Chapter 15 - The Surface
I hauled my own weight up over the splintered edge of the second-floor flooring, coughing violently as I dragged myself out through the bedroom window onto the flat roof of the front porch.
Below me, the front lawn was a chaotic blur of flashing red lights, shouting firefighters, and frantic paramedics.
"He's on the roof! Get the ladder up here!" someone shouted through a bullhorn.
Within seconds, an aluminum extension ladder clattered against the roofline. I scrambled down it clumsily, my legs shaking so badly they barely supported my weight as my boots hit the grass.
As soon as I reached the ground, a pair of strong arms wrapped around my neck.
"Daddy!" Sophie sobbed, burying her face into my chest with such force it knocked the remaining wind out of me. I scooped her up, holding her so tightly I thought my arms might break, burying my face in her soft hair as tears finally broke free down my soot-stained cheeks.
"I've got you, baby. I've got you. It's over," I whispered, rocking her back and forth on the damp grass.
A few feet away, Clara sat wrapped in an emergency thermal blanket, staring blankly at the burning wreckage of the house. The paramedics were checking her vitals, but she didn't seem to notice. Her eyes were fixed on the collapsing roof, watching the flames consume the very walls that had held her captive for five long years.
"She's gone?" Clara asked softly, her voice barely audible over the crackle of the fire and the roar of the water hoses.
I nodded slowly, holding Sophie tighter. "She's gone."
Clara let out a long, ragged breath that sounded like years of accumulated weight finally lifting from her chest. She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the stretcher.
The police chief walked up to me a moment later, holding a heavy plastic evidence bag containing the memory card I had handed to an officer earlier, along with the charred remains of the detonator.
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"Mr. Reynolds," the chief said grimly, taking off his cap and wiping his brow. "We've secured the perimeter. Fire crews are working on containing the blaze, but... from the looks of those basement blueprints we found in the yard, your wife—or whoever she really was—had this place rigged like a fortress. We found documents inside linking her to three separate cold cases of missing women across the state."
"She wasn't my wife," I replied flatly, staring into the blazing inferno. "She was a stranger who wore a mask."
