Fire fighters struggling to contain the blaze.
The bad news came in a succession of blows, but none of it told him the information he most dreaded.
“Blair Carson. Where is she?” he demanded, his voice cracking on her name.
“I don’t have any news of her yet, I’m sorry.”
Draco closed his phone with a shaking hand and redirected his driver to Ponsonby. He had to get there and see for himself if Blair was all right. He wouldn’t allow himself to think of anything but seeing her safe and well, because right now the alternative was, quite frankly, too terrifying to even consider.
Access to the road where Carson’s sat was closed by snaking fire hoses across the bitumen and the organized chaos of emergency vehicles and personnel. Two ambulances stood at the head of the road, one closing its doors and racing away from the scene, siren screaming. Before the limousine had even rolled to a halt, Draco was out the door and racing toward the restaurant.
His eyes were drawn in horrified fascination to the beast of fire that, even with the hoses trained upon it, continued to consume the restaurant with unequalled appetite. A police officer approached him.
“Excuse me, sir, you’ll have to stand back.”
“Blair Carson. Do you know where Blair Carson is?”
A loud boom suddenly shook the air and a ball of fire shot skyward. Firefighters continued to train their hoses on the fire, but Draco could see already it was only a matter of confining the flames to Carson’s and protecting the neighboring buildings. For the restaurant itself there was no hope.
He caught the look of pity that swept across the officer’s face, and Draco felt as if the bottom had just dropped out of his world.
“Please,” he demanded, “tell me where she is. Tell me she’s not still in there.”
“I’ll see what I can find out for you, sir, but please, you must stand back.”
The officer gave Draco a gentle shove and he took a couple of steps back, silently praying as he’d never prayed before.
Fourteen
How long he stood there on the side of the road he didn’t know, but a sudden movement near the back of the remaining ambulance caught his eye.
Blair! She was all right.
He covered the distance between them in a matter of seconds, reaching to take her into his arms and to confirm for himself that she was okay. Her face was smudged with soot, her clothes also, and the indentation of an oxygen mask on her face left him in no doubt she’d been in terrible danger not so very long ago.
Blair batted away at his hands as he sought to touch her. Shoving hard at him when he tried again to hold her.
“How could you?” she rasped, her voice raw and tears tracking pale lines down her face. “Was this what you meant when you said you’d make me stop working? Was it?”
She was hysterical with grief.
“Blair, no. How could you think such a thing? I would never do something like this to you. Never,” he answered vehemently.
She started to cough, and a burly paramedic came up beside her to gently urge her back, to sit on the back step of the ambulance. He placed the oxygen mask once again over her nose and mouth and spoke quietly to her for a moment. When he straightened up again Draco stepped forward.
“Why is she still here? Surely, she should be in hospital. She’s sixteen weeks pregnant. Shouldn’t she be checked out?”
“Ms. Carson has refused to go to hospital for assessment. I’m keeping her on oxygen for now.”
“Is it true, Blair? Have you refused to go to the hospital?”
Tears continued to streak down her cheeks. Draco squatted down in front of her, taking her hands.
“Cara mia, you must see a doctor.”
“I can’t,” her voice was muffled by the mask. “I can’t go until it’s over.”
Her eyes were riveted on the conflagration that had been her pride, her home and her very life. Draco understood her need to be here, even though his every instinct screamed at him to bundle her into the back of the ambulance and direct the crew to take her to the hospital immediately. It was some consolation that they would have done that very thing, had her life or that of the baby been in danger.
He sat down beside her on the wide step of the ambulance, hooking an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his body. And he watched and waited.
As dawn broke across the water-washed street, Draco stirred. Satisfied with her breath sounds, the ambulance officers had left some time earlier and Draco had managed to coerce Blair into waiting in the limousine for the fire department to finish.
Under the cold, spreading light of sunrise, the true devastation of the building became clear. Charred beams hung at drunken angles from the ceiling, roofing iron in scorched twisted ribbons falling to what remained of the restaurant floor. The air was still thick with the stench of destruction, rancid with the fight of the flames against the firefighters’ defense.