Moments later, E.Q. heard a loud bang from inside the building, followed by a crash. Mary Anne Filigree dove out of the back door and started screaming.
E.Q. turned off the hose, dropped it, and ran to her.
"Help me!" she said. "It's your father!"
Without hesitation, E.Q. followed her into the house.
The downstairs office was filled with smoke and flames. Mary Anne headed straight for the stairway and charged up it, taking the stairs two at a time. E.Q. did the same.
The studio apartment on the second floor was further along than the office on the first floor had been. As E.Q. rounded the banister at the top of the stairs, he stepped into a roiling, crackling inferno blazing away in every inch and crack and corner.
And right in the middle of it burned his father.
Max lay on the
