Chapter 10 - The Chain on the Door
Firefighters arrived as we reached the front gate.
Their captain, Ellis Brown, took one look at the chain across the side exit and started giving orders. I showed him the floor plan while Adrian called out the apartment number.
"Six C. Seven-year-old boy. Breathing trouble. His mother says he's collapsed."
"Let my crews work," Brown said. "And keep the path clear."
Residents crowded the sidewalk in slippers and coats. Others shouted names from upper windows. A woman dialed her father's phone.
"He's eighty-two," she said. "He can't manage stairs alone."
I wrote his name and apartment number on my hand and passed it to a firefighter. Then another name. Then another.
Mabel spoke to the captain about the generator vent and showed him the exhaust shaft. He changed the crew's route. A carbon-monoxide detector was already sounding near the stairwell.
Adrian looked at the padlock a firefighter had just cut away.
"That's our contractor," he said. "Northline."
"They weren't protecting the building," I replied. "They were protecting a lie."
A woman named Mrs. Navarro handed me a paper she'd saved from the lobby. It read: ALL TENANTS HAVE BEEN OFFERED RELOCATION. PROPERTY NOW VACANT.
"I went to their office three times," she said. "They told me there was no money left."
An engine ladder rose toward the sixth-floor window. Ben reappeared, slumped against June's shoulder. Captain Brown's radio crackled. His face tightened.
"Crew Three reports two residents unconscious near the generator shaft."
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Then another firefighter called down from the ladder.
"Captain, there's a second child inside Six C. June says she's never seen him before."
