DECKER FINALLY FELL asleep a little after one o’clock.
He dozed fitfully for a bit and then woke up coughing. He’d gotten wet yesterday and he was afraid he might have caught a cold.
He drew a long breath and coughed again, this time more violently.
He sat up and gagged, then suddenly lurched to one side of his bed and threw up.
Dizzy, he got to his feet and immediately fell to the floor. He managed to drag himself over to the window, open it, and stick his head out into the rain. He sucked in the chilly, wet air and his fuzzy brain cleared and his nausea passed.
When he brought his head back inside he smelled it.
He lumbered from the room, covering his nose and mouth with his T-shirt.
He pounded on Jamison’s door.
“Alex! Alex!”
When she didn’t answer, he opened the door and looked frantically around.
All he could see was her foot sticking up from the other side of the bed.
This froze Decker for an instant, because that had been exactly what he had first seen when he had discovered his wife’s body at their home back in Burlington.
He raced over to the other side of the bed, bent down, and checked the pulse at her neck. He detected it and she was breathing, if spasmodically. He lifted Jamison up in his arms and rushed back to his bedroom, where he placed her next to the window and held her head out the opening.
She gasped, came to, and looked up at him.
“Wh—”
“Stay right there, keep breathing in. And don’t turn any light switch on. Okay? Any spark could trigger the gas.”
She nodded feebly and Decker ran from the room.
He flung open Zoe’s bedroom door. She was lying in her bed.
“Zoe? Zoe!”
He sniffed the air. It wasn’t that bad in here. Yet.
Zoe slowly sat up in bed. “Amos?” she said sleepily. What’s the matter?”
Decker ran over and opened her window. “I want you to put your head out the window, okay. There’s a gas leak in the house. I’m making sure everybody’s okay.”
“Mommy!” Zoe cried out.
“I’m going to get her right now. Put your head out the window and take deep breaths, okay? And don’t turn on the lights.”
She nodded, jumped up, and ran over to the window.
Decker thundered down the stairs, because Amber’s bedroom was on the ground floor, in what had been a den that they had converted into a bedroom. Its bathroom was down the hall.
He opened the door. “Amber?”
Her bed was empty.
He scanned the floor, then he heard a moan from somewhere. His gaze darted to the hall. He ran back out and looked in the direction of the bathroom.
“Amber!”
The moan came again.
Decker ran down the hall and opened the bathroom door.
Amber was lying on the floor in her nightclothes.
As Decker knelt down next to her, she stopped breathing and went limp.
Decker started gagging again because the volume of gas in the bathroom was so high. He lifted her up and took her outside. Laying her on the porch, he started to perform CPR.
A few moments later he felt a presence next to him. It was Jamison.
“I’ve called 911,” she whispered, staring at her sister.
She knelt down and, synchronizing with Decker’s pushes on her sister’s chest, started blowing air into Amber’s mouth.
Finally, after about thirty excruciatingly long seconds, Amber’s chest heaved up, air gushed out of her mouth, and she retched.
“Mommy!”
They turned to see Zoe racing out of the house. She dropped to her knees and hugged her mother.
“Mommy!”
Amber slowly put an arm around her daughter’s waist. She tried to sit up but Decker gently pushed her back down.
“No, just lie there. The ambulance is on its way.”
It arrived a few minutes later and the paramedics put Amber on oxygen and loaded her onto a gurney. Jamison rode in the back with Zoe. Before the ambulance pulled away, a teary Jamison said, “Thank you, Amos.”
“Thanks, Amos,” said Zoe, still anxiously glancing at her mom.
Decker nodded, closed the ambulance doors, and stepped back as a gas company truck pulled up along with a squad car.
Decker told them about the gas leak in the house and the men hurried around to the back to turn off the gas supply.
Decker recognized the police officer who approached as Officer Curry, the one who had responded when Decker had found the dead bodies.
“You okay?” asked Curry. “You look a little green.”
“I’m good.”
“Gas leak, huh?”
Decker looked at him. “Yeah.”
“That’s pretty unusual.”
“Yeah.”
One of the gas men came back around from the rear of the house and walked over to them looking grim.
“What is it?” asked Curry.
“Somebody tampered with the pressure valve going into the house,” said the man, shaking his head. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Yeah,” said Decker. “We are.”
“I wonder who would’ve done that?” said Curry.
“It might be a long list,” replied Decker.