Chapter 10: The Fire Door
I hit the lab’s front door hard enough to rattle its glass.
Julian caught my arm before I could try again.
“Where does the fire door lead?”
I yanked free. “The rear hall. It exits to the alley.”
He looked past me at the smoke crawling along the ceiling inside, then toward the side street. A siren wailed closer.
“Then we go to the alley,” he said. “Not through that.”
“I know my own building.”
“And I know you’re about to run into a burning one.”
The words landed like a hand against my chest. For one second, I hated him for being right.
A fire engine swung around the corner, lights flashing red against the damp pavement. Firefighters jumped down, pulling on gloves. I ran toward them.
“Someone’s inside. Archive room, east side. Her name is Tessa Park.”
One firefighter motioned me back. “You stay here.”
“I know the layout. The rear door opens onto the alley. She may be behind the archive-room door.”
The firefighter studied my face, then Julian’s. Smoke thickened above the roofline, and a harsh alarm continued to shriek inside.
“You can show us the entrance,” he said. “You do not go in alone. You follow my instructions exactly.”
I nodded.
Julian was already at my shoulder.
“You’re staying outside,” I told him.
“I’m not leaving you to find her alone.”
“You don’t get to turn this into something about you.”
“I know.”
His voice held no argument, no wounded pride. Just the grim focus of a man who understood that this moment wasn’t his to own.
The firefighter led us around the building, another crew moving toward the front. In the alley, the rear exit had swung open. Smoke spilled into the cold air, stinging my eyes. A firefighter disappeared inside with a mask and a light.
“Wait here,” the lead firefighter ordered.
I waited three seconds.
Then a cough came from within—not a shout, not a word, but a sound so raw my body moved before my judgment could stop it.
The firefighter turned sharply. “You said you knew the layout. You stay behind me. If I tell you out, you go out. Understood?”
“Yes.”
Julian followed, and the firefighter glanced at him.
“Both of you stay behind me.”
The narrow hall was hazy with smoke. The emergency lights painted the walls in pulsing red. I kept one hand on the rail and the other over my mouth, trying to make my breaths small. The lab smelled of hot dust and something bitter I couldn’t name.
“Tessa!” I called.
A cough answered from farther down the hall.
We reached the archive-room door. Smoke feathered through the gap beneath it. The knob turned only halfway before something caught.
“Tessa!” I shouted again.
“I’m here!” Her voice was thin and ragged. “The door’s jammed!”
The firefighter braced a shoulder against the frame. Julian grabbed the handle beside him.
“On three,” the firefighter said.
The first shove shook the door but didn’t move it.
On the second, pain flashed through my shoulder as I pushed alongside them. The frame groaned. A strip of wood split near the latch.
“Again!”
They drove into it together. The door lurched inward, then stuck against something on the other side.
Julian planted his feet.
“Push!”
The firefighter shouted for him to move back, but Julian was already leaning his weight into the frame. With a cracking snap, the door gave way.
Tessa stumbled out, coughing. Her hair was damp against her cheeks; one sleeve had torn at the elbow. I caught her around the shoulders as she folded toward me.
“Don’t talk,” I said. “Just breathe.”
“I’m fine,” she rasped.
“You’re not fine. You’re breathing.”
The firefighter took her from me and guided her toward the exit. She caught my wrist as she passed.
“The drive,” she managed. “I put the backup in the sealed case.”
I looked back toward the lab.
“No,” Julian said.
The firefighter kept Tessa moving. “Everyone out. Now.”
The backup held the files we’d copied—the report, the readings, the records that might stand between Grant’s polished story and the truth. I knew exactly where it was: in the cabinet beside the workbench, sealed in a small fire-resistant case.
“I can get it,” I said.
“You can’t know what’s safe in there,” the firefighter answered.
“I know the room. The case is by the bench. I’ll be seconds.”
“That’s not a promise you can make.”
Julian’s face had gone gray under the red emergency lights. He didn’t grab me this time. He looked at the firefighter.
“She knows the room,” he said. “I can go with her.”
“No,” I told him. “You’re not taking this over.”
“I’m not. You’re going in, and I’m going with the firefighter.”
The lead firefighter made the decision for us. He pointed to Julian. “You stay here with me. She stays behind me. If I say leave it, you leave it.”
The archive-room threshold was still clouded, and the firefighter kept his light trained on the floor. I moved only where he directed, one careful step at a time. The workbench emerged through the haze. Beside it, the sealed case sat on the lower shelf, dark with soot but intact.
I lifted it with both hands.
Something inside shifted with a faint, hard clack.
“Got it,” I said.
“Out.”
We turned back.
At the door, the firefighter looked over his shoulder, checking that Julian was still behind him. Julian’s left hand was pressed against the wall. His right held the pocket where the girls’ drawing rested beneath his jacket, as if even here he remembered the fragile question Sophie had left him.
We reached the alley and cold air struck my face. I coughed until my ribs hurt. Tessa sat on the curb under a blanket, an oxygen mask held to her face. A paramedic checked her while another directed me toward a second blanket.
I crouched in front of her.
“You scared the life out of me.”
Tessa managed a weak, crooked smile. “I’m sorry.”
“Save your breath.”
She tapped the case in my hands with two fingers. “Did you get it?”
“Yes.”
“Is it okay?”
I looked at the soot-blackened shell. The indicator light did not come on when I pressed the button.
“I don’t know.”
A man’s voice came from behind the firefighters.
“I called the emergency services as soon as I heard about the fire.”
Grant Mercer stood near the curb in a dark coat, his expression arranged into concern. Behind him, the lab windows had disappeared behind smoke.
I got to my feet.
“You were here?”
“I was nearby.” His eyes flicked to the sealed case. “I’m relieved everyone got out.”
A firefighter approached him. “Sir, did you have access to this building tonight?”
Grant’s concern tightened by a fraction.
“I’m the company’s chief operating officer. I have access to several facilities. What does that have to do with—”
“We’ll need your name and a statement.”
Grant glanced toward Julian, then back to the firefighter.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll cooperate fully.”
His phone rang. He checked the screen and didn’t answer. A second later, another vibration. He slipped the phone into his pocket.
“I have to notify the board,” he said. “They’re waiting on an emergency call.”
The firefighter asked him to remain. Grant nodded as if he’d agreed, then moved toward a black sedan at the edge of the alley.
Julian followed him with his eyes but didn’t move.
“You should stop him,” I said.
“On what grounds?”
I had no answer that wasn’t only fear wearing the shape of certainty.
The paramedic called Tessa’s name. She lifted the oxygen mask and insisted she could stand, then swayed. I reached for her, but Julian was already there—not touching her until she nodded. Together, we helped her onto the stretcher.
The sealed case rested on the pavement beside my feet. Its small indicator stayed dark.
Julian’s phone chimed.
He glanced down. The color drained from his face in a way that had nothing to do with smoke.
“What is it?”
He turned the screen toward me.
The subject line read: EMERGENCY BOARD MEETING—IMMEDIATE ACTION.
Below it, the first sentence said that Grant Mercer had requested a vote to remove Julian as chief executive.
“Tonight?” I asked.
“Before they’ve even seen the evidence.”
May you like
He looked from the message to the smoking building, then at the black case whose contents neither of us could yet trust.
Behind us, the fire door swung open and shut in the wind.
