Page 44 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

I should have gone to Mom and Dad’s, I thought. Or to Siana’s. At least then I’d have been able to sleep. Now I’d be exhausted all day tomorrow.

I dozed off again, and woke a little after three. No crazy was silhouetted against the light. I didn’t check the phone, because by this point I didn’t care if the crazy bitch had called. Sort of half dozing, I tried to get comfortable in bed. My knee banged the umbrella. I felt hot and uncomfortable, and the flickering light was annoying.

Flickering light? If the electricity went out, I would so freak.

My eyes opened and I stared at the hall, where the light seemed to be steady enough, but the light in my bedroom was definitely flickering.

Except I hadn’t left any lights on in my bedroom.

I sat up and stared at my windows. Beyond the pulled curtains, red lights danced.

From below came a huge crash as something broke the windows, and my alarm began its cautionary beeping, warning that it was about to erupt into full shrill. “Shit!” I leaped out of bed, grabbed the umbrella and chef’s knife, and bolted into the hall, only to reel back as a blast of heat and fiery sparks rose to meet me.

“Shit!” I said again, retreating to the bedroom and slamming the door against the heat and smoke. Belatedly, my fire alarm began its piercing shriek.

I grabbed the phone and dialed 911, but nothing happened. The phone service was already gone. So much for that plan. I had to get out of here! Roasting alive was so not on my schedule. I grabbed my cell and punched in 911 as I ran to the front window and looked out.

“This is the nine-one-one emergency operator. What is the nature of your emergency?”

“My house is on fire!” I screamed. Shit! The whole front of the condo was leaping with flames. “My address is three-one-seven Beacon Hills Way!”

I ran to the other window, the one overlooking the portico. Flames were already eating through the slanted roof right below the window. Shit!

“I’ve dispatched the fire department to your address,” said the calm operator. “Is anyone else in the house with you?”

“No, I’m alone, but this is a condo and there are four units in this building.” The heat and smoke were building at a terrifying speed, and all of my windows were blocked by fire. I couldn’t go downstairs and out through the French doors in back because whatever had been thrown through the windows had ignited the entire living room, by the looks of it, and the stairs ended there by the front door.

The second bedroom! Its windows overlooked the back, which was secured by the privacy fence.

“Can you get out, and direct the fire department to the correct building?” the operator asked.

“I’m upstairs and the whole downstairs is on fire, but I’m going to give it the old college try,” I said, coughing on the smoke. “I’m going out the window. Bye now.”

“Please stay on the line,” she said urgently.

“Maybe you didn’t understand,” I yelled. “I’m going out the window! I can’t do that and talk on the phone at the same time! The fire department will be able to spot the condo just fine, tell them to look for the one with flames shooting out the windows!”

Flipping the phone shut, I tossed it in my bag, then darted in the bathroom and wet a towel, which I tied over my nose and mouth, then I wet another one and draped it over my head.

All the experts say don’t bother getting your purse or anything, just get out, because you have only seconds to do it. I didn’t listen to the experts. I not only grabbed the tote, which held my wallet and cell phone and Jazz’s invoices from Sticks and Stones—the invoices seemed horribly important—I also grabbed the chef’s knife and dropped it into the tote bag, too. The plan was, when I got out of this death trap, if I saw some psycho bitch out there, leaning against a white Malibu and gloating, I intended to gut her.

I made it to the bedroom door, then turned and made a swooping dive at my closet. Grabbing my wedding shoes, I stuffed them in the tote bag, too. Then, barefoot, I wrenched open my bedroom door. With a greatwhooshthe flames in the living room seemed to rush up the stairs. Sparks danced in the air, and black smoke already obscured the hallway. I knew exactly where I was, though, and exactly where the door to the other bedroom was. Getting down on my hands and knees, with the braided handles of the tote looped on my shoulder, I crawled as fast as possible down the hall. The smoke burned my eyes like all the fiends in Hell, so I simply shut them. I couldn’t see where I was going anyway. I knew by feel when I reached the doorway, and raised on my knees to search for the doorknob. I found it, turned, and pushed inward, then all but fell into the relatively clear air of the bedroom.

Relatively clear. Smoke boiled in the open door and I hurriedly shut it again, coughing as the evil black stuff sifted around the edges of my wet towel and through the fabric. At least it wasn’t so thick I couldn’t see the lighter rectangle of the window. I crawled to it, pushed the curtains aside, fumbled with the latches—“Damn it!” I said hoarsely, when one wouldn’t give. “Son of a bitch!” I wasnotgoing to let that bitch burn me to death.

Unslinging the tote from my shoulder, I reached into it and by some miracle didn’t cut my finger off on the razor-sharp blade of the chef’s knife. Grabbing the heavy knife by the handle, I began whamming the butt of it against the stubborn latch.

From downstairs I heard more glass shatter from the heat. I whammed harder, and the latch began giving. Two more whams, and it slid open.

Gasping for breath, coughing, I shoved the double-hung window open and hung over the sill, trying to stay below the smoke that poured out of the room so I could find some fresh air. My lungs were on fire, despite the wet towel protecting my mouth and nose.

I heard sirens, I thought, but maybe my own fire alarm was still valiantly shrilling an alert. Maybe the neighbor’s alarm had gone off. Maybe the fire department had arrived. I couldn’t tell, but I wasn’t waiting to see.

I threw the comforter off the four-poster guest bed and stripped both sheets off so fast I pulled the mattress half off the bed with the force of my tugging. Working as fast as I could, I knotted one corner of the sheet around the leg of the footboard, then tied the other sheet to the opposite corner of the first sheet, making a sheet rope that reached from the bed to the window, and down the side of the condo.

I didn’t stop to see if the sheet rope was long enough, I just tossed my tote out the window, then grabbed the sheet and went out the window.

It’s funny how the body works. I didn’t consciously think about how I was going out the window, but my body knew what to do from all those gymnastic exercises. I climbed out feet first, then automatically caught the sill and turned so I was facing the outside of the building and could brace my feet against the wall.

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