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stood a chance of saving it.
    Didn't matter to him one way or the other.
    He ran back through Scoop's vegetables and across the yard. The heat was brutal. Sweat poured down his face and soaked his armpits and chest, plastered his undershorts to his behind. Gunk burned in his eyes.
    He could hear sirens blaring maybe a block away, but he couldn't wait. When he reached the street, he took the front steps two at a time.
    Black smoke drifted out from Abigail's apartment.
    Pulling his shirt back up over his face, he dived into her living room, but he didn't see her passed out on the floor.
    No sign of her in the dining room, either.
    The smoke was thick, dangerous. The fire was close.
    He took another couple of steps, but he couldn't get to the kitchen or the bedroom in back, closer to the fire.
    He was coughing up soot. He felt his knees crumbling under him but stiffened and made sure he didn't collapse. He was fifty and in decent shape. It wasn't exertion that had him out of breath as much as emotion, but he locked the fear into its own dark compartment and focused on what had to be done.
    Get Scoop and Fiona out of the backyard and to the E.R.
    Find Abigail.
    Find the bastards who'd set off a bomb on her porch.
    No question the fire wasn't an accident. Keira and the other woman in Ireland had been right that it was a bomb.
    Two hulking firefighters materialized on either side of him and got him by the arms and led him back outside. He shook them off when they reached the sidewalk. "An off-duty police officer is out back with my daughter. He's hurt bad. She isn't." His eyes felt seared as he pointed toward the gate. "They're behind the compost bin. Scoop. Fiona. Those are their names."
    The firefighters took off without a word. More firefighterspoured off trucks, heading inside and out back. Paramedics arrived. Two police cruisers. Bob looked back at the triple-decker. He and Scoop and Abigail had just put on new siding. A new roof.
    Tom Yarborough, Abigail's partner, a straight-backed son of a bitch if there ever was one, got out of an unmarked car and approached the house. Bob forced himself to think. The FBI, ATF, bomb squad, arson squad--the damn world would be on this one.
    Neighbors drifted out of houses up and down the street to check out the commotion, see if they could help. Find out if the fire would spread and if they should get out of there. Yarborough, already taking charge, addressed two uniformed officers. "Keep them back." He looked at Bob. "You okay?"
    "I'm fine." Bob spat and filled him in on Scoop and Fiona. "Firefighters are back there now."
    "How'd the fire start?" Yarborough asked.
    "Bomb on Abigail's back porch."
    Yarborough had no visible reaction. "Where is she?"
    "Missing."
    "What about Owen?"
    Bob shook his head. "He wasn't here."
    "Is he a potential target? What--"
    "Hell," Bob interrupted. "I have to warn him. Give me your cell phone."
    Yarborough flipped him an expensive-looking phone that Bob immediately smudged with soot, sweat and blood. Scoop's blood.
    "Bob," Yarborough said. "Lieutenant, I can dial--"
    "I don't know his number. You'd think..." He opened up the phone and stared at it. "I should have all Abigail and Owen's numbers memorized. They have enough of them. Cell, here,Beacon Street, Texas, Maine. The way they live. Their luck. I should know their numbers."
    "Owen's cell phone is in my address book."
    Bob squinted at him. "In what?"
    "Let me, Bob," Yarborough said. He took the phone, hit a couple of buttons, handed it back to Bob. "It's dialing."
    Owen picked up on the first ring. "Hey, Tom."
    "It's Bob." A thousand bad calls he'd made in his nearly thirty years as a cop, and he could feel his damn voice crack. "Where are you?"
    "Beacon Street." A wariness, a hint of fear, had come into Owen's voice. "What's going on? Where's Abigail?"
    "Are you safe?"
    "Talk to me, Bob. What's happened?"
    "I don't know. I'm at the house. She's not here. There's been a fire." No point getting into the