Chapter 9 - Falling Timber
The third floor was a roaring furnace. Black smoke rolled thick across the ceiling, dropping visibility to almost zero. The heat was unbearable, blistering the skin on my face and hands.
"This way! To the back service stairs!" Vance yelled, pulling his coat over his head to shield us from falling embers.
We burst out of the burning office into the upper hallway just as a massive wooden beam from the vaulted ceiling collapsed in a shower of sparks, blocking the main staircase behind us.
"Mom! Mom!"
My heart stood still. That wasn't an echo. That was Toby’s voice screaming from the ground floor.
"Toby?!" I screamed back, panic surging through me stronger than the heat of the fire. "Sarah was supposed to keep him at the safehouse!"
"Look!" Vance pointed down through the open balustrade to the main foyer below.
Standing near the grand entrance doors was Sarah, holding Toby tightly. But standing between them and the front exit was Uncle Richard, flanked by two remaining armed guards who had locked the front doors from the inside, desperate to escape the arriving federal agents.
"They're trapped in the foyer!" I shouted.
"We go down through the laundry chute frame—it leads directly to the pantry off the main hall!" Vance said, smashing open a wooden utility door in the wall.
Without hesitating, Vance dropped down the wide metal chute first. Seconds later, I heard him hit the pile of laundry bags at the bottom. "Clear! Come down, Jennifer!"
I climbed into the chute, closed my eyes, and slid down the smooth metal tube, shooting out into the dark, cool pantry on the ground level.
I hit the floor, scrambled to my feet, and pushed open the pantry door into the grand foyer.
Uncle Richard was shouting at Sarah, holding a heavy metal bar, trying to force her to hand over the flash drive she was carrying. "Give me the backups, you bitch! We can still trade them for immunity!"
"Leave my son alone!" I roared, stepping out of the shadows with a heavy brass fire extinguisher in my hands.
Richard turned, his eyes wide with surprise, but before he could react, I swung the heavy fire extinguisher with all the strength of a mother protecting her child, striking him square in the chest.
He groaned, staggering backward, and collapsed onto the marble floor.
Vance emerged a second later, neutralizing the two remaining guards with swift, decisive blows before they could even draw their weapons.
"Mom!" Toby broke free from Sarah and threw his arms around my waist, sobbing wildly. "I was so scared! I made Sarah bring me back because I heard the sirens!"
"I'm here, baby. I'm here," I wept, kissing his face, holding him as tight as I could while the smoke filled the grand entrance.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The heavy oak front doors bowed inward under the force of a battering ram. A second later, the wood splintered violently, and the doors burst open.
A dozen Federal Marshals and Tactical Officers flooded into the foyer, weapons raised, laser sights cutting through the smoke.
"FBI! Nobody move! Hands where we can see them!" a tactical officer screamed over a bullhorn.
Vance immediately dropped his weapon, raised his hands, and stepped in front of us. "We are non-combatants! I am former Security Director Vance Kane! The civilians are safe! The suspects are down!"
I dropped to my knees, wrapping my arms around Toby, burying my face in his neck as the blue lights of a hundred emergency vehicles flooded the ruined mansion.
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Behind us, through the grand glass windows, the top floor of Lawson Manor collapsed into a magnificent tower of flames, lighting up the dark night sky over Savannah Falls.
The nightmare was finally over.
