The Big Bad Wolf - James Patterson [87]
I stepped up close and tried to peer inside. Then I saw something move.
Someone was in there. I could see a face.
Elizabeth Connolly was in there—and she was on fire!
Chapter 103
I TOOK A BREATH, then lunged forward into the cloud of smoke and heat. I felt the skin on my face begin to burn. I forced myself inside the walk-in closet. Stooped down. I grabbed Elizabeth Connolly in my arms and stumbled backward out of the closet with her. My eyes were tearing, and my face felt blistered. Elizabeth’s eyes were open wide as I removed her gag. Ned Mahoney worked on the rope bindings around her arms.
“Thank you,” she whispered in a voice hoarse with smoke. “Oh, thank you,” she gasped.
Tears ran from her eyes, smudging the soot on her cheeks. My heart thumped a wild beat as I held her hand and waited for the paramedics to come. I couldn’t believe she was alive, but it made everything worthwhile.
I only got to savor the feeling for a few seconds. Shots rang out. I ran from the den, turned the corner, and saw two agents down but alive.
“Bodyguard came in firing,” the closest agent told me. “He and Manning ran upstairs.”
I hurried up the stairs with Ned Mahoney following close behind. Why would the Wolf go upstairs? It didn’t make sense to me. More agents joined us. We searched every room. Nothing! We couldn’t find the Wolf or the bodyguard. Why had they run upstairs?
Mahoney and I did another full walk-through of all the rooms on the second and third floors. Fort Lauderdale police had begun to arrive and helped secure the house.
“I don’t see how he got out of here,” Mahoney said. We were huddled together in the second-floor hallway, puzzled and disgusted.
“Has to be a way out up here somewhere. Let’s look again.”
We retraced our steps down the second-floor hallway, checking in several guest bedrooms. At the far end of the hall was another stairway, probably used by the help. We’d already searched it. Sealed it off at the bottom. Then it struck me: a small detail I had overlooked.
I hurried down to the first landing. There was a casement window and a window seat there. It was just as I’d remembered. Two small cushions on the floor. I opened the cover of the window seat.
Ned Mahoney groaned out loud. He saw what I’d found. The escape route. The Wolf had gotten out!
“He might still be in here. Let’s see where this goes,” I said. Then I lowered myself into the opening. There were narrow wooden stairs, a half dozen of them. Mahoney held a flashlight on me as I climbed down.
“It’s here, Ned,” I called back to him. I saw how they’d made it out. A window was open. I could see water a few feet below.
“They went into the Intercoastal,” I called up to Mahoney. “They’re in the water!”
Chapter 104
I JOINED THE FRANTIC search in the waterway and the rest of the neighborhood, but it was already dark. Mahoney and I raced up and down narrow estate-lined streets. Then we drove along nearby Las Olas Boulevard, hoping that someone had spotted two men in soaking-wet clothes. But no one had seen the Wolf or his bodyguard.
I wouldn’t give up. I went back to the Isla Bahia estates area. Something was wrong. Why hadn’t anyone spotted two men fitting that description? I wondered if they had diving gear in the cellar alcove. How thoroughly had the Wolf planned his escape? What precautions had he taken?
Then I let my mind go in a different direction: He’s arrogant and fearless. He didn’t believe we’d find him and come here to take him down. He didn’t have an escape route! So maybe he’s still hiding in Isla Bahia.
I passed my ideas on to HRT, but they’d already begun to go door-to-door at the estates. There were now dozens of agents and local police combing the exclusive neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale. I wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t let the others quit. Whatever drove me—perseverance? stubbornness?—had paid off before. But we didn’t find the Wolf, or anyone who’d seen him in Isla Bahia.
“There’s nothing? No sign? Nobody saw