Scorched Eggs Read Free

her.”
    Doogie’s eyes widened in surprise and he gave a sharp nod. Then, quick as a wink, he grabbed the fire chief and pulled him into a fast conversation.
    â€œYou see?” said Suzanne. She still had a firm grip on Winthrop’s arm. “They’ll get Hannah out. She’ll be okay.”
    Winthrop just nodded woodenly as if in a sleepwalker’s trance.
    The firemen shot thick streams of water at the building now, trying to beat back the flames. As water gushed from fat, brown hoses that crisscrossed the street, the fire hissed with fury but seemed to slowly retreat.
    â€œI think they’re gaining on the fire,” Suzanne said to Jenny, who’d taken up a spot in the front lines next to them.
    â€œI hope so,” she said.
    Two firemen hastily donned protective gear—full breathing apparatus and special asbestos coats. Then, after a hasty conference with their fire chief, they plunged into the burning building to make the daring rescue.
    They were the brave ones, Suzanne thought. They were the ones who risked their lives for others. God bless and keep them.
    The firemen working the hoses were definitely gaining a foothold on the fire now. Flames were knocked back as charred beams and red-hot embers sizzled and hissed.
    â€œGetting it under control now,” said Darrel Fuhrman, a man Suzanne recognized as one of Kindred’s firemen. He was tall with slicked-back dark hair and eyes that danced with wild excitement.
    Suzanne wondered idly why Fuhrman wasn’t in the fray lending a hand, as she continued to keep her eyes fixed on the front door of the building, waiting to see Hannah Venable come staggering out. Hannah was the sweet-natured clerk who had manned the front desk at the County Services Bureau for the past fifteen years. She answered phones, kept the books, and handed out brochures on how to grow snap peas, raise baby lambs, and put up fruit jams and jellies without giving your family ptomaine poisoning.
    Antsy and nervous now, Suzanne moved forward. She could feel the heat from the fire practically scorching her face, like having a too-close encounter with Petra’s industrial-strength broiler back at the Cackleberry Club. What must the firemen be feeling inside, she wondered? What must poor Hannah be going through?
    Sheriff Doogie whirled around and saw Suzanne edging up to the barricade.
    â€œGet back!” he yelled, waving a meaty arm. “Everybody, get back!”
    Suzanne retreated two paces, and then, when Doogie turned around, when he wasn’t looking anymore, she crept back to where she’d been standing.
    â€œWatch out!” cried one of the firemen who was manning a hose and shooting water through one of the front windows. “They’re coming out.”
    Everyone peered expectantly through the drift of smoke and ashes. And then, like an apparition slowly appearing from a dense fog, the two firemen who’d made the daring foray into the burning building came into view. Their faces were smudged, their eyes red, their respirators dangled around their necks. But they carried a stretcher between them.
    â€œThey got her,” Suzanne whispered. Everyone in the crowd behind her seemed to relax and heave a deep sigh of relief.
    Sheriff Doogie, who’d been clutching a blue blanket, stepped forward and laid it gingerly over the stretcher.
    Thrilled that the firemen had been able to make such a daring rescue, Suzanne pressed even closer. “Is it Hannah?” she asked Doogie. She crept forward expectantly, practically bumping up against his beefy shoulder now. Surely they were going to load Hannah into the waiting ambulance. They’d rush her, lights twirling and sirens blaring, to Mercy Hospital, where Dr. Sam Hazelet, Suzanne’s
boyfriend
, Dr. Hazelet, would resuscitate Hannah and tell the old dear what an amazingly close call she’d had.
    â€œIs it Hannah?” Suzanne asked again.
    The brim of Doogie’s