Death Night. Todd Ritter

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СКАЧАТЬ kids could have been bored and decided to get creative on mischief night.”

      She was grasping at straws. In Perry Hollow, mischief night never got more dangerous than a few egged windows and a generous toilet-papering of front yards. Very rarely did it escalate into setting something on fire. If it did, that something was usually a paper bag full of dog poop.

      “You don’t know too much about fires, do you?” Dutch asked.

      “Not really,” Kat said. “How’d you guess?”

      “Because if you did, you’d know that a flaming bag of shit couldn’t do this kind of damage.”

      “Do you think we should get an arson investigator out here? Maybe find out just what we’re dealing with.”

      “That,” Dutch said, “would be a fine idea.”

      “Chief?”

      Both Kat and Dutch looked to the front of the ladder truck, where Danny Batallas now stood.

      “Sorry,” he said, blushing. “My chief.”

      Dutch straightened. “What is it, Danny?”

      “Did you give the all clear to enter the museum?”

      “Hell, no. Why?”

      Danny jerked his head in the direction of the still-smoldering museum. “Because I think someone’s about to.”

      Kat was on the other side of the truck in an instant, although it wasn’t fast enough to catch the face of the person rounding a burned-out corner of the building. Not that she needed to. A flash of pink fabric flaring in the person’s wake was enough.

      “It’s Emma Pulsifer,” she said. “Help me drag her out of there.”

      Dutch and Danny both grabbed helmets before joining her in a sprint across the museum’s lawn. Kat felt them behind her as she hopped over the fire hoses still sprawled in the grass. Then it was through a wall of smoke that drifted languidly from the building. Small bits of ash swirled in the air, clinging to her face. She swiped them away as she moved along the side of the museum.

      Reaching the back of the building, Kat saw the door Emma had mentioned earlier. It was open and creaking slightly back and forth on its hinges. Smoke escaped from the doorway, but not as much as from the front of the building. Back there, it was merely a trickle. Still, it was enough to make Kat want to cover her nose. It smelled like the world’s biggest ashtray.

      “She’s already inside,” Kat told the two firemen behind her.

      “She shouldn’t be anywhere near this place,” Dutch hissed with annoyance. “God knows how unstable it is. The whole thing could crumble with one wrong step.”

      Hearing that did nothing to put Kat’s mind at ease as she leaned in the doorway. It was dark, of course, the gloom made even worse by the smoke that hovered like a stubborn fog. Kat tugged the flashlight from her duty belt and flicked it on. Then she stepped inside.

      Emma Pulsifer was just beyond the doorway, standing in what appeared to be a cramped hallway. She bumped against the walls, fumbling blindly in the darkness. Kat placed a hand on her shoulder—a small attempt to calm her.

      “We shouldn’t be in here,” she said. “It’s not safe.”

      “I know.” Emma looked up at her with tear-filled eyes. “But please let me try to salvage at least a few things. Please.”

      Kat liked to think she was too tough to be swayed by tears. She was wrong. The fire had left Emma devastated. Letting her try to save a few items was the least she could do.

      “Okay,” she said, stepping in front of Emma. “But let me go first.”

      Dutch entered the museum. Gripping his own flashlight, he aimed the beam at Kat’s face. “Not a chance,” he said. “I’ll go first.”

      Behind him, the voice of Danny Batallas rose from outside. “I’ll stay right here, if you don’t mind.”

      “Go back to the truck,” Dutch instructed. “Tell the others what we’re doing. If we’re not back in five minutes, send in a rescue team.”

      He waved his flashlight back and forth between Kat and Emma. “You got that? Five minutes.”

      Dutch handed each of them a helmet and demanded that they put them on before going any farther. “You’ll thank me if the ceiling caves in,” he said.

      Kat did as she was told. The helmet was heavier than she expected—a weight pressing down from the top of her skull—and did nothing to aid in navigation. It obscured her peripheral vision, forcing her to twist her head to the sides if she wanted to see anything that wasn’t directly in front of her.

      Not that there was much to look at in the hallway. Inching through it, Kat saw only a few administrative offices and a meeting room. Still, she could tell that this section of the museum wasn’t nearly as fire-ravaged as the front. Other than the smoke and some puddles of water, everything seemed to be in decent condition. It wasn’t until they reached the end of the hallway, which opened into the main gallery, that Kat saw the extent of the damage.

      The gallery, a large room packed floor to ceiling with displays, had been obliterated. Sweeping her flashlight across the room, Kat saw that portions of the floor and most of the ceiling were badly charred. The walls were, too. The one facing the street had been so severely gutted that she could see right through it to the thinning crowd outside. Whatever had been hanging on the wall was now gone. Only warped and blackened frames remained.

      In fact, most of the displays in the gallery had been destroyed. Those that weren’t consumed by the fire had been ruined from water damage. Display cases that might have withstood the flames had been knocked over by the pressure of the hoses. The floor was covered with glass shards and water, which combined to make a crunching and sloshing sound that reminded Kat of a pebble beach at high tide.

      Roaming the gallery, she noticed random objects among the detritus, some of which she still remembered from her childhood visits. A pocket watch. A woman’s shoe. A blade saw from the mill’s early days. In the corner, a wax figure wore the remains of a Union Army uniform from the Civil War. Drops of water fell from the sleeves, and large holes that resembled cigarette burns marred the fabric. The figure’s face had melted, its misshapen nose oozing down to what had once been its chin.

      She looked to the wall opposite the front door. Still hanging there, safe in its frame, was the deed Emma had mentioned earlier. Roughly the same size as a newspaper and written in florid script, it stated that Mr. Irwin Perry now owned a hundred acres of land outside an unnamed village in southeastern Pennsylvania. A year later, the Perry Mill opened, flooding the village with workers. To mark this surge, the village was officially named Perry Hollow. Of all the pieces in the museum, the deed was the most treasured. Seeing that it had been spared made Kat breathe a sigh of relief.

      Emma, however, was downright overcome with emotion. Sniffing back tears of gratitude, she hugged both Kat and Dutch.

      “You helped save history,” she told them. “You really did.”

      “I’ll take it down,” Dutch said. “Then we’ve got to get the hell out СКАЧАТЬ