Down to the Needle

This scene is when Abi’s house is torched. Someone wants this witness dead. But from the fire, the unstoppable Det. Chad Britto discovers an important clue in the case of Abi’s missing child.

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Synopsis

Abi Fisher’s long search for her abducted child leads to a young woman on Death Row mere months away from lethal injection for a crime she didn’t commit.

From the day her five-year-old was abducted, Abigail Fisher vowed never to stop looking until her daughter is safely returned. Despite multiple searches, twenty-three years have passed without a trace of Becky Ann. So when Abigail learns that death row inmate Megan Winnaker is the same age as her daughter, she can’t help but wonder if the kidnapper had Becky’s Ann’s face surgically altered to prevent identification.

Megan Winnaker maintains her innocence, but will be put to death immediately if she loses her final appeal. As Abigail launches her own investigation to determine if Megan is truly her daughter, someone wants nothing more than to stop her in her tracks. Suddenly, the house of the star witness who landed Megan on death row is burned to the ground. Then Abigail’s home explodes in flame leaving her fighting for her life. The alcoholic witness skips town and another is found dead from a drug overdose. To add to her plight, Abi could lose Joe Arno, the love of her life, when his former love distracts him. While Abi waits for DNA proof, she is desperate to free the innocent inmate who might be the person to end her heart-wrenching decades long search.

Excerpt – Chapter 34

Joe tried to scoop Abi up in his arms, but she jumped up grabbing her bathrobe from the foot of the bed. It was already sopping wet. “What the hell?” She ran out onto the landing with Joe behind her. They choked on smoke billowing up from the floor below. She pressed the wet robe over her nose and mouth and Joe grabbed up a sleeve and pressed it to his face. They were already drenched and noxious fumes and smoke swirled around them as they fought to breathe.

In the eerie flickering illumination, crumpled waterlogged newspaper littered the staircase all the way up. With fire creeping up the stairs, the peach colored carpet glowed flame-orange and hissed and popped in protest of the sopping mess. The walls and other areas not reached by the sprinklers were ablaze. Water from the sprinklers squirted jets in a wide circular pattern. Flames licked and crackled in any area where they caught hold. Walls and ceilings began to explode. They could be trapped on the landing.

Joe pulled her away from the staircase and yelled through the bathrobe. “Not that way!”

Abi headed for Becky’s art room but pointed, directing Joe’s attention to the other bedroom screaming. “The ladder… in the closet!”

Joe quickly retrieved the rolled up rope ladder and burst in where Abi was as she ripped framed art off the walls. She threw them in a heap on her bathrobe, which lay spread out in the middle of the room.

“What the…?” He slammed the door shut.

“Becky’s art. We’ve got to save it.”

Joe yanked a wet throw rug sending an easel flying. He crammed the rug hard under the door and yelled over the crackling of the fire and hiss of the water jets. “There’s no time for that!” Both choked and spit water. The glow of flames from the front windows below them lit up the outside of the art room. Joe opened the side window and released the screen, attached the ladder to the sill and let it unroll outside. “C’mon! Leave that!”

“It’s all I’ve got to help her get her memory back.” Abi screamed as she continued throwing small, framed pictures onto the pile. Glass shattered in some of the frames. She remembered the lump of clay and threw it onto the pile. With water pouring over her and through her matted hair, she began to wrap the robe into a knot. Joe put his hands above his eyes to divert the stream of water then stepped in quickly to tie the sleeves tightly around the sopping mass and awkwardly carried it to the window.

The Escape

“Throw it!” She held up the screen. He hesitated. “Throw it! Let ‘em break. I don’t care about the frames.”

He tossed as hard as he could and the mass landed with the sound of shattering glass. Joe helped her through the window and out onto the ladder. Her hands and feet were slippery. The drenched nightgown stuck to her body and prevented much leg movement. Suddenly she lost her footing and screamed out as she hung on by a hand.

Joe leaned out the window and grabbed her flailing arm and helped her steady herself while she regained a foothold. She tugged at her wet, sticking gown to raise it above her knees so as not to impede her climbing down.

“They’re here!” Someone on the lawn screamed to others. “Over here.” A neighbor kept water from a garden hose trained on the first floor windowpane below them as they descended. They made it past the window to the ground and dragged the bathrobe and its contents clear of the house just as the rear side windowpanes exploded. Orange flames and white smoke belched horrifically. Neighbors were already soaking down the sides of their own homes and the Yarwood Sycamores and Live Oaks in Abi’s yards.

Sirens, bells, blast horns and flashing lights announced the arrival of fire trucks. Firefighters began breaking out equipment. Joe directed the paramedic truck to stop near them in the neighbor’s driveway. Paramedics pulled down trauma kits and blankets. Joe stood wearing only his sopping under shorts. He accepted a dry blanket and wrapped it around Abi, then threw another over his shoulders. Police cars arrived and officers began blocking off the street. Neighbors in bathrobes poured out of surrounding homes.

A fireman asked, yelling through cupped hands. “Anyone else in there?”

“Just us.” Joe yelled back as he stooped down beside Abi on the grass near the bathrobe and art debris.

A neighbor stepped forward. “She needs help.”

“You hurt, lady?”

“Her medicine.” The neighbor stood wringing her hands. “I’ll bet she didn’t have time to get her nitro.”

“I’ve got it. I’ve got it!” Joe unclenched a fist that held the bottle. He, too, seemed surprised to have it.

Abi leaned against him as paramedics took her vitals. Soon, her palpitations calmed. “Joe, my savior.”

“We’re safe.” Joe held her and lovingly wiped hair back from her face. “Tell your heart to stay strong.”

A firefighter yelled from halfway across the lawn. “You got vehicles in the garage?” Someone had inserted a probe down the window slot of the Range Rover and opened the door. A couple of firemen rolled it to a safe spot across the street.

Abi’s next-door neighbor appeared with a set of spare keys to her house that they had exchanged back when Abi moved in. “Her car’s in there.” She passed the keys to a fireman.

They got the garage opened and two others pushed Abi’s small BMW across the street into a neighbor’s driveway. Just as they came back across the street, the inside door in Abi’s garage adjoining the entry foyer exploded and flames belched out. Someone handed Joe a bathrobe, which he slipped into, then added his blanket around Abi.

On a fireman’s instruction to clear the area, Joe dragged the shattered artwork across the neighbors’ driveway and onto their front lawn. The torn bathrobe pulled further apart leaving a trail of glass shards and pieces of wooden frames.

The House Burns

They could only stare as the flames hissed and popped against the deluge of water. Nighttime fog had been pushed back. The late May winds painted the sky with the feverish glow of cinders and blew them against neighboring homes. From the back of the house came the sound of glass breaking and falling to the ground as firefighters smashed the upstairs windows to attack the fire from within.

Brilliant red-orange flames licked out of the lower windows, gobbling up the comfortable place Abi called home. The entire lower floor became engulfed before the sprinklers and fire hoses gained control. Smoke billowed out of the upstairs window through which they had escaped.

A dark sedan screeched to a halt nearby. Det. Britto jumped out and ran toward them. He called out and waved to someone else. “Hey, Pierce! Still on the job, eh?”

“Knocking ‘em down.” The fireman yelled over the noise.

Det. Britto joined them and Pierce walked over.

Though he wore slacks, Det. Britto wore bedroom slippers and a sports coat over his pajama shirt. He bent down and put an arm around Abi’s shoulders. “You okay?”

“Yes, but what are you doing here?” She smiled to show her appreciation.

“Guess I beat our guys, huh?”

“Your guys?”

“Yeah, the PD’s investigators.” A few more cars braked noisily to a stop. “That’s them.”

“Police investigators at a fire?”

“Yes, ma’am. Especially when there’s dirty work suspected.” He stood again.

A couple of stringers arrived, filming for Top O’ The Hour News, as Joe sometimes did.

“How’d you know, Britto?”

“My scanner. The minute I heard this address, I knew all I needed to.”

“You folks live here?” Pierce leaned in close to be heard.

“Yeah.” Joe nodded toward the fire. “That’s Abi’s house.”

The fireman curiously eyed the tattered robe and the glint of fragmented glass that left a scattered trail across the lawn. “What’s this?”

Abi leaned over the soggy bathrobe and picked out some of the ruined pictures. “My daughters art.” The fireman wouldn’t understand and she wasn’t about to explain.

“Her daughter has amnesia. These might help her regain her memory.”

“Oh, I see.” Pierce looked toward the house, mumbled something to himself about the artwork and then nodded slowly and then bent over to look at some of the art. Then he looked straight into Abi’s eyes. “I know who you are. It’s all over the news. That’s why the media hounds are here.”

Joe jerked his head in the direction of the newsmen. “Unfortunately.”

“Abi, Joe, this is….” Det. Britto paused to look at the fireman’s insignia. “Hey, you’re moving up. Captain Jack Pierce.” Pierce offered his hand and then Det. Britto, again, turned to Abi and Joe. “Pierce was a rookie at the Yates fire.”

All That’s Left

As the men talked, Abi gingerly pulled additional pieces of artwork and photos from the pile of debris. Some of them were beyond saving but she gathered them anyway. A neighbor went to find dry binders in which to store them. Blood trickled from cuts on Abi’s hands. Then she saw it. Among the broken frames and glass lay the water-soaked lump of clay. She tried to pick it up and it crumbled between her fingertips. She could only sit and stare as if seeing her life disintegrating.

After a long moment of silence and watching the flames, Det. Britto finally spoke. “Believe me. I’m relieved that you two got out of this.” Light from the flames played over his smug grin. He studied the scenario as if enjoying the occasion. “Slower than an arsonist’s failure.” He kept shaking his head.

“What’s that, Britto?”

“Strange.” He still smirked, shaking his head. “Strange how something so right can come out of something so wrong.”

Available in English, Spanish, eBook, and Audiobook.

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