Read Online Into the Whirlwind by Elizabeth Camden - Free Book Online

your bags out, but you have to hurry.”

    A quiet rage simmered through Zack as he marched alongside Mollie. At least there was no need to speak to her. The clang of church and school bells pealed nonstop in an effort to rouse thecity. It was nearing midnight and some of the people straggling onto the street were still wearing nightclothes.
    They made good time until they crossed the river, where people fleeing the fire clogged the streets. He and Mollie were like fish battling upstream, as they seemed to be the only two people heading toward the fire. Everyone else was fleeing to the safe side of the river, carrying packs over their shoulders, hauling trunks, navigating around wagons and carts piled high with furniture, bags, even mattresses. With a huge satchel hoisted over his shoulder and a smaller one tucked beneath his arm, Zack plowed forward, Mollie trailing in his wake.
    He didn’t even want to look at her. All he wanted to do was get to her factory, load those watches onto a train, and then see the last of her. The deal to buy the company was over. After this evening, she probably would no longer have a factory to continue making those ridiculous overpriced watches.
    “Could you move a little faster?” she said from behind him.
    It was the third time she had ordered him to speed up. He was plowing forward through a sea of humanity, making good progress clearing a path for her, and she had the nerve to complain. A glance at the skyline showed that the fire was less than a mile from her factory.
    Zack took a shove against his ribs as a man carrying a cage full of chickens toppled against him. He glared back at Mollie. “Would you like to take the lead?” He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one.
    It was a good thing he couldn’t see her. If she had been a man, he would have tossed her out of his house the moment she had called him a liar. As it was, he had stood there in stunned disbelief as a woman he’d idolized for the better part of three years flung vile accusations at him.
    “Mr. Kazmarek, could you please move a little faster? I’ve gotfifteen thousand dollars’ worth of watches in that warehouse. I’ve already accepted that I’m going to lose my equipment, but if we hurry I can save the watches.”
    He stopped in his tracks. He dropped the satchel under his arm and then bent to let the huge bag on his shoulder roll to the ground with a heavy thump. He dragged in a lungful of air. “I’m carrying two hundred pounds. Do you want to help by taking one of them?”
    Before he even finished his sentence, she grabbed the smaller bag and lugged it forward. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she made good progress as she pushed her way through the crowd. “What is in this thing?” she gasped.
    “Papers.”
    She struggled to haul the bag but did not slow her pace. “I know it is papers, I saw your parents stuff them inside. What on earth are they? The key to finding the Holy Grail?”
    They were to his parents. “Never mind what they are. Just keep moving.” He didn’t expect Mollie’s no-nonsense brain to be able to appreciate his glorious, foolhardy parents. Zack had been bailing them out of one disaster after another for years, but the one thing they had done right in their life was in these two bags. And littering the floor of his parlor. Filling his attic. Stuffed beneath beds and in closets. This was not the first time they had been terrified by the threat of a fire, and each time they had packed up their most valuable pages and begged Zack to get them to safety.
    He would do so, even if that meant he had to spend an hour in the company of Mollie Knox. His mother really owed him for this one.
    A gust of wind sent a wave of heat toward him. The fire was moving fast, and a glance at Mollie’s face showed him the terror reflected in her blue eyes. She heaved the bag forward andquickened her pace. No complaints, no whining. She was scared out of her wits but kept moving