The Marshal's Witness. Lena Diaz
was trying to burn her alive.
Frantic, she sprinted toward the spare bedroom.
Please, please, let the windows be clear.
As she raced into the room, the window exploded, raining glass down on the floor and shooting flames onto the comforter. Searing heat blasted at her as the fire greedily consumed the bedding and spilled over onto the carpet. Her eyes stinging from the smoke, she ran into the hallway, slamming the bedroom door behind her.
The air in the house was already thick and hot, turning black. Coughing, gasping for air, she crouched down beneath the heavy curtain of smoke. Tears streamed down her face from her stinging eyes as she crawled on her hands and knees to the middle of the family room.
Had she really survived everything she’d been through to die like this? There had to be a way out. If she filled the bathtub with water could she survive the flames? She didn’t see how she could, but it was the only thing she could think to try. When the flames got too hot, she’d sink beneath the water. Better to drown than to burn.
She started to crawl back toward the bathroom when the sliding glass doors exploded. She ducked, expecting to feel shards of glass raining down on her.
“Jessica, where are you?” Ryan’s voice yelled.
Ryan? He was here? How had he gotten inside past the flames? “Ryan.” She tried to yell, but she choked on the lungful of smoke she’d just inhaled. She coughed and tried to clear her throat.
Ryan appeared in front of her. She could barely see him as he pulled her to her feet and wrapped a soggy blanket around her.
“We have to run through the flames.” His deep voice was as calm as if they were about to go on a sightseeing trip. He grabbed her around the waist and guided her toward the breakfast nook.
She balked when she realized he was pulling her toward the sliding glass doors, or where the doors used to be. Now there was a gaping hole of shattered glass. A curtain of flames danced across the deck in front of the opening. The only thing keeping the flames from racing into the room was the tile floor.
He grabbed a placemat from her table and used it to rake the broken glass away from the doorway. “Come on. This is the only way out.”
“No, I can’t.” She shook her head and tried to tug away from him. The flames were so hot she felt like she was already burning.
He reached down and flipped the end of her blanket over her head, completely covering her. Her breath left her in a whoosh when he threw her over his shoulder, crushing her against him. He seemed to back away from the heat, toward the family room. Then he was running, and the heat seared Jessica even through the blanket. She screamed but the wet blanket muffled her cries. Ryan twisted violently beneath her.
They hit something solid with a bone-crunching thud. Then they were rolling, over and over until they finally came to a stop. Everything hurt, but she wasn’t on fire. Ryan flipped the blanket back from her head. She gasped as she realized they were both lying on the grass twenty feet from the inferno that used to be her back deck.
Ryan must have jumped with her through the flames where the sliding glass doors had been. He’d hurtled both of them over the railing.
A section of the roof caved in, sending up a shower of sparks as part of the back of the house imploded.
“Hurry, we’ve only got a few minutes,” Ryan said.
A few minutes until what?
He peeled the wet blanket off her. As Ryan stood, Jessica realized he was wearing a blanket, too. He shucked it off and Jessica drew in a sharp breath at the sight of his golden skin reflected in the firelight. His lack of clothing didn’t seem to bother him. Then she noticed his hair, short and spiked. Singed.
“You’re burned,” she exclaimed. She reached up to check his scalp but he ducked away, grabbing her hand and hauling her to her feet.
“Come on.” His voice was an urgent whisper. He tugged her behind him and took off in a jog toward the line of trees at the back edge of her property.
The darkness swallowed them up, and Ryan hugged the tree line with her in tow, running toward his house. He didn’t stop until they were standing in his bedroom. Jessica coughed, trying to clear her lungs from the smoke she’d inhaled. Ryan, seemingly unaffected, dropped to his knees in front of a closet and began shoving things into a large backpack that was already stuffed half-full, as if he made a habit of being packed for an emergency.
There were no lights on in the house, but Jessica could easily see everything in his bedroom because of the light from the flames next door reflected in the windows.
She looked back at him. “Shouldn’t you put some clothes on?” she blurted out.
He tossed the backpack onto the floor beside the bed and rushed across the room to what she assumed must be his master bath.
For a moment, the horror of what she’d just gone through faded as she gaped at the raw, male beauty displayed so boldly in front of her. Toned muscles rippled beneath Ryan’s tanned skin. Like Adonis, he was sheer perfection.
In every way.
She swallowed hard and forced herself to look at his face. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t we call the fire department or something?” She stepped to the doorway, shivering in her wet nightshirt. She gasped. Two men were lying on the floor, their faces turned away from her. Rivulets of blood seeped across the tile. Jessica jerked back onto the carpet and stood next to Ryan’s bed, her chest heaving, desperately trying to make sense of what she’d just seen.
Ryan grabbed some more items from a drawer in the bathroom and shoved them into a small leather case. He moved past her, threw the case in the backpack and zipped it closed. He yanked a pair of jeans off a hanger in his closet and pulled them on. Then he grabbed a thick wad of cash out of his top drawer and shoved it into his front jeans pocket. Three small rectangular boxes went into his backpack. Seeming to reconsider, he grabbed a fourth box and put that in as well.
Jessica swallowed hard. The word “ammunition” had been written on those boxes.
“Are…are those men…dead?” Jessica whispered. She clutched her throat, fighting a wave of nausea.
“It was them or me.” Ryan shoved his feet into a pair of boots. He thrust his arms into a long-sleeved black shirt and yanked it down over his head. As he pulled on his coat, he frowned at Jessica.
He yanked another drawer open and pulled out some clothes. After tossing them on the bed, he reached down and grabbed the hem of Jessica’s wet nightshirt. By the time she realized his intentions, he’d already whisked her shirt off. She frantically tried to shield herself, but Ryan impatiently pushed her arms out of the way and yanked a dry, long-sleeved sweatshirt over her head. Jessica froze, shocked at what had just happened, but Ryan was already reaching for a pair of sweatpants on the bed beside her.
“I’ll do it.” She grabbed the pants from him.
“The wet underwear has to come off, too.”
“Then turn around.”
Ryan’s mouth quirked up in a half grin. He turned around and dug back into the closet.
Jessica quickly shucked off her wet panties and shoved them under one of the pillows on the bed. Her face flaming, she tugged on the pants, rolling the waist down several times to get a better fit. They were far too big and she had to hold them up to keep them from falling off, but they were dry, and warm.
Ryan turned around, pitching a pair of socks on the bed. He frowned at the sweatpants and bent down, rolling up the pant legs to reveal her feet.
“Put these on.” He dropped a pair of tennis shoes on the floor in front of her and grabbed another coat from the closet.
Jessica stared dumbly at the socks and shoes. The indignity of Ryan stripping her clothes faded as the image of the two dead bodies on the bathroom floor