of black smoke rose into the air, blotting out the dawn.
Daniel slammed his hands against the steering wheel. Noah.
Maria’s seven-year-old son was in that house. If Andrew was alive, and Vanessa was running out of time, they wouldn't leave loose ends.
The SUV screeched to a halt behind a fire engine that was already blasting high-pressure water streams toward a modest, single-story stucco home. Orange flames licked hungrily out of the shattered front windows, chewing through the wooden porch pillars.
Detective Vance leaped out of his cruiser, pulling a yellow crime scene tape across the driveway. “Stay back, Mr. Whitmore! The roof is unstable!”
“There’s a seven-year-old boy inside!” Daniel shouted over the roar of the fire and the screams of the sirens.
Without waiting for permission, Daniel ducked under the yellow tape, sprinting past a pair of startled firefighters toward the side alleyway where the smoke was slightly less dense.
“Sir! You can’t go in there!” a firefighter yelled, lunging for him, but Daniel shoved past, ripping his expensive suit jacket off and wrapping it around his face to filter out the suffocating gray smoke.
The heat hit him like a physical blow the moment he kicked open the side screen door. The kitchen was a charred ruin, drywall crumbling, cabinets hanging off their hinges.
“Noah!” Daniel coughed, his eyes burning from the thick, acrid fumes. “Noah, can you hear me?!”
A faint, terrified whimper echoed from the hallway closet near the back bedrooms.
Daniel dropped to his hands and knees, crawling beneath the rolling black ceiling of smoke. He reached the hallway, shoved open the jammed louvered doors of the linen closet, and pulled out a small, trembling bundle.
It was a little boy with dark, messy curls and wide, terrified brown eyes, clutching a worn superhero action figure.
“I’ve got you,” Daniel choked out, pulling the boy against his chest, shielding him with his own body.
He spun around, retracing his crawl back toward the kitchen just as a loud structural crack echoed overhead. A massive wooden ceiling beam snapped, crashing down right across the hallway behind them, blocking the exit route in a shower of sparks and glowing embers.
Trapped. The front and back doors were cut off by a wall of fire.
Daniel looked up, spotting a small, high bathroom window leading out to the side yard. Gathering every ounce of strength he had left, he hoisted the boy up, smashed the remaining glass with his elbow, and shoved Noah out into the cool morning air just as Detective Vance’s hands reached inside to pull the boy to safety.
As Daniel dragged himself through the shattered window frame, cutting his forearms on the jagged glass, he looked across the yard and saw something that stopped his heart entirely.
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Parked down the street, half-hidden behind a dumpster, was a familiar dark gray sedan. And in the driver's seat, watching the burning house with cold, detached interest, was a man whose face Daniel hadn't seen in six years.
Andrew.
