Kansas City's Bravest. Julie Miller

her head. “There’s gratitude for you.”

      It was time she made a hasty exit herself. She put on her glove and radioed in. “The pooch is on the loose, John. Let me know if he shows up outside. I don’t want him to get caught in traffic after going through all this.”

      “I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

      “I’m on my way down.”

      “Negative.” John’s order halted her from stepping onto the ladder. She shook it, testing its reliability. More mortar disintegrated and blew out in puffs of dust that vanished into the smoke clouds being pushed through the corridor ahead of the hoses. “Visibility is zero from our end. I can’t tell if the floor’s stable.”

      While she watched her escape route being gobbled up by the smoke, a sudden movement in the corridor below caught her eye.

      “Damn dog.”

      Had she risked her life for nothing?

      Her stomach clenched into a knot as she fought to control the instinctive response that boosted her pulse into overdrive. Meghan blinked and squinted through the haze. Something dark, darker than the smoke itself, darted back across the opening. “Did you see…?”

      It was gone.

      It had been little more than an after-image imprinted on her retinas. Had the pooch made it down the stairs that quickly? Though it seemed to have more mass to it than the dog she’d seen, the black shape hadn’t been bulky enough to be a firefighter in full gear. And it had moved so quickly.

      But then, the heated air could play tricks on a person’s vision and depth perception. Maybe it had been a comrade-at-arms.

      She spoke into her microphone. “Is the corridor clear?”

      “Every man’s accounted for,” John replied. “Is there a problem?”

      “I thought I saw someone below me.” It had to be the dog. She hoped he found a safe way out. “Never mind. It’s gone.”

      “You should be, too.”

      The memory of flames shooting up through the floorboards was impetus enough to send her toward the ramp. If the dog had gotten down that way, so could she. Maybe she could still find him down below and rescue him, after all. “I’ve got an alternate route.”

      She picked up her ax and trotted toward the billowing rise of smoke at the far end of the platform. She checked her gauge and breathed deeply, verifying her oxygen intake before plunging in.

      Going in blind was risky. Though she trailed her hand along the wall to find her path, any misstep could send her flying over the edge of the platform or plummeting through a hole or…

      The dog charged out of the smoke, plowing into her shin and knocking her back a step. “Whoa! How’d you do that?”

      A loud crack thundered in her ears and the whole floor tipped.

      “Meghan!”

      She ignored John’s call and braced her back against the wall to reverse course, zeroing in on the sound of the dog’s whine.

      What the hell was going on here?

      “The secondary escape route’s collapsing.” She panted the words into her mike and started to pray.

      The dog charged her legs again, then circled her feet. He barked as he followed his nose toward clear air. Meghan honed in on the sound as if it was an outstretched hand.

      Three steps later she was clear.

      She scooped up the dog. “Good boy. I don’t know what miracle you just pulled, but you saved us both.” As she petted the dog, trying to calm its fears and her own, a few things became obvious. She wasn’t the only female fighting for her life in this building. “Sorry. Good girl. Let’s get out of here. John?”

      “It’s no good.” She could hear the effort it cost her partner to keep the fear out of his voice. “The floor’s going. There’s no way we can get a ladder to you.”

      No ladder. No ramp. No rescue.

      The platform tilted another five degrees and Meghan scrambled for balance. If this platform gave way they’d crash through the main floor into the basement. If the fall didn’t kill them outright, the flames would consume them soon enough.

      This was not how it was going to end.

      When the world left her with no options, she made her own.

      She’d coped with her mother’s death and her father’s abandonment.

      She’d lived through aunts and uncles who cared and those who couldn’t care less.

      She’d cheated death in a car crash one fateful, foolish night.

      And she’d survived walking away from the truest man in the whole world.

      An image of Gideon Taylor’s seal-brown hair and gentle smile blipped into her mind. She’d hurt him.

      She’d never said how sorry she was for hurting him.

      “Dammit!” she yelled, startling the dog into an answering bark. This was not her life flashing before her eyes! “We’re not going down without a fight.”

      Galvanized by a fiery spirit that wasn’t done living yet, she pushed everything from her mind but thoughts of escape.

      The hook and wench. The boarded-up windows.

      “Meghan, talk to me!”

      She dropped the dog and picked up her ax. She struck the first blow against the rotting wood before responding. “I’m going out the back window, John.”

      “The foundation drops off to the river on that side. It’s four stories down. There’s no way to get a truck—”

      She swung again. “I know how to swim.”

      The first board split in two. She was breathing hard now as she jammed the ax beneath the next board and pried it loose. Sweat lined her brow beneath the tight fit of the mask and dribbled down her face. She blinked the sting of it from her eyes and attacked the next board. The platform groaned and teetered toward the heart of the fire, costing her precious leverage.

      The dog barked. “I know. I know.” She scooted the mutt behind her and smashed the window. The sudden rush of shifting air pressures knocked her off balance. She scrambled back to her feet, climbing uphill now to reach the window.

      Meghan cleared the glass around the frame, then pulled a rope from the gear on her back. She looped it around the bale rigging.

      The floor pitched. The smoke crept up to the second floor and drifted toward her, as if just now discovering its two potential victims upstairs.

      She said a nervous prayer while she knotted the ends around her hips and set up a rappelling line. “I gotta see my boys. They’re all I’ve got.” She scooped up the dog, unbuttoned her coat and slipped her inside. “You’d like them, too.”

      Lifting her helmet, she peeled off her mask and shrugged out of her gear harness, shedding every excess pound she could before replacing the helmet and hoisting herself up to the window. The platform sank to a forty-five-degree angle, ripping away from the wall and surrendering with a fiery crash to gravity, age and fire.

      “Hang on.”

      Charcoal smoke gusted out around her head and shoulders.

      Meghan held her breath and jumped.

      FIRE CAPTAIN Gideon Taylor skirted the crowd in the aftermath of the fire, an unseen extra amid the swarm of uniformed professionals doing their best to secure the site, as well as to accommodate the press and curiosity seekers who had gathered to see the show play out on the long, cloudless afternoon.

      He took note of several faces in the crowd, never ceasing to be amazed at how destruction brought people out of the woodwork.