Chapter 9 - The People on the List
The paramedics took Iris upstairs with an officer. She fought them until I promised to call as soon as I reached Ashbury House.
"Don't promise he's okay," she told me. "Promise you'll find out."
"I will."
Adrian offered his car. I took Mabel instead. She knew the old building's electrical drawings; years earlier, Vale Hotels had contracted her to review the site's heating system.
"Their backup generator vents through a shaft beside the sixth floor," she said, pulling up a plan on her tablet. "If somebody runs it without checking the exhaust, residents could get sick fast."
"The lights are already out," I said.
"Then we call that in too."
I relayed it to 911. The dispatcher confirmed a fire unit was heading there and told us not to enter an unsafe building.
Rain streaked the windshield. Adrian kept calling his uncle. Grant refused every call.
Finally Adrian said, "I should've gone to Ashbury myself."
"Yes."
He turned toward me, surprised I hadn't offered comfort.
"You put your face on the fundraiser," I said. "That means something."
"I trusted Grant."
"June trusted a letter with your name on it. Her kid's paying for that trust right now."
We turned onto Ashbury Street. Thirty-one families were supposedly gone. Yet windows glowed with phone flashlights all across the brick building. People waved towels through the openings.
A Northline van blocked the loading area. Its driver saw Adrian's car and immediately put it in gear.
Mabel read the license plate aloud while I called it in.
A little boy appeared at a sixth-floor window. He held a white pillowcase against the glass.
"That's Ben," I said.
May you like
He vanished. A moment later a woman screamed his name.
Then smoke began creeping from the ventilation opening above their window.
