Mask off, I stepped right up into his face. “Did you know Sophie was still in there?” I yelled.
“What?” He looked scared for a moment, a little boy’s fear scuttling across his puffed up face. He masked it quick, but it was too late. I’d seen it.
“You left her in there, didn’t you?” I accused him, low and certain.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to dismiss me. “Go do your job. My yacht’s destroyed.” He pointed at his monstrosity. The fire had been extinguished, but smoke still pouring out of the windows.
“You coward,” I spat out, looking him straight in the eye. He knew I was right, too. He tried to hold my gaze, but he couldn’t. He looked down, then started in on the club staff again, bossing the poor schmuck around to try to make himself feel better. I hoped his conscience never let him sleep through a night in his life again.
The night wore on, helping the injured make their way to medical professionals, dousing the area thoroughly to ensure nothing sprang once again to life. Given the size of the fire and thickness of the smoke, we were lucky we didn’t have any fatalities. Who knew what was happening over at the hospital, though. Finally, our chief pulled me aside.
“Do you know that woman you carried out earlier?”
“Yes.”
“Have you heard how she’d doing?”
“No.” My phone had been infuriatingly silent. Other than a response text from my mom, “Sorry to hear that. I’ll ask,” I’d gotten nothing. I knew my guy would call me with any news, so I knew I could be glad I hadn’t gotten the worst call imaginable. But he hadn’t called me to tell me she was all clear and set to get discharged in a couple hours, either.
“Go check on her.” The chief pushed me toward the parking lot.
“Are you sure?” I looked around me. There was still a lot to do and my shift wasn’t officially over for four more hours. But the police were taking over the scene now, trying to do the post-mortem and discover what, exactly, had gone so hellishly wrong.
I caught a ride over to the hospital with a guy on staff at the yacht club. He’d been up all night helping guests get home, or taking the uninjured over to the hospital. Normally, I would have made conversation, asking how he was doing, commenting on what a horrible night it had been. But I fell silent the whole time, looking out the window, the horror of what I’d seen stilling my tongue. Finding Sophie lying there, lifeless in the smoke had been the worst thing I’d ever seen in my life.
I didn’t know what I’d do if she wasn’t all right. I’d never forgive myself. I’d been responsible for her being there. If I’d come through for her, loved her the way she deserved to be loved, she never would have been there to begin with. She didn’t like those people, that crowd. She’d taken bold and difficult steps to distance herself from that life. And she’d taken the risk to share herself with me, instead.
And what had I done? I’d taken advantage and then pushed her away. I’d basically shoved her into Theo’s waiting arms, forced her away from me and into… I closed my eyes, trying to stop the train of my thoughts. I kept replaying the image over and over, the black smoke, the infernal heat even through my suit, her completely passed out.
I didn’t know what news I’d get at the hospital, but I’d stay there until I knew something. I wasn’t immediate family, but with my mom a nurse on staff there plus my knowing just about every emergency responder on the island, I’d get intel. I just prayed it was good news.
17
Sophie
I could hear voices far in the distance. Beeping, too, lots of beeping. But it was as if I were in a dream. I couldn’t open my eyes and I couldn’t talk, but I didn’t really want to anyway because my throat hurt so much.
The next time I heard all the voices, I did try to open my lips but nothing came out but a cough. It felt like someone had taken sandpaper to the inside of my lungs and throat. I felt gentle pressure on my shoulder, and heard a voice I didn’t recognize telling me to rest, everything would be all right. That sounded good to me.
Later on, how much later I couldn’t say, I fluttered open my eyes for a second. The lights above me were so bright, way too bright white. Where the hell was I? I could hear some machine making all kinds noise, that beeping sound I remembered, but why couldn’t I remember where I was and what was happening? Then there were lots of hands and voices and someone smoothed back my hair, telling me I was all right, I was OK. But it wasn’t Liam’s voice. Where was Liam?
Finally, finally, minutes or hours or days later, I didn’t know, things kept slipping and sliding in my mind, I opened my eyes. There, next to me, sat lots of machines. Tubing seemed to connect them to me, me to them. But I didn’t feel panic. I felt a strange disorientation, as if my brain couldn’t connect what I saw to what was happening to me.
Down at the foot of my bed I saw two people. My mom sat in a chair, legs crossed, looking strangely sad and small. She hardly looked as if she were wearing any makeup at all. My mother never left the house without her face on. What was going on?
Next to her, another person sat in a blue plastic chair. He had his head down in his hands, shoulders slumped. He looked so sad. But I didn’t feel sad when I saw him. I felt happy because it was Liam.
“Liam,” I tried to say only what came out when I tried to speak was more like a quiet croak. It was enough, though. Both of them jumped up as if they’d heard a gunshot. Liam was at my side in a split second.
“Hey! Hey, Sophie.” He looked down at me so concerned, touching the side of my face. “How are you?”
I smiled but I guess a tear slid down my cheek because he wiped it away.
“Are you in pain?” he asked, worried, looking up, maybe for a nurse.
I shook my head. My throat did hurt, but that wasn’t why I was crying. It was so good to see him. I reached for his hand and grasped it.
“My baby.” My mother stood a few steps away from the cot, looking like she’d driven herself through a carwash. Her eye makeup had run down her cheeks, her hair was flat, her clothes all stretched out and wrinkled. In all my life I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her look so disheveled. Except for those first few days after Ian got injured.
I smiled at her, opting for the no voice option. Nothing seemed to come out when I tried to talk. She gave me an emotional look. Then, the moment over, she looked over and glared at Liam.
Well, that didn’t take long. That made me smile more, imagining how much they both must have hated sitting together in a room. It almost made me start to laugh, but when I began to I felt such a strange pain deep in my chest I stopped, my eyes watering.
“Shhh,” Liam calmed me, helping me breathe more easily, more slowly. “Take it easy.”
“I’m in the hospital?” I whispered. When I spoke quietly it didn’t hurt too much.
“Yes, you inhaled some smoke. But you’re going to be all right.”
“How long?” I managed.
“Two days!” my mother wailed, pressing a tissue to her eyes.
“Thirty-seven hours,” Liam added. “You got checked in Saturday morning at two a.m. Now it’s Sunday afternoon.”
I smiled at him in response. He was so responsible. I knew I could rely on him to be exact. And to tell me the truth.
“Am I OK?” I more mouthed the words than whispered. My throat was hurting too much to talk. I looked at the tubes running through me, my nose and my arm. My body was covered underneath a sheet in the hospital cot. How bad off was I?
“Yes, you’re OK,” Liam rushed to reassure me. “The smoke inhalation was the worst thing, but now you’re conscious. So that’s good.” I looked back at him and caught him brushing the corner of his eye. His voice had cracked a little at the end of his last sentence. But he took a breath and continued, more steady. “You’ve got some burns on your arm and back, but they’re first and second degree so you’re going to be all right.”
“What were you thinking?” my mother cried out. “How did this happen?”
A nurse rushed in to see me, ushering both Liam and my mother out of the way. A doctor followed soon after and they shrank even farther away, giving them space. Liam neared the door, but I caught his eye.
“Stay,” I mouthed the word.
He nodded, responding, “I’ll stay.”
I closed my eyes again, needing to rest, knowing when I opened them again he’d be there for me.
The next 12 hours passed much the same way, mostly sleeping, occasionally waking with machines and nurses. The next time I awakened, I told Liam to go home and rest. I hadn’t really meant for him to sit vigil by my bedside every second. But he insisted on staying.
A doctor explained to me that I’d inhaled a lot of smoke, and sometimes harmful chemicals were in that kind of smoke. That was what was causing the pain, and why they needed to keep me in the hospital for at least another 24-48 hours of observation. So far, I looked good, but they needed to monitor me closely.
The police came to my bedside to ask me a few questions. I answered as best I could, held back somewhat by my lack of voice but mostly because I couldn’t remember much.
“What can you tell us about what happened?” an officer who couldn’t be much older than me asked, sitting by my bed.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. All I remembered were people running. And the feeling of choking as the smoke started billowing in. I remembered dropping to my knees in it.
“Do you remember seeing any lit candles?” she asked.
“Yes. A ton.” I remembered candles everywhere, now that she’d asked me. The whole party had been lit by candles, on tables draped in velvet cloths. So stupid, now that I thought of it. They might as well have doused the boat with kerosene for good measure.
“Where were the candles?”
“Everywhere.” I remembered how lavish it had been, how excessive it had seemed. I should have listened to that warning voice in my head. But I hadn’t been in the mood. I’d wanted to escape my head, get drunk and party.
The officer left soon after. But Liam followed my train of thought.
“Is it hard to remember what happened?” he asked, holding my hand and sitting by the side of my cot.
I nodded, trying to search my memory but it was all so hazy. “I was drunk,” I admitted.
“You were upset.”
I nodded, trying to remember. “How did I get out?”
“I found you.”