Smoke Alarm (A Martha Gunn Mystery, 4),Used

Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Smoke AlarmA Martha Gunn MysteryBy Priscilla Masters Severn House Publishers LimitedCopyright 2012 Priscilla MastersAll rights reserved.ISBN: 9780727881991CHAPTER 1Thursday, 24 February 2011, 11.38 p.m.The smell of smoke seeped into her dream, teasing around in the air, swirling like mist over water. Still in her dream she sniffed and smelled and wondered what could be burning. In dreams we use and translate our senses, adding little pieces of fiction to rationalize it all. And so it was with her. She sniffed and seemed to smell wood smoke, even seeing the flames, crackling and spitting at her like a firetongued cobra. Still in her sleep, she smiled. It reminded her of something pleasant. A barbecue on a summer's evening. Roasting pork. Now her dreams took flight across the oceans and deposited her elsewhere, somewhere equally pleasant, to a South Sea island, waving coconut palms fringing a sparkling sea. In her dream, Christie Beech fumbled at the connection until she remembered, while still the charcoal burned. She had read, somewhere, that the scent of human flesh cooking smells just like that roasting pork. Cannibals from the South Seas, she mused dreamily, called edible man Long Pig. She smiled into her pillow. Long Pig.At some point the smoke drifted into her conscious mind, so she felt alarm in that last second before waking. She sat up. And began to cough. Then she heard the noise. Crackling, roaring, glass breaking and a terrified scream.And finally she was properly awake, knowing that this was no dream but reality. If she didn't get out of here she would soon be Long Pig.She choked on the smoke of her own home which was being destroyed. She had to find the door. Get out.Where was the door?The light didn't work she hadn't really expected it to. She put her hand out, tapping for something familiar to anchor her bearings, picturing the layout of her bedroom. She was sliding out of bed to the floor. Smoke rose, didn't it? So she must creep along the floor underneath the smoke. She crawled around her bed. Now the door should be in front of her. Her eyes were smarting as she tried to peer through the smoke. If only she could see something familiar: the mirror, a picture. Feel something solid: wall, window, door. Help!The noises were increasing now. Glass cracking, flames devouring. Someone screaming. Not her.It was that that galvanized her into desperation. 'Addie!' she screamed over the noise. 'Addie.' She could not call again. She was coughing too much. Something terrible tugged at her mind. 'Father?'But her brain, like her room, was filling up too quickly with smoke. If she did not escape now she would die.Long Pig.Die along with her family? Jude, Addie, Father? All Long Pigs? It was enough to send her, on her hands and knees, to where she thought the door was. But when her hands reached out they touched not a door handle but the feet of the chest of drawers. 'Wrong place,' she spluttered, angry with herself. 'Wrong place. Try again.' She coughed again, only this time she heard her lungs dragging the smoke in, her breath rasping noisily. She tried to wipe her eyes, tears of frustration bathing them. Oh, if only she could see. But rubbing only irritated them so she could not keep them open. They streamed. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and tried to fight off the rising panic, tried to think. Rationally. There were two chests of drawers in her bedroom, both along the back wall, one either side of the bed which she believed she had rounded. If she had touched the one near the door it should be ... here. She groped around for it. If it was the other then in her confusion she had got out of the wrong side of the bed and was nearer the window. Too high to jump out. She would have to skirt round the bottom of the bed again to reach the door. But where was she? Near the door or the window? One meant possible life; the other pr