Chapter 13 · Lead in the Tumblers

Smoke came up through the floor vent first. Thin, acrid gray, tasting like melted plastic and scorched wire.

I was running before Helen even finished her sentence.

Behind me, she was still holding that folded warrant between two manicured fingers, smirking like she’d already won. I left her standing in the kitchen glare with her mouth half open.

Marshals. Fine. Let them come. But not with the damn house burning.

Stairs. Two at a time, palm slick against the banister. The crooked scar tissue on my flank yanked hard—that white-hot ripping sensation screaming at me to quit. I ignored it. I’d been ignoring it for two weeks.

"Willa!" I kept my voice down. Shouting always terrified her. "It's Ruth, baby. I'm on the stairs. I'm coming."

The second-floor landing was choked with it. Not cooking smoke. Electrical. That rotten burnt-sugar stink that means wiring is melting straight through drywall. Half the sconces had shorted out. The rest flickered like dying bulbs in a storm.

Owen lunged out of the master wing, sleeves shoved to his elbows, a heavy crowbar in his right fist. The look on his face stopped my chest cold.

Not panic. Worse.