Chapter 66

  JACOBI DISCONNECTED the phone call, leaving static in my ear and a god-awful gap between what he’d said and what he’d left out.

  “There’s been a fire on Missouri Street,” I announced to the girls. “Jacobi told me to come home!”

  Cindy gave me the keys and we piled into her car. I floored the accelerator and we bumped down the twisting roads of the backwoods of Olema and out to the highway. I called Joe as I drove, ringing his apartment and mine, and I rang his cell, pressed redial again and again, never getting an answer.

  Where was he? Where was Joe?

  I don’t ask God for much, but as we neared Potrero Hill, I was praying that Joe was safe. When we reached Missouri at Twentieth, I saw that my street was roped off. I parked in the first empty spot, gripped Martha’s leash¹, and dashed up the steep residential² block, leaving the girls to follow behind.

  I was winded when I caught sight of my house, saw that it was fenced in by fire rigs, patrol cars, and bystanders filling the narrow street. I frantically³ scoured⁴ the faces in the crowd, saw the two female students who lived on the second floor and the building manager, Sonya Marron, who lived on the ground floor.

  Sonya reached through the crowd and gripped my arm, saying, “Thank God, thank God.” There were tears in her eyes.

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “No,” she said. “No one was home.”

  I hugged her then, relieved at last that Joe had not fallen asleep in my bed. But I still had questions, a ton of them. “What happened?” I asked Sonya.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  I looked for Jacobi, but I found Claire shouting at the fire captain, “I under-stand it may be a crime scene, but she’s a cop. With the SFPD!”

  I knew the fire department captain, Don Walker, a thin man with a prominent nose, weary eyes peering out from the soot⁵ on his face. He threw up his hands, and then he opened the front door. Claire gathered me under her wing, and along with Yuki, Cindy, and Martha, we entered the three-story apartment house that had been my home for ten years.

1 leash   

n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住

参考例句：

• I reached for the leash,but the dog got in between.我伸手去拿系狗绳，但被狗挡住了路。
• The dog strains at the leash,eager to be off.狗拼命地扯拉皮带，想挣脱开去。

2 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

3 frantically   

ad.发狂地, 发疯地

参考例句：

• He dashed frantically across the road. 他疯狂地跑过马路。
• She bid frantically for the old chair. 她发狂地喊出高价要买那把古老的椅子。

4 scoured   

走遍（某地）搜寻（人或物）( scour的过去式和过去分词 )； （用力）刷； 擦净； 擦亮

参考例句：

• We scoured the area for somewhere to pitch our tent. 我们四处查看，想找一个搭帐篷的地方。
• The torrents scoured out a channel down the hill side. 急流沿着山腰冲刷出一条水沟。

5 soot   

n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟

参考例句：

• Soot is the product of the imperfect combustion of fuel.煤烟是燃料不完全燃烧的产物。
• The chimney was choked with soot.烟囱被煤灰堵塞了。