Victoria Hayes tossed through her anxious dreams, the day’s events on an endless loop: Todd Wagner had caught her trying to collect evidence. Wagner’s breath was hot and pungent against her neck, just like her dog’s breath. And he was barking.
Barking?
Victoria blinked herself awake with the help of Baloo’s wet nose pressed into her cheek. The acrid smell of smoke and the piercing shriek of the house’s smoke alarms sent her heart into overdrive. She couldn’t see anything. The haze stung her eyes. The urge to yell for help prompted her to open her mouth, but her lungs constricted and sent her into a fit of coughing.
She kicked against the covers and fell off the bed, landing on the plush carpet. The fur of her one-hundred-fifty-pound Newfoundland brushed against her hand. She reached out and felt for his tail. Victoria crawled a few steps. It was useless. She couldn’t see a thing. She reached out again and felt for his presence. Baloo, like his fellow Newfoundlands, was acting like the rescue dog he’d been bred to be as he led her to safety. Victoria never knew he had it in him.
Her hands crossed the hallway threshold. If she and Baloo could reach the entryway, they had a fighting chance. Wiping tears away with the back of her hand, she could make out hot orange flames licking the ceiling ahead of them.
Victoria cowered to the floor and pressed her face against the carpet as another fit of coughing shook her. Every muscle in her body wanted to give up, wanted to sleep. Baloo ran around and nudged her.
One hand, one knee, one move at a time, she obeyed Baloo’s nudges with her eyes closed. She couldn’t see anyway. Her skin burned from the heat. She prayed for help just as Baloo shoved her again. An unbidden image of the grass, a river and an open starlit sky filled her mind, and she forced herself to move faster.
Her head bumped into glass. Thank you, Lord. She reached up and pulled on the sliding door handle. Flicking the back door lock upward, she wrenched it open and sucked in a breath of fresh air.
She heard it before she felt it—the roar—as the fire sucked up the new current of oxygen. In the light of the new flames, Victoria glimpsed a sight of the shiny red bag just out of reach, on the kitchen counter. Against her better judgment, Victoria took a step into the kitchen and grabbed the purse. Baloo barked, bit the bottom of her pajama pant leg and dragged her the rest of the way outside.
Victoria stumbled across the cement patio, following Baloo, who trotted across the yard to the gate. She reached into her purse, and as soon as her fingers found her phone she heard distant sirens already on the way. Her voice probably wasn’t strong enough to communicate, anyway. Her feet moved quickly over the icy wet grass to her waiting rescuer. She flung the gate open and prayed Baloo wouldn’t run off, as he was prone to do without a leash.
Victoria wiped her gritty eyes with the corner of her pajama shirt. Baloo led her to the wooded nature trail that ran past the backyards of their subdivision. Beyond the grove of trees, the Boise River flowed. Ironic. If only she had means to redirect all that water or a rainstorm were to sweep over the neighborhood.
Her breath caught as she watched the flames climb the siding of her house. Please, don’t let the fire hit the other homes or these woods, Lord. She fell to her knees in a pile of leaves and hugged Baloo as she coughed the toxic fumes out of her system.
“Thank you. You saved me,” she whispered to her beloved canine.
Baloo made a gagging noise. She released him so he could clear the smoke from his own lungs. Victoria leaned back on her heels and watched her home continue to be consumed by fire. Her cheeks were wet with tears as she recalled the many hours she’d spent picking out paint colors, wall accents and furniture. The painstaking process of making her house a home seemed futile—all that effort to open her doors to neighbors, friends, book clubs and Bible studies. And for what? It was all going up in smoke.
Victoria’s gut churned. She hadn’t lit any candles. She hadn’t cooked her own dinner. She even turned her computer off before bed.
Her computer...Victoria groaned. The flash drive containing the evidence sat inside the house, likely a melted piece of useless plastic by now. Her only hope of proving her suspicions gone, and now she had nothing to take to the FBI in the morning.
Could that be why her home was destroyed, because Wagner caught her trying to gather evidence of fraud? Was she in danger?
Baloo’s cough morphed into a growl. Victoria fell back in alarm. The moonlight illuminated Baloo’s position, four feet away. The fur on the back of his neck spiked, and his nose pointed to the grove of trees behind her. She twisted around and stared into the blackness between the trees.
“What is it, boy?” His focus and steadfast growl made her shiver.
Victoria leaped to her feet. She clutched her phone as she stepped backward, back onto the nature path. Her feet protested as a sharp rock pressed into her arch. A sudden snap of a twig, and Baloo’s monstrous bark pushed her into gear.
“Come! Baloo!” She patted hard against her leg as she ran. Baloo obeyed, as Victoria sprinted toward the far side of her neighbor’s house—one she knew had no fence. Darting between the two houses, she lengthened her stride to reach the street in record time.
She spotted her car parked a couple houses down on the street, almost directly in front of the raging bonfire. A block farther down sat a red Range Rover. The same vehicle she suspected followed her yesterday afternoon.
The disoriented feeling vanished immediately. Pieces clicked into place within her mind. It was no coincidence that Baloo growled at the trees. She glanced over her shoulder. A figure in the shadows crept into the front yard behind her, two houses down, and he was headed her way.
“Don’t make me shoot you,” she shouted in his direction. The only weapon in her possession was the pepper spray in her purse, but the figure in the shadows didn’t need to know that. He momentarily stiffened. If only she could see the man’s face, but she didn’t want to risk standing out in the open any longer. What if he had a gun?
Her hand fumbled within her purse for her keys. Where was that fire truck? She needed help.
“Victoria!”
She spun to find her neighbor beckoning to her from the porch across the street. With a quick look over her shoulder, Victoria raced to Darcy’s house. Lunging into Darcy’s outstretched arms, Victoria fell to her knees one step within her foyer, coughing.
A blurry vision of Darcy waving at someone swam before her eyes. A man wearing a helmet pushed Baloo away from her side and shoved a mask onto her face. The sweet oxygen eased the pain in her lungs. She let herself close her eyes, but she needed to hang on to her thoughts. She didn’t have time to lose consciousness.
Tonight was no accidental house fire, and she needed real help. Everything she’d worked for was at risk. She couldn’t start over. Not again. And there was only one person she could think of who might be able to help her.
Jeff Tucker.
* * *
Jeff Tucker squinted at his alarm clock. Who would be ringing his doorbell at four in the morning? He grabbed his cell phone on the way to the door.
He flipped on the porch light and peeked through the peephole. His lead accountant at Earth Generators, Inc. recoiled in the bright light. She closed her eyes and waved at the door. What in the world?
Jeff did a quick assessment of his own appearance. He supposed his blue flannel pajama pants and navy T-shirt were modest enough to answer the door in the middle of the night. He unlocked the bolt and swung the door open only to see a large beast just to Victoria’s right. The dog knocked him to the side and trotted indoors. “Hey!”
Victoria held a hand to her mouth. “I am so sorry, Jeff. He’s kind of my protector right now. He usually has better manners.”
Jeff squinted. “Victoria, what’s