Неизвестный - 2. Beyond The Breakwater

Her irregular breathing was the only sound.

The room was nearly dark, and it was difficult to see more than shadows shifting in the hazy half-light. The chair where she sat, however, was speared by a shaft of moonlight, and when she looked down, she caught glimpses of the woman’s eyes gazing upward, avidly watching as the effect of what she was doing with her mouth rippled across Bri’s face in the flickering illumination.

As the pressure coalesced into a fist deep inside, Bri’s thighs quivered and her fingers clenched. With each long sweep of the warm tongue, the muscles in her abdomen contracted. She arched her neck and groaned softly as the escalating strokes beat against a particularly sensitive spot. Staring into the mesmerizing eyes, Bri watched the golden head rock between her thighs.

“Carre,” she whispered.

There was no answer.

Relentlessly, the perfect rhythm drove her ever closer to explosion. When her hips lifted and white heat spiraled along her spine, she muttered hoarsely, “I’m gonna come in your mouth.”

The insistent lips sucked at her, pushing her beyond volition. Her body tensed, grew rigid, then crumpled as she shouted sharply in surrender. Gasping, she twitched helplessly as the orgasm ripped through her.

“Bri!”

Thunderous pounding on her door pulled Bri awake, the last remnants of her nocturnal climax still humming through her veins.

“What?” she croaked. She glanced around the room in confusion. The night through her window was pitch-black. She cleared her throat and sat up quickly. “Yeah?”

“Un-ass that bed, Officer,” Reese said sharply. “We need to roll.”

Still a bit shaky, Bri grabbed the nearest thing she could find, which turned out to be a pair of faded blue jeans, and slid them on. Getting her feet under her finally, she grabbed a corduroy shirt from over the back of a chair and shrugged into it. Buttoning it with one hand, she jerked the door open with the other and stared up at Reese. The sheriff wore jeans as well, with a khaki uniform shirt. Her badge was clipped to the shirt pocket, her automatic holstered on her right hip.

“What’s going on?”

“Grab your equipment,” Reese ordered. “There’s a fire in Truro, and they’re asking for help.”

Well before they screeched to a halt behind a long row of official vehicles, it was easy to see the flames shooting into the sky from a totally fire-engulfed building. Fire trucks fronted the burning structure, a confusion of hoses spewing water in crisscrossing arcs onto the disintegrating roof. Firefighters, EMTs, and law enforcement officials hurried back and forth in the parking lot in front of what had once been a three story structure.

The Truro police chief spied Reese and waved her over. “Conlon! Good Christ, this place has gone up like a matchbox in less than five minutes. We haven’t had time to evacuate the neighboring motels. I’ve got people working on both sides of the street, but the main priority is that motel right next door. They’ve got forty-five units, most of them full, and we’re not sure everyone’s out yet. I don’t have enough people for a room-to-room.”

“Roger. We’re on it.”

Bri followed Reese as they ran toward the adjacent motel. People streamed past them carrying suitcases and belongings in a mad exodus. A cluster of cars inched along bumper-to-bumper trying to get out of the narrow parking lot, creating a logjam at the exit to Route 6.

“Bri!” a familiar voice called.

Bri looked to her right and saw three other officers rushing toward her, one of whom she knew well. “Allie!”

“What’s the plan?” Allie asked breathlessly, falling into step along side Bri. “We’re with you, my chief said.”

Just at that moment, Reese stopped suddenly and started issuing orders. “You two,” she pointed to the two officers in Wellfleet uniforms, “start on the far end of the ground floor and check every unit. Every unit. Break the doors down if you have to. Tell anyone still in there not to bother with their cars, but to proceed on foot to the highway.” She looked at Bri and Allie. “You two take the upper floors,” she indicated with a nod of her head toward the outdoor hallway running the length of the second floor of the motel. “Make it fast. The wind’s picking up, and there are already sparks on the roof.”

Within minutes, men, women, and children in various stages of undress began pouring from the last of the occupied motel units as officers pounded on doors and shouted instructions. In the distance, approaching sirens signaled that more fire trucks and emergency personnel were enroute.

“Bri, look at the roof,” Allie cried as they jogged down the corridor from the unit they’d just checked toward the next.

Glancing up, Bri was shocked to see almost the entire cedar-shingled surface dancing with flames. “Jesus, it’s moving so fast. Hurry up!”

Smoke poured from the units where doors stood open, but there were at least a dozen rooms which were still closed and presumably occupied.

“Why aren’t they coming out?” Bri shouted as her eyes began to burn with the thickening clouds of smoke that roiled around them.

Coughing, Allie replied, “Maybe some of them partied too much tonight and didn’t hear the sirens. Or maybe there’s more smoke in those rooms than we think. Maybe they can’t get out.”

“There’s just a couple more,” Bri gasped. “Let’s get them open.”

From the ground, coordinating the evacuation efforts, Reese watched Bri and Allie race toward the last four units on the end of the building which was most heavily involved by fire. She turned to the motel owner who had been pacing anxiously by her side. “Are those units occupied?”

“Just the one on the far end,” he said, his voice high-pitched with tension. “I can’t remember who’s in there.”

Even as they spoke, part of the roof fell in.

Reese grabbed a megaphone from a nearby fire captain and raced toward the stairs that led up to the second floor exterior hallway about fifty feet from where she had last seen Bri and Allie.

“Parker,” she yelled into the megaphone. “Parker, clear the area ASAP. Parker, do you copy?”

By the time she reached the second floor, her lungs were burning and her eyes were streaming with tears. The smoke was so thick she couldn’t see through it, so she ran in the direction she had last seen the trainees.

From the ground, the fire captain couldn’t see anyone at all on the second floor when the rest of the roof collapsed in a plume of sparks and flying ash.

Tory was on her way to her Jeep when the cruiser pulled into her driveway. Reese had only been gone ten or fifteen minutes when Tory had decided that if the fire were serious enough for them to call out reinforcements, they might need her as well.

“Nelson,” Tory called as he stepped from the car and walked toward her. “I was just getting ready to go.”

The security lights had come on under the eaves of the house when he had pulled into the driveway, and she could see his face clearly in the falsely bright illumination. His expression caused a cold hand to close around her heart.

“What is it?” Tory cried, trying and failing to keep her voice level. She braced her hand against the side of her vehicle, her legs shaking nearly uncontrollably. This can’t be happening. Not again. I can’t do this again.

“There are four buildings involved already.” Nelson’s voice was flat, his eyes eerily empty. “A lot of minor injuries. The motel next to where it started is almost gone.”

“Nelson,” Tory said harshly, recognizing that he was very nearly in shock. She wanted to scream, feared that she might. “What’s happened?”

“Bri…”