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The oht were reflections of fire elsewhere in the rooh to helponly contributed toas I couldn’t see the blaze, I could pretend that it was in a distant corner of the house Now I no longer had the refuge of pretense Yet there was no advantage to gli the reflected fire, because I wasn’t able to tell if the fla toward or away frouidance

Either I was suffering worse effects of s a distorted perception of ti with unusual swiftness The arsonists had probably used an accelerant, et back into the foyer and then to the front door, I sucked desperately at the increasingly acrid air near the floor and squiroff furniture, until I cracked ainst the raised brick hearth of the fireplace I was farther than ever fro into the fireplace and up the chih

I was dizzy A headache split onal froht My eyes stung from the smoke and the salty sweat that poured into theent fumes that flavored even the clearer air near the floor, and I was beginning to think Ihard to remember where the fireplace was situated in relationship to the foyer arch, I squirled off into the rooain

It seemed absurd to me that I couldn’t find my way out of this place This wasn’t a mansion, for God’s sake, not a castle, e, and 25 baths, and not even the cleverest Realtor in the country could have described it in such a way as to give the i-around space to satisfy the Prince of Wales and his retinue

On the evening news, fro in house fires, and you can never quite understand why they couldn’t make it to a door or hen one or the other was surely within a dozen steps Unless they were, of course, drunk Or wasted on drugs Or foolish enough to rush back into the flarateful of ht rescued, in a sense, by a cat But now I understood how people died in these circu darkness were er you breathed the tainted air, the less nihts rambled and even panic couldn’t focus them

When I had first cliela, I had been amazed at how calm and collected I was in spite of the threat of i as a cupful ofenthusiaser

What a difference ten minutes can make Now that it was brutally apparent toto acquit myself in these situations with even half the aploer failed to stirbrushed againstalive In the three-hundred-ring circus of ela Ferry across the floor toa cold-lipped, bloody kiss onso severe that even this hideous ie was not sufficient to shock me into a clearer state of mind, and I reflexively squeezed off a shot

Thank God, I fired entirely in the wrong direction, because even as the crack of the shot echoed through the living rooue in , my faithful companion, less croak

He licked ’s breath, but I couldn’t really blame him for that

I blinked furiously to clear hter than ever Still, I got no better than a smeary impression of his furry face pressed to the floor in front of et into the house and find ht fire with a stink of burning denith to rise shakily to ain, but as before I choked it down

Squeezingnot to think about the wave of intense heat that abruptly broke over ripped Orson’s thick leather collar, which was easy to find because he was pressed against s

Orson kept his snout close to the floor, where he could breathe, but I had to holdled h the house He walked e, and I have no suspicion whatever that he was aedy and terror When I smacked my face into a door fra that short journey, I thanked God repeatedly for testing ht I et some air, I felt a cold draft on my face, and when I opened my eyes, I could see We were in the kitchen, into which the fire had not yet reached There was no s in the open back door drove it all into the dining room

On the table were the votive candles in ruby-red holders, the cordial glasses, and the open bottle of apricot brandy Blinking at this cozy tableau, I could half believe that the events of the past several ela, still lost in her dead husband’s cardigan, would sit here with e story

My mouth was so dry and foul that I almost took the bottle of brandy with me Bobby Halloould have beer, however, and that would be better

The dead bolt on the kitchen door was disengaged now As clever as Orson ht be, I doubted that he could have opened a locked door to reach , he didn’t have a key Evidently the killers had fled by this route

Outside, wheezing to expel a few final traces of ss, I shoved the Glock in my jacket pocket I nervously surveyed the backyard for assailants as I blottedbelow the silvered surface of a pond, cloud shadoa elseit across the patio toward the arbor-covered passageway, I looked up at the house in astonishulfed in flames Instead, from the exterior, there were as yet onlyfro up the draperies at two upstairs hite petals of s from attic vent holes in the eaves

Except for the bluster and gruht was preternaturally silent Moonlight Bay is no city, but it usually has a distinct night voice nonetheless: a few cars on theguitar on a back porch, a barking dog, the whisking sound of the big brushes on the street-cleaning h-school kids gathered outside the Millennium Arcade down on Embarcadero Way, now and then a er train or a chain of freight cars approaches the Ocean Avenue crossing… Not at this ht as well have been in the deadest neighborhood of a ghost town deep in the Mojave Desert

Apparently, the crack of the single gunshot that I had fired in the living rooh out here to draw anyone’s attention

Under the lattice arch, through the sweet fragrance of jas softly,not softly at all, I hurried after Orson to the front gate He leaped up and pawed open the latch, a trick of his that I’d seen before Together we followed the ay to the street,

We were in luck: no witnesses No traffic was either approaching or receding along the street No one was on foot, either

If a neighbor sawfroht decide to use that as an excuse to co for me To shoot me dohen I resisted arrest Whether I resisted or not

I swung ontoone foot on the pavement, and looked back at the house The wind treh the branches, I could see fire lapping at several of the downstairs and upstairs s