72 Hours (A Thriller) (47 page)
Read 72 Hours (A Thriller) Online
Authors: William Casey Moreton
Raj raised the gallon jug and splashed fuel onto Dunbar’s torso.
Then splashed it liberally onto Dunbar’s face.
Dunbar jerked his head side to side, grunting through the mass of cotton plugging his mouth.
The first jug emptied quickly.
Raj grabbed two more.
Within a few minutes the walls were dripping with fuel, the gray concrete stained with broad patches where the liquid had immediately soaked in.
The basement reeked of gasoline.
He worked his way up the stairs, moving quickly and methodically.
Dunbar made his best attempt at screaming, but managed to produce only a pathetic muffled grunt.
The fumes were already making his head swim.
His chest heaved and his pulse accelerated as he realized what was about to happen, and that there was no escaping his fate.
Raj shut the door at the top of the stairs, leaving behind the condemned man in the darkness below.
He reached the front door and opened it.
Saw Archer and Lindsay waiting in the Peugeot.
He turned his back to them and stood in the open doorway, facing inside at the murky outline of furniture and the upstairs banister and the deck beyond the vertical blinds that overlooked the dark water of the inlet.
He had a single wooden match in the pocket of his shirt.
He used his thumbnail to ignite the tip, and let it flame up tall before pitching it inside.
The wavering flame dropped onto the hardwood floor where the gasoline had puddled.
The fuel ignited like someone had flipped a switch.
The fire hissed across the length and breadth of the house as it gained strength and speed.
Flames seared up the walls in a matter of seconds.
Raj took several steps back and watched the blaze expand.
Watched the curtain of flames rise.
He listened to the crackle and roar as the structure was consumed.
Then he turned for the car.
The Peugeot navigated the narrow dirt road through the forested landscape in the milky gloom of twilight.
When they stopped to open the gate, they could already see columns of smoke from the lake house rising above the treetops into the night sky.
*
*
*
It was best to leave Amsterdam immediately.
They took a train to Rotterdam, riding in silence as the dark fields and distant silhouettes of homes and communities fluttered by outside the windows of the coach car.
Raj was the first to part ways.
He bought a ticket to Frankfurt.
Archer and Lindsay sat together on the train and whispered as they passed from country to country and crossed the French border.
She held his hand until she fell asleep.
She slept all the way to Paris.
And when she awoke, sometime around dawn, she glanced over at him, but Archer was already gone.
To Shana, my muse.
Copyrightv © William Casey Moreton, 2012 All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
72 HOURS is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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