“I know that city well. It’s about fifteen minutes from where I live. I have some good friends who work out of the Midtown Region police department.”
She offered him a small smile. “I don’t even know why they had to make it a separate city. It might as well be Columbia.”
“True, but the family who founded it missed Sicily—the other one back in Italy.”
“You know your history.”
“Yeah. I do.”
She smiled. “The Italian influence is one of the things that I love about Sicily. One of the reasons I fell in love with it and decided to move there.” She yawned. “Apparently, the low crime rate report was a big old lie, though.”
They fell silent and her eyes lowered to half mast. She was warm. She was safe. She was sleepy. She let her eyes shut all the way and stay there, close to dropping off, but vaguely aware of Brady moving in the background.
The window behind her shattered. She dove out of the chair to the floor. Brady’s body covered hers. He had a weapon in his hand before she could blink. Flames spurted from the floor in front of the fireplace and the sharp sting of gasoline burned her nose.
“What’s going on?” she cried.
He yanked her to her feet and grabbed his pack. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Smoke curled around her. “How?”
“The back door. Through the kitchen. Laundry room first. We need to grab your shoes from the dryer on the way out.”
Another explosion shook the cabin as Brady led her to the kitchen’s laundry room. The heat intensified. Moving fast, he grabbed her shoes and stuffed them into his pack. A quick look at the kitchen door said they weren’t going out that way.
“Stay here.” He ran to the front door and caught sight of two figures darting behind his truck. The front door was out. They’d be picked off as soon as they set foot outside. He bolted back to Emily and pulled her into the laundry room.
“What are we going to do?” she gasped.
He grabbed the rope connected to the attic stairs and yanked. Once he had the steps down, he pulled her in front of him. “Climb!”