“Yes, I’d noticed. This is your chance to think all those terrible thoughts you work so hard to hide when I’m around.”
She stared. “I don’t think horrible thoughts. Much.”
His smile was wry. He was close enough to reach out, brush her cheek. “You had some dust on you,” he said.
“Dad, are you scared?”
He thought a moment, looking up the endless turning of stairs to their unknown goal. “I’m cautious. The block shows how close we’re getting.” He must have seen some look of consternation on her face. “If I stopped to think of it, I would be scared, so we can’t stop. We must find your mother. We’ll be scared later, all right?”
The trek up the stairwell became a mountain climb, stepping carefully and hoping the soles of their shoes gripped, clinging to the railing and hauling themselves up, hand over hand. Anna’s father got in fron
t of her, sandwiching her between him and Paulson, as if that would keep her safer. She glanced up once and spotted Teddy in the lead, looking back to catch her gaze. He offered a grim smile before turning to run ahead and flashing to invisibility.
Paulson got rid of his suit jacket, and damp circles of sweat showed at his armpits. Arthur kept his trench coat on, like it was part of his uniform.
The worst trap came on the twenty-fifth floor, so close to their target Anna had already felt the first flash of elation at impending success. Almost there. They’d find Mom, catch the bad guys, and be home in time for dinner. Never mind that the details still hadn’t completely clarified.
This time, Sam stopped them, managing to look anxious even under his mask. The brash fighter had turned into a grim campaigner.
“Hissing again,” Sam said. “You guys hear it?”
“More gas?” Arthur said. “I’m starting to smell it, sulfury…”
“Oh, God,” Analise said, pure dread in her tone. “That’s propane. Something’s on fire.”
They looked up. A light was coming toward them, yellow flickering to orange, wavering with heat. The sound was like distant jet engines coming on, one by one. With each hiss and flare, a flame shot from a projection on the wall—not part of the girders and bolts in the building’s framework as they’d been disguised to appear, but nozzles and ignition systems, shooting out gas, lighting it, filling the stairwell with fireballs.
Waves of heat roiled toward them, and the paint and drywall were scorching, bubbling. The fire was scouring the stairwell.
“Move,” Paulson shouted. “Get to that door, get inside.”
Teia was already there, both hands around the doorknob, yanking on it, rattling it. “Locked!” she called back.
“Teddy!” Anna shouted. “Teddy, ghost through the door and unlock it!”
Lew shouted back, “He went scouting ahead, I don’t think he’s here!”
Anna cursed. Well, at least he’d be safe from this. Weirdly, she thought of prom. Wondered if he’d ask anyone else, after she was roasted. So simple a trap in the end. They’d be burned to cinders before even reaching the thirtieth floor. She was too stunned to even be afraid.
The lead SWAT guy pushed past the teens to make his way to the door, drew a pistol to fire a shot at the doorknob, when Paulson yelled, “Do not fire that gun in a roomful of propane, Mitchell!”
The guy winced, chagrined, and put his gun away.
Teia said, “Sam, maybe you can blast the door—”
“My lasers have the same problem as the gun!” he said, frustrated. Teia let out a string of curses.
With unnatural calm, Arthur reached up to put a hand on Analise’s shoulder. The woman flinched away; her eyes were round with terror.
“Analise, there are water pipes in the walls, yes? Connected to the sprinkler system. Are they active, and can you reach them?”
“I should have known,” she murmured. “I thought, we’re in a fucking building downtown, two miles away from the harbor, Typhoon wouldn’t be any damn use here anyway. But no.”
Arthur repeated, “Analise—”
The woman squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head in fierce denial, clinging to the railing with both hands.
The steel rail was starting to get hot.