"Let her escape," Toms said. "I don't care. You can take her place."

She rolled over hard and threw him off. When she did, she inhaled smoke far too quickly and started to cough again. The vision that she had just regained went hazy again as she scooted herself back, gagging on the smoke and wondering if she was going to suffocate or burn to death first.

My gun, she thought. If he gets it before I do, maybe a shot to the head would be faster.

As if birthed by that thought, the room was suddenly filled with gunshots.

Two of them.

Avery tensed up, waiting for the pain, sure that she was dead.

Three seconds pa.s.sed before she realized that she was still breathing.

"Avery," a voice said. It was a voice that made her nearly start crying. She might have done just that if the smoke hadn't been strangling her.

It was Ramirez.

She felt his hands on her shoulder. "Can you get up?" he asked.

She nodded and got to her feet. She swayed a bit but steadied herself against him. "I can't see. He sprayed me with something...some sort of...ah G.o.d. Where's Sophia?"

"She's fine," Ramirez said as they made their way to the stairs. "I sent her running out the back door. The living room floor upstairs is already starting to buckle and burn. Come on...you reek of lighter fluid. Let's get you upstairs before it's too late."

She could barely see anything as Ramirez led her up the wooden stairs. She banged her shins a few times and almost fell down but Ramirez caught her. When they were up the stairs and into the hallway, she was able to take her first whole breath without the hazard of smoke.

She was half-dragged through the kitchen, where the back door was standing open. The fresh air was a blessing...like cool water in the desert.

"Wait," she said. "Water...for my eyes."

Ramirez quickly took her to the kitchen sink. As he helped her splash water into her eyes, Avery realized that she could hear the place burning. Boards were popping and the structure was creaking all around them. Slowly, the smell of smoke started to meet them in the kitchen.

As Ramirez gently helped her clean her eyes, the first thing she saw clearly was his face. Knowing that it was a foolish waste of time, she flung her arms around her him and kissed him. She again almost resorted to tears, which was unlike her. She managed to hold them back as they broke the kiss and hurried outside.

Avery collapsed on the gra.s.s in the backyard not too far away from Sophia. Ramirez sat beside her in the gra.s.s and she listened as he called the fire department to report the fire and then called O'Malley.

Avery was in and out, coughing one moment and feeling hazy the next. She was pretty sure she pa.s.sed out somewhere between Ramirez looking over Sophia and hearing the first wail of sirens approaching them in the distance.

"You almost died," Ramirez said, looking down to her.

"I know," she said. "It all happened so fast and I lost control."

"I know. That's how you are. But you're alive. That's the important thing."

Avery nodded and looked over to Sophia. Her eyes were open, looking up the darkening evening sky. She reached out and took Sophia's hand.

"How are you doing?"

Sophia tried to speak but only cried.

It was the only sound in the yard until the first of several fire trucks pulled up three minutes later.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

Avery sat at the table, O'Malley and Connelly on the other side facing her. Nothing much had happened in the two weeks that had pa.s.sed ever since she'd made it out of Roosevelt Toms's house. In fact, the only thing that felt different to Avery was the sore and discolored scar on her leg. She'd managed to come out of the inferno with nothing more than a second-degree burn and fatigue brought on by smoke inhalation.

Outside of that, most everything was the same. That included the decision that O'Malley had given her to make sixteen days ago.

She tried to focus, to push the flashbacks of the flames out of her head.

A promotion, she thought. I like what I do now. If I take the sergeant position, I'll have to deal with more politics. But the respect...the sense of accomplishment...

"Avery?"

It was Connelly. Every now and then when he was at his most sincere, he would call her by her first name. Never O'Malley, though.

"Yes?"

"This is your decision," he said. "You will not be looked down upon if you choose not to take it. And if you do take it, it would take effect at the end of next week."

"That's right," O'Malley said.

Avery shrugged. "I just don't know. It seems...too unexpected, I guess."

O'Malley sighed and leaned forward. "This isn't about what happened in that house, is it?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"You almost died," he said. "If Ramirez had been ten or twenty seconds later, you would have died. I've been there before. It scares the s.h.i.t out of you. And there's no shame in that."

"No. It's not that."

O'Malley nodded. "So...is this a no?"

Avery gave a thin grin. Under the desk, her burn scar itched. "Is this a one-time offer?" she asked.

O'Malley and Connelly exchanged a look and shrugged at one another. "Honestly, probably not," O'Malley said.

"Then it's a no for now."

Both men nodded in unison. She was pretty sure they had been expecting it. O'Malley drummed his hands on the table and then cleared his throat. "Connelly, let me talk to Black in private, would you?"

Connelly took his leave without a word and closed the door behind him. For a moment, O'Malley studied her with great interest.

"Have you gone to see Sloane Miller since you came back to work last week?" he asked.

"No."

"Do you think you should?"

Honestly, she had no idea. It seemed silly, but she also knew the severity of the situation she had been in. Looking back on it was like h.e.l.l itself, really.

"And is Sophia Lesbrook still texting you?"

"I haven't gotten a text from her in three days. I think she finally wants to put it all behind her."

Sophia had texted Avery almost continuously during the first week. Avery was pretty sure it was probably Sophia's way of trying to rationalize what had happened to her. Sophia had not been as fortunate as Avery; when all was said and done, she'd suffered three third-degree burns on her right arm, one on her back, and a second-degree burn on her scalp. She had been overly thankful during those first few days and had texted Avery as if they had been lifelong friends who had endured a trauma together.

"You okay?" O'Malley asked.

"Yeah," she said, blinking the thoughts away.

But really, she was scared. She'd almost died. And it was hard to accept.

Avery felt the scar still itching under the table. The scar scared her, too.

And so did Ramirez.

She'd tried denying it all week long but she was becoming fairly certain that she was falling in love with him. If she'd needed one final thing to drive it home after all of their time together, it had been the surge of relief and utter trust that had swept through her when she'd heard him speak her name in that smoky cellar when she had been blinded.

She felt the need to tell him but knew it would be a bad idea. It would change not only their personal relationship drastically (perhaps, she thought, even end it) and would wreck their working relationship.

Thinking of him, she suddenly did not want to be in the conference room with O'Malley. She stood up and looked thoughtfully down at O'Malley.

"I appreciate the opportunity you've given me, but I'm not ready for it yet. But thanks for the trust and the respect."

"You've earned it," O'Malley said. "Now get out of here. I'll check in on you tomorrow. And I hope you'll make an appointment with Sloane."

"I will," she said as she headed for the door, walking on a leg that she was starting to think might itch for the remainder of her life.

One thing she'd learned while in the hospital was that her first reaction had been correct: the man in the house had been Roosevelt Toms. He had been living under the alias of an old roommate, Jason Inge, for about eleven months-apparently around the time he had started to prepare himself for the killings.

He'd died from Ramirez's gunshots. One to the center of the head, the other a bit higher. He'd also been shot two other times by Avery's gun, once in the shoulder and once in the thigh. His body had been pulled from the wreckage after the fire department had extinguished the fire. He'd been very badly burned but not nearly as badly as the people he had killed.

Avery hated that she thought of Roosevelt Toms whenever she saw Ramirez now. It was currently happening as they sat in her apartment and had dinner. Ramirez had brought Chinese takeout. They had plans for an intimate night later on, but she wasn't sure it was going to happen.

Yes, he was scaring her, too. She didn't know if she had the energy to love someone right now. But G.o.d, it was nice to be around him.

What's a girl to do?

"What are you thinking about?" he asked her over their Moo Shoo Pork.

"Roosevelt Toms," she admitted.

"You've got to stop that," he said.

"I know. But I can't help it. I almost died and you had to kill him. I mean, he was...he was a-"

"He was a man with a very unfortunate history. We've been through this. His father died and was cremated when Toms was young. Toms resented his mother for it, especially when she made him scatter his ashes. I can recite it over and over again, Avery. I can even recall the grandmother that spoke to us and gave us the information."

She smiled at him, appreciating how well he knew her. He was running through the bio they had compiled on Toms because he knew it would take logic and the repeating of information to finally get her unstuck from thoughts of Roosevelt Toms.

"Thanks for sticking with me through this," she said. "I know it's a lot. And I know that I haven't always treated you the way you should be treated."

"Avery?"

"Yes?"

"I care a lot about you. And unless I hear it from your lips that you don't want anything to do with me, I'll always be here for you. However you need me. That's a promise."

Yeah, I'm falling in love with him.

She reached out and took his hand. "Thank you," she said, looking into his eyes. She thought the night might end up in the bedroom after all and- Her cell phone chirped from the living room as a text message came in.

"One second," she said. She got up from the table and retrieved her phone. Her heart soared a bit when she read the name above the text display.

Rose.

Beneath it was a simple message that made Avery wonder what she had done to deserve the good fortune that seemed to have stuck with her after coming out of Toms's house. The potential promotion (which she had turned down), Ramirez sticking by her side, and now this.

The text message read: I figured it's time to see you somewhere other than the hospital. Sorry I've been a b.i.t.c.h. I'm lonely and bored and Marcus-less tonight. Wondering if I could come over for wine and a cheesy movie.

While she was pretty sure she was falling in love with Ramirez, it wasn't even a close call. She took her cell phone to Ramirez and showed it to him. He chuckled when he was done reading it, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and stood up. As he started to box up his remaining food, he said, "Say no more. Girls' night. I get it."

"Do you?" Avery asked.

"Yeah. I know how much you want things right with her. I know it's been killing you that she hasn't reached out since she came by the hospital to see you. Have fun."

He means it, she thought.

She smiled back at him and covered the few feet between them. She cupped her hand to the back of his neck and kissed him hard. Within seconds, the fierceness of it dissolved into something softer, something more pa.s.sionate. When it broke, they were looking into each other's eyes.

And she saw that he was scared, too.

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!.

CAUSE TO FEAR.

(An Avery Black Mystery-Book 4).

"A dynamic story line that grips from the first chapter and doesn't let go."

--Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan (regarding Once Gone).