Before the Storm. Diane Chamberlain

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of oily cleaner, just tempting someone to toss a match on them. I knew more than I wanted to know about fires. I’d lost my parents to one, plus Jamie had been a volunteer firefighter before he died. He told me about clapboard buildings that were nothing but tinder. Probably one of the kids lit a cigarette, tossed the match on the floor. Why oh why did I listen to Maggie? I never should have let Andy go. Maggie was around him so much, she thought of him as a normal kid. You got that way when you were around him a lot. You got used to his oddities, took his limitations for granted. Then you’d see him out in the world and realize he still didn’t fit in, no matter how much you’d tried to make that happen. It was easy to get seduced into thinking he was okay when the environment around him was so carefully controlled and familiar. Tonight, though, I threw him to the wolves.

      The street near Drury Memorial was clotted with fire trucks and police cars and ambulances and I had to park a block away in front of Jabeen’s Java and The Pony Express. I’d barely come to a stop before I flew out of my car and started running toward the fire.

      A few people stood along the road watching clouds of smoke and steam gush from the church into the bright night sky. There were shouts and sirens and a sickening acrid smell in the air as I ran toward the front doors of the church. Huge floodlights illuminated the building and gave me tunnel vision. All I saw were those gaping doors, smoke belching from them, and they were my target.

      “Grab her!” someone shouted.

      Long, wiry arms locked around me from behind.

      “Let go of me!” I clawed at the arms with my fingernails, but whoever was holding me had a grip like a steel trap.

      “We have a staging area set up, ma’am,” he shouted into my ear. “Most of the children are out and safe.”

      “What do you mean most?” I twisted against the vise of his arms. “Where’s my son?”

      He dragged me across the sandy lot before loosening his hold on me. “They’ve got names of the children on a list,” he said as he let go.

      “Where?” I spun around to see the face of Reverend Bill, pastor of Drury Memorial. If there was a person on Topsail Island I didn’t like, it was Reverend Bill. He looked no happier to realize it was me he’d been holding in his arms.

      “One of your children was here?” He sounded stunned that I’d let a child of mine set foot in his church. I never should have.

      “Andy,” I said. Then I called his name. “Andy!” I shaded my eyes from the floodlights as I surveyed the scene. He’d worn his tan pants, olive green-striped shirt, and new sneakers tonight. I searched for the striped shirt, but the chaos of the scene suddenly overwhelmed my vision. Kids were everywhere, some sprawled on the sand, others sitting up or bent over, coughing. Generators roared as they fueled the lights, and static from police radios crackled in the air. Parents called out the names of their children. “Tracy!” “Josh!” “Amanda!” An EMT leaned over a girl, giving her CPR. The nurse in me wanted to help, but the mother in me was stronger.

      Above my head, a helicopter thrummed as it rose from the beach.

      “Andy!” I shouted to the helicopter, only vaguely aware of how irrational I must have seemed.

      Reverend Bill was clutching my arm, tugging me across the street through a maze of fire trucks and police cars to an area lit by another floodlight and cordoned off with yellow police tape. Inside the tape, people stood shoulder to shoulder, shouting and pushing.

      “See that girl over there?” Reverend Bill pointed into the crowd of people.

      “Who? Where?” I stood on my toes trying to see better.

      “The one in uniform,” he shouted. “She’s taking names, hooking parents up with their kids. You go see—”

      I pulled away from him before he could finish the sentence. I didn’t bother looking for an entrance into the cordoned-off area. Instead, I climbed over the tape and plowed into the clot of people.

      Parents crowded around the officer, who I recognized as Patty Shales. Her kids went to the elementary school in Sneads Ferry where I was a part-time nurse.

      “Patty!” I shouted from the sea of parents. “Do you know where Andy is?”

      She glanced over at me just as a man grabbed the clipboard from her hands. I couldn’t see what was happening, but Patty’s head disappeared from my view amid flailing arms and angry shouting.

      From somewhere behind me, I heard the words “killed” and “dead.” I swung around to see two women, red eyed, hands to their mouths.

      “Who’s killed?” I asked. “Who’s dead?”

      One of the women wiped tears from her eyes. “I heard they found a body,” she said. “Some kids was trapped inside. My daughter’s here somewhere. I just pray to the Lord—” She shook her head, unable to finish her sentence.

      I felt suddenly nauseated by the smell of the fire, a tarry chemical smell that burned my nostrils and throat.

      “My son’s here, too,” I said, though I doubted the woman even heard me.

      “Laurel!” Sara Weston lifted the yellow tape and ducked under it, running up to me. “Why are you here?” she asked.

      “Andy’s here. Is Keith?”

      She nodded, pressing a trembling hand to her cheek. “I can’t find him,” she said. “Someone said he got burned, but I—”

      She stopped speaking as an ominous creaking sound came from the far side of the church—the sort of sound a massive tree makes as it starts to fall. Everyone froze, staring at the church as the rear of the roof collapsed in one long wave, sending smoke and embers into the air.

      “Oh my God, Laurel!” Sara pressed her face against my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around her as we were jostled by people trying to get closer to Patty. Parents stepped on our feet, pushing us one way, then another, and Sara and I pushed back as a unit, bullish and driven. I probably knew many of the people I fought out of my way, but in the heat of the moment, we were all simply desperate parents. This is what it was like inside, I thought, panic rising in my throat. All the kids pushing at once to get out of the church.

      “Patty!” I shouted again, but I was only one voice of many. She heard me, though.

      “Laurel!” she yelled. “They took Andy to New Hanover.”

      “Oh God.”

      “Not life threatening,” Patty called. “Asthma. Some burns.”

      I let out my breath in a silent prayer. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

      “You go.” Sara tried to push me away, but I held fast to her. “Go, honey,” she repeated. “Go see him.”

      I longed to run back to my car and drive to the hospital in Wilmington, but I couldn’t leave Sara. “Not until you’ve heard about Keith,” I said.

      “Tracy Kelly’s parents here?” Patty called.

      “Here!” a man barked from behind СКАЧАТЬ