my fault,” Ruby said, her sobs slowly abating. “I should have just gone through with it. I’m the reason that girl is dead.”
“Don’t do that to yourself,” I said.
Ruby flashed me an angry look. “Why? Because you don’t blame yourself for what happened to Brooks Hall?”
“That’s different,” I said.
“No, it’s not. It’s no different at all. You cut the rope. I couldn’t sleep with a stranger. We both made choices that cost innocent people their lives.”
“But I knew what was going to happen to Brooks. You didn’t know Jenna would be murdered.”
“It was a risk involving her with Uretsky in the first place. I knew that much,” Ruby said.
I didn’t say anything. How could I? She was right.
I parked a few blocks from the warehouse. I worried about surveillance cameras capturing video of two arsonists climbing into a red Ford Fusion to make their escape. We each wore Red Sox baseball hats, the ones I’d bought last year, during our annual anniversary date at Fenway Park. Ruby’s hat served a dual purpose, concealing her identity from the cameras while shielding her sensitive skin from the sun. I gave Ruby a pair of sunglasses to wear. Meanwhile, I donned a handkerchief to hide my face. I wanted to do this alone, but Ruby wouldn’t allow it.
We walked to the intersection of West Third and B Street. Sure enough, I saw the Dumpster behind the single-story redbrick building with a flat roof and a white garage door. The parking lot housing the Dumpster was empty. In fact, the only things in abundance in this desolate part of town were broken bottles and crumpled aluminum cans. I looked to my right and saw the warehouse we’d been instructed to torch, directly across the street from the Dumpster.
The three-story brick warehouse looked dark and empty, with many of the windows boarded up, covered in newsprint, or broken. I thought about how the flat tar roof would burn when the fire reached that floor. I imagined the smoke would be thick, black, and toxic, transforming a dumpy cityscape into the lead story on the six o’clock news. Would it be a three-alarm fire? Four?
And then I thought about a firefighter climbing up his steel ladder, hose slung across his shoulder, vanishing into a smoke-filled window and never coming out.
In my single-minded mission to save Winnie, it simply hadn’t occurred to me that a firefighter—or plural—could die while battling a blaze that I started. I pondered the conundrum while my stomach roiled. Walk away and Winnie dies. Set the fire and maybe somebody else—or plural—dies or gets burned to the point where death would be preferable.
What do we do?
Ruby saw my hesitation.
“What are you thinking about?”
I told her, and by her blank look, I saw that she understood the gravity of our situation.
“Do we let my mom die?” Her voice held no trace of sarcasm—same as me, she honestly considered just walking away.
How far would we bend?
I paced in a tight circle, cursing aloud to nobody but the pigeons enjoying a mid-morning snack of trash. I needed to start a fire. I had to burn a pile of wood pallets using three canisters of gasoline. I didn’t have time to go hunting for Uretsky’s hidden cameras. Either I did it the way he wanted it done, or I didn’t. But how could I start a fire that would be the least risky for the responding firefighters?
I caught sight of something that gave me an idea.
“No, we’re not going to let your mom die,” I said, pointing.
“How is a fire alarm box going to help us?” Ruby asked.
“Because we’re going pull the alarm before we start the fire,” I said.
I checked the time on my watch and set its stopwatch feature to zero. We had fifteen minutes to get that fire started.
CHAPTER 37
The green, rust-speckled Dumpster smelled of ammonia, rotting food, and gasoline. I saw the chain used to secure the flip-top lid on the blacktop beside it, coiled like a metal snake poised to strike. I could see where the chain had been cut, presumably with bolt cutters and undoubtedly by Uretsky’s hand. I pried open the lid and let it drop with a clang. Hesitating, I did a quick double take and agreed with Uretsky’s assertion that this desolate part of town saw very little foot traffic. Still, I pulled my hat down lower and the handkerchief covering my face up a bit higher. I climbed onto the lip of the Dumpster with ease. For