When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [94]
Chapter 100
WE SLEPT FITFULLY at Carole’s house and we were all up before dawn. Kit needed to go to the Inn-Patient and we decided it was best if we all stayed together.
Help was supposedly on the way. FBI agents would meet us at the Inn-Patient. Kit had already checked around midnight, but they hadn’t arrived yet.
We left Carole’s before four and it was incredibly dark and eerie on the back roads. There were no streetlights out in Radcliff, or in Bear Bluff for that matter.
We were close to the Inn-Patient by four forty-five. We traveled up the familiar road, but Kit passed right by the place. He checked it out as we drove by.
“I don’t see anybody. Maybe Stricker didn’t believe me after all. That asshole.”
We turned around and drove back. Everything looked dark and deserted. The FBI wasn’t there yet.
“Pull in, Kit. I have to look at my house.”
This had been my home and I couldn’t just let it go. No one was there yet. Kit turned into the driveway.
I grabbed his flashlight. “I’ll be quick.”
I hurried out of the Jeep and climbed the front steps. My charbroiled front steps. I was oblivious to everything except that this was my house, my workplace, and my poor animals had been trapped inside, cruelly burned alive.
The building was still smoldering and the heavy, acrid smell of the fire was overpowering. My house was no more. I barely recognized it.
I got a surprise when I worked up the nerve to finally look inside. I moved the flashlight around and… the animals were gone. Someone had let them out before they started the fire. I was relieved and also thankful.
“Frannie.” Kit was suddenly there behind me. “You okay?”
“I had to see it,” I whispered as my throat began to close up. I covered my nose with a handkerchief, but it didn’t help much. A thick, dry taste like charcoal was on my tongue.
The fire had devoured everything. The furniture, rugs, and curtains were blackened rags and could never be salvaged. The walls and ceilings were blistered black.
Kit held me from behind. He knew the thing to do. I turned and looked into his eyes.
“Kit, maybe it’s not the same people. Whoever burned my house let the animals loose. Those bastards at the School wouldn’t have done that.”
“Maybe some of the doctors from Boulder started the fire,” he offered, “instead of the guards, the hunters.”
“Maybe those young army guys, like the ones we saw yesterday.” I offered a paranoid thought of my own.
“Let’s go outside,” he whispered softly. “We’ll wait there. There’s nothing here anymore.”
“I know. Thanks for letting me see my house,” I whispered. I let him pull me out of the blackened shell of my house, away from my life for the past few years.
We made it out onto the porch. We stopped moving.
They were waiting for us. Not the FBI—the hunters, the guards from the School. Half a dozen of the home burners, the child murderers, were standing in my driveway. They had Max and the other kids.
Chapter 101
TAKE YOUR HANDS THE HELL OFF them!” Kit called down from the porch. “They’re just kids. They’re children.”
I liked that, loved it, actually. They had rifles and handguns and here was Kit, barking orders. He was standing up to them.
The two guards holding Ozymandias and Max actually let them go, and even took a few steps back. They were dressed like local outdoor types—workboots, wrinkled and stained khakis, hunting vests. There was no way to identify who any of them were. Army? FBI? Mercenaries? I’d never seen any of these particular men at Boulder Community Hospital, anyway.
“Come down here off the porch!” The man who spoke was broad-shouldered, in his late forties or early fifties. His face was scarred and pitted, his eyes black marbles.
I just knew from Max’s descriptions that he had to be Uncle Thomas.
“You’ve caused enough trouble already,” he called in a booming voice. “I will shoot you down off the porch.”
“We’ve caused enough trouble,” I snapped back. “Give me a break.”
“You’re a murderer!” Max screamed at the man, who clutched her hair with one hand. Her face was bright red and she