Page 74 of I'll Be There
“Agreed,” Micah said, and disappeared.
From the angle of the shot, Conner guessed the shooter off to his right, out of vision, but in perfect line to pick off escapees from Pierre’s.
He didn’t even want to think about how Blankenship might have known about the dinner at Pierre’s. Or what kind of mind decided to burn alive women and children.
What he wouldn’t give for a weapon right now. His Glock, stowed in his glove compartment.
Micah came back, holding a large piece of broken lath. A flaming scarf crackled, tied at the end. “Make a hole.”
Conner crouched, held the door open, and Micah hurtled it out into the twilight. It twisted, the arc of fire drawing circles into the air until it landed, softly, perfectly on the roof of the tent.
The fabric caught immediately, and in a moment, the flames chewed through, the torch dropping onto one of the burlap-topped tables.
Smoke rose, light at first, then thickening as the burlap flamed, gray-black clouds billowing into the air.
Conner just knelt there, holding onto the door handle, watching.
Behind him, Micah said nothing.
The smoke filled the parking lot, rose, fogging the air as sparks lit one table to the next. The fire rolled, gaining speed, and like a locomotive roared through the tent.
“Now,” Micah said and pushed open the door.
In a second, they were flying down the stairs. A shot pinged out, hit the door, another the stairs, but Conner threw himself after Micah, landing in the alley on the other side of the buildings. Micah pulled him in.
“Another minute, and we’re headed through that smoke, behind that pickup. I figure the shooter is on the roof of one of these buildings—my guess is the liquor store. But we need to get out of his line of sight, or at least the one he expects.”
“Affirmative,” Conner said.
The fire department had finally rolled up on Main Street, and Conner wanted to run and warn them, but first he had to get Liza out of that building.
“Run!” Micah lit out through the smoke and fire, heading directly toward the tent.
Oh, this could be a very bad idea. But Conner had followed Micah into battle more times than he could count. Trusted his captain’s instincts with his life.
Micah dodged the edge of the tent, rounded the outside of the fire, and flung himself down behind a truck on the other side of the lot.
Conner slammed in beside him, breathing hard.
“We have a good view of the rooftops from here,” Micah said, turning his shoulder into the truck, craning for a look over the bed. “And the bookstore.”
Conner too turned, keeping low. He spied the open door to the bookstore through the gauzy smoke. Scanned the rooftops.
A flash of sunlight made him blink. He squinted, sighted a baseball cap. “You called it—two o’clock, northwest corner of the liquor store.”
“How do we get up there?” Micah said.
“I have a gun in my truck.”
“Which is parked on the street across from the pizza joint.”
Conner had words, but he managed not to let them fly. “Okay, so we get behind him, get on the roof—”
“Oh no.”
Conner followed Micah’s gaze, and everything inside him pinged, a dark strum of horror.
Liza had peeked her head out the door.
