A large van with tinted windows was parked in front on the rutted dirt-and-gravel strip that served as a driveway. Two smaller vehicles were parked beside it. He debated. She’d said car, hadn’t she? He chose the larger sedan, hoping the key would fit. He had a feeling he wouldn’t get a second chance.
In the dark, the small lock was invisible. He nearly dropped the key twice before he jammed it into the hole.
She came out of nowhere. One second he was struggling with the lock, the next he was falling to the ground in a tackle the NFL would have approved.
And the house exploded.
While Harrison was still trying to understand what had happened, the woman leaped to her feet, running toward the blaze. Flames licked at the dry wood with greedy hunger. He climbed to his feet, shocked to see the entire building engulfed in flames. The heat was staggering.
“Elaine! Kirsten!”
He went after her as she attempted to get on the porch. The front window burst outward in a shower of glass. Flames shot through the new opening.
“Get back!” He grabbed her, but she pulled free.
“We have to get them out!”
He was pretty sure it was too late, but his gaze swept the grounds, lit by the voracious fire. “Is there a ladder?”
“I don’t know!”
They ran to the side of the house, seeking another way inside. As if the fire anticipated this, every entrance was thick with dark plumes of smoke as deadly as the flames themselves.
Knowing it was foolish, Harrison used the porch railing to pull himself onto the hot roof. The dry wood framing made the old house a tinderbox. Another window popped, sending more tongues of flame licking up the faded wood siding. Thick, black, noxious smoke filled the air.
“Get down!” the woman yelled.
There was no choice. Harrison swung back down and jumped to the grass. His lungs hurt as he coughed up the smoke he’d tried not to inhale.
She gripped his arm. “We have to go.”
“Your friends…”
“They’re dead. It’s too late.” She tugged him between the van and the car, grabbed the keys from where they dangled in the lock and moved past that car to the smaller one. The smaller car had been protected from the explosion by the other two.
“We have to go,” she repeated.
Harrison shook his head. “The fire department—”
“Can only watch it burn.” She opened the passenger door.
His head throbbed. He coughed hard. Coughing as well, she practically shoved him down onto the passenger seat. Slamming the door, she raced around to the other side and slid behind the wheel.
“Where’s your cell phone?” he asked as the engine roared to life.
“In there.” She nodded toward the house.
Surely someone would call. The flames would be visible for miles. Fire lit the surrounding area as it feasted on the house. Without lights, the small car careened dangerously across the choked lawn and down the rutted path that served as a driveway.
Harrison reached for his seat belt as he bounced all around. “Slow down. You’re going to wreck.”
“No.” She swiped the back of her hand across her cheek.
“I’m sorry. Your friends—”
“They weren’t. I didn’t even like them. But nobody deserves to die like that.”
He tried to make sense of her words as she turned the car onto the main road and sped up. “Turn your headlights on. You’re going to kill us.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
Her fingers gripped the steering wheel fiercely. “Those explosions back there were deliberate, Mr. Trent. Tony lied to me.”
There was anguish in that last.
“Someone wanted you dead tonight,” she continued.
“No.”
She didn’t seem to hear his stark protest.
“If you hadn’t knocked that syringe aside…If you’d gotten a full dose of the drug, or hadn’t escaped when you did…” She stared at the blackness beyond the windshield, never once looking at him. She drew in a shaky breath. “You were supposed to die in there.”
Harrison tried to absorb words that made no sense. Nothing that had happened tonight made any sense.
“We all were.”
It took him a second to realize she meant they were all supposed to die. “That’s crazy.”
“I only realized my keys were missing when I went to the bathroom, or I’d have been inside that house along with you. We probably wouldn’t have had time to know what happened.”
“No one wants to kill me.”
“Wrong, Mr. Trent.” Bitter acid dripped from every word. “Someone hates you enough to kill anyone in your vicinity.”
He wanted to tell her she was insane, but the inferno behind them said otherwise. Thinking was hard, but he knew that fire hadn’t been accidental. He’d heard the explosion. More than one. And he’d felt the concussion of the blasts.
Either a gas main had ruptured, or she was right, someone had deliberately blown up the old farmhouse.
His brain felt stuffed with cotton and his head throbbed. He was a businessman. He’d made some enemies, sure, but he prided himself on being ethical. How could he have not known he’d made an enemy willing to commit murder? If only he could think clearly.
“What did you drug me with?”
Her quick glance was troubled. “It’s supposed to be a compound similar to Rohypnol.”
“Supposed to be?”
Her expression was uncomfortable. She faced straight ahead once more. Her hands continued their death grip on the steering wheel.
“I was told the drug would make you docile and agreeable so we could get you out of the house without an incident.”
“You stuck me full of a drug and you don’t even know what it is?”
She shifted as though uncomfortable and didn’t respond.
Despite the effort it took to keep his rage in check, he strove to keep his voice level. “Why did you kidnap me?”
“To protect you.”
Her tone was laced with irony, but there was also anger below the surface. Surprised, he realized she was as furious as he was. “By tying me up in an exploding house?”
“It wasn’t supposed to explode.”
“How comforting.”
“Look, I was asked to guard you until noon. Someone was supposed to explain everything to you then. After that, I was promised that you were going to be set free.”
“I hope you got that promise in writing, because you should definitely sue.”
Her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.
“Who was coming to see me?”