Chapter 4

The police station was cold, impersonal.

They questioned me. I told them everything. About Ashley, Brandon, her parents being trapped.

They listened, wrote things down, but their faces were skeptical.

"Mr. Harris, your wife called us. She was very clear. Her parents are not in that apartment."

"She' s lying," I repeated, my voice hoarse. "She' s always lying."

Hours passed. The adrenaline faded, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion and a gnawing dread.

Finally, a detective came in. "Okay, Mr. Harris. We' ve made some calls. No official confirmation your in-laws are in the building, but no confirmation they' re elsewhere either. Given the severity of the fire, and your insistence, we' re releasing you. But stay out of the fire department' s way."

Release. Not vindication.

I stumbled out of the station, the afternoon sun blinding me.

My phone. I needed to call Ashley again. I needed that door code.

The old code wouldn' t work. She changed it after a fight we had about Brandon. I knew it.

I dialed her number. It rang. And rang.

Finally, she picked up, her voice laced with annoyance.

"Ethan? What do you want now? Are you still harassing people about my parents? I told you, they' re fine."

"Ashley," I said, my voice flat, cold. "I need the new door code to your parents' apartment."

"Why? So you can break in and 'prove' your crazy theories? I' m not giving it to you."

"The fire is still burning, Ashley. They might still be alive if I can get in." A desperate, foolish hope.

"Oh, for God' s sake," she sighed. "You' re obsessed. Brandon and I are trying to have a nice Thanksgiving Eve, and you keep bothering me."

Brandon. Of course.

"The code, Ashley. Now." My voice was dangerously low.

A pause. Then, grudgingly, "It' s the date I first met Brandon. October sixth. 1006."

My stomach twisted. The day she met Brandon. That was the key to her parents' apartment. The irony was a bitter pill.

"You' ll regret this, Ashley," I said, my voice hollow.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just leave me alone." She hung up.

1006.

I ran to my car, my body screaming in protest.

Back to Willow Creek.

The scene was worse. More smoke, more despair. The fire wasn't out.

I bypassed the police lines, ignoring their shouts. I knew the back stairwell.

Up, up, fifteen flights. My lungs burned. My legs were lead.

The 15th floor hallway was thick with smoke. Acrid, choking.

Emergency lights flickered eerily.

Apartment 15B. The door was closed, mocking me.

I punched in 1006.

The lock clicked open.

I pushed the door. It swung inward into darkness.

"Mr. Miller? Mrs. Miller?" My voice was a croak.

Silence.

A deeper, more terrifying silence than any I' d ever known.

The smell of smoke was overwhelming.

I stumbled inside, using my phone' s flashlight.

The living room was untouched by flames, but coated in a thick layer of soot.

And there they were.

Mr. Miller was on the floor by the sofa, his arm outstretched towards it.

Mrs. Miller was on the sofa, a book fallen from her lap.

They looked like they were sleeping.

But their skin was grey. Their eyes were closed.

Still. So terribly still.

I reached out a trembling hand, touched Mr. Miller' s shoulder.

Cold.

Smoke inhalation. The delay. Ashley' s lies. David' s misguided trust.

They were dead.

I sank to my knees, the phone clattering to the floor.

The strength drained out of me.

It was too late. I was too late.

My fault for being reborn into this hell? Ashley' s fault for her selfishness? Brandon' s fault for existing?

It didn' t matter. They were gone.

Tears I didn' t know I had left streamed down my face, carving paths through the soot.

I picked up my phone. My fingers fumbled, but I managed to type a message to Ashley.

"Your parents are dead. They died because of you. Happy Thanksgiving."

I hit send.

Then I sat there, in the smoky darkness, with the two kindest people I knew, and waited.