Chapter 3

The locked gate stood between us and the only unburned road.

I searched the gear we had thrown into the Jeep. No bolt cutters—only the jack handle, tire iron, and a short tow strap. Behind us, the wind shoved flame through the brush with a sound like a freight train.

“Thread the iron through the chain,” Elena said. “We can twist it against the post.”

Her hands shook as she fastened Bruno’s lead to the seat bracket, but her voice stayed level. Trusting her experience gave us a better chance than letting fear overrule it.

I forced the tire iron between two links and fitted the hollow jack handle over it. Elena leaned beside me. Metal bit into my injured palm, heat pulsed across my back, and together we turned until the gate latch tore from the rotting post.

We squeezed the Jeep through and drove uphill.

For six minutes, the road seemed like an answer. Then the engine coughed. The engine warning flashed, the hood shuddered, and the Jeep stopped beneath smoke-darkened pines.

Elena bent forward, wheezing. Her inhaler produced one weak puff before it emptied.

As a school nurse, I recognized breathing too shallow to fill her lungs. I loosened her collar and checked my phone. Two 911 calls failed; Ethan’s number connected.

He answered on the fourth ring. Voices and an evacuation announcement echoed behind him.

“Claire? Where are you?”

Hope rose before I could stop it. “On the old maintenance road above Canyon Drive. Elena can’t breathe. Tell the checkpoint to send firefighters.”

“I’m already outside the evacuation zone.”

“Good. Then you’re standing near people who can help us.”

A pause opened between us. In it, I heard Madison ask whether he had found the insurance papers.

“That road isn’t an approved route,” Ethan said. “If I report you there, they’ll ask why you ignored the barricade.”

“Because the highway was burning.” I pressed two fingers to Elena’s pulse. “Just give them our location.”

Static cracked across the line, but his next words came through clearly. “I can’t deal with this now. Call 911.”

The signal vanished.

I stared at the dead screen. In the driveway he could have claimed panic; from safety, with deputies close enough to hear, his refusal was a decision made twice.

Somewhere below us, a siren gave two short blasts. Bruno lifted his head. His ears came forward, and the trembling in his legs stopped.

He pulled against the lead.

“That was his search signal,” Elena whispered. “County teams used two blasts when handlers were separated.”

I unclipped him. Letting an injured, aging dog disappear into smoke felt reckless, but keeping the only trained searcher beside a dead engine felt worse. “Go find them, Bruno.”

He vanished between the trees.

I kept Elena upright and counted her breaths. The forest stayed still except for falling ash. One minute passed, then another, and doubt tightened around my ribs: perhaps I had sent away the one life we had managed to save.

A bark broke through the smoke.

Bruno returned limping beside two firefighters. One carried oxygen; the other raised his radio and reported two civilians and a dog.

The next clear light I saw shone from a hospital ceiling. My hand was bandaged, an oxygen tube rested beneath my nose, and night rain tapped the window.

My phone lit on the bedside table with Ethan’s first message.

*Send me the insurance policy number.*