Chapter 2 - THE BOY STILL INSIDE
The first explosion came from the west wing at 10:42 p.m.
Clara was carrying a tray through the gallery when the windows shook.
Someone screamed.
The lights flickered.
Then smoke rolled beneath the ballroom doors.
Within seconds, the elegant Sterling Foundation dinner dissolved into chaos.
Guests rushed toward the courtyard.
Security guards shouted directions.
Musicians abandoned their instruments.
Eleanor appeared near the French doors, clutching her jewelry against her throat.
“Everybody outside!”
Clara immediately thought of Leo.
She dropped the tray.
“Where’s his aide?”
Nobody answered.
Clara grabbed a security officer.
“Where is Leo?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were assigned to the upstairs corridor.”
“I was ordered downstairs thirty minutes ago.”
“By whom?”
The man hesitated.
“Ms. Sterling.”
Clara turned.
Eleanor was already outside.
Smoke thickened above the staircase.
Clara ran toward it.
A guard caught her shoulder.
“You can’t go up there.”
“Leo is upstairs.”
“We’re clearing the building.”
“He can’t clear himself!”
The guard released her.
His face changed.
Nobody had considered that.
Clara raced into the courtyard.
Nearly two hundred people stood beneath the night sky.
Richard Sterling had not attended the dinner.
He was in Chicago.
Eleanor stood with several relatives near the fountain.
Leo was nowhere among them.
“Where is he?”
Clara shouted.
Eleanor looked irritated.
“Who?”
“Leo!”
For one second, nobody spoke.
Then a cousin said, “I assumed the aide brought him.”
The aide was not there.
Neither was Leo.
Clara ran toward the entrance.
Eleanor grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t go back in there.”
“The west corridor is already caving in.”
Then they heard it.
Faint.
High above the crackling flames.
“CLARA!”
Leo.
Clara ripped herself free.
“You knew he was inside.”
Eleanor’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But Clara saw it.
Not surprise.
Fear.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Leo screamed again.
Clara tore the shawl from her shoulders and pressed it across her mouth.
Two guards tried stopping her.
She slipped between them.
Then she ran into the fire.
The grand staircase was already covered in smoke.
She climbed using the railing to guide herself.
“Leo!”
“CLARA!”
His voice came from the top floor.
Not his bedroom.
The old west nursery.
That made no sense.
Leo had no reason to be there.
Flames crawled along the ceiling.
Clara reached the corridor.
Leo’s specialized chair sat outside the nursery.
Empty.
Her heart stopped.
“Leo!”
“Inside!”
She grabbed the door handle.
It would not turn.
Locked.
Clara coughed.
“Leo, move away from the door.”
“I can’t!”
She struck the handle with a brass candleholder.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The lock broke.
Clara shoved the door open.
Leo was on the floor.
His support braces were gone.
His emergency transfer board was gone.
The room’s wheelchair was gone.
And a leather belt had been fastened around his ankles.
Clara stared at him in horror.
Leo was crying.
“She told me it was safer in here.”
“Who?”
Before he answered, Clara saw something beside the window.
A gasoline container.
May you like
Then Leo whispered the name.
“Aunt Eleanor.”
