The Drowning Man (10 page)

His lungs were heaving and sweat poured off his forehead by the time he reached the top floor and nearly tripped over the legs of the dummy sprawled on the floor in front of him. It was all too clear that he wasn’t back to normal physically and had pushed himself too hard during the earlier exercises, feeling the need to prove himself. Not smart. Now he had to make up for his slow start in the tower. Scooping up the dummy, he jumped halfway down the flight of stairs.

He stumbled outside, pale and shaky and probably on the verge of heatstroke. He dropped the dummy. Someone handed him a sports drink and he gulped it down and pretended he was fine.

“Jesus,” the chief muttered, making a note on the clipboard. “That's the fastest I've ever seen anyone make it out of there.”

Buildings and trees rushed by in a blur of colors. The truck's siren screeched as they roared towards the scene. As glad as he was to finally be on the way to a real fire after a boring first week back, Trent's stomach felt as jittery as the very first time he’d been a probie on the way to his first call.

Chief Culmer sat in the front seat next to the driver, talking into the radio. Trent and the other five guys in his crew sat behind him in the jumpseat area. Ted sat on Trent's left where Chad used to sit. Though he couldn't ask for a better man to take Chad's place on the crew, it still hurt. Hopefully it wouldn't take long for them all to become a solid team. Time would tell.

They braked to a halt behind the engine company's truck in front of a downtown restaurant with offices on the second floor. The sidewalk was filled with diners and staff from inside who quickly stepped aside to let them in.

“Nothing fascinates or horrifies like seeing a fire,” Ted muttered as they pushed their way through the crowd of onlookers.

Flames had moved from the kitchen into the dining area of the restaurant. Half of the company headed towards the fire, the other half started up the back stairs. Trent stood in the middle of the dining area, unable to move and filled with doubts. He wanted more than anything to help his friends, to search for survivors, but he couldn't move. His feet were frozen in place. His company was moving on without him. Someone turned back around. All Trent could see was a tall blur in a yellow jacket with a helmet. The man was speaking to him.

Trent blinked, forced himself to pay attention. Focus. Breathe. People could be trapped, dying. The fire had to be stopped. His senses sharpened.

“You good?” Ted asked.

“Yeah, let’s kill this beast.”

Ted nodded and together they went deeper into the building. Trent paused for a second in the stairwell, then threw himself into the fight. He heard a low growl, realized it came from his own throat.

Back at the station, Trent stood under the scalding spray of the shower, head down and one hand braced against the wet tile wall, long after the others had gone. He coughed and spat, trying to get the taste of charred wood and plastic out of his mouth. Even after a long shower he could still smell it, taste it, feel it in his pores. It was home.

He toweled off and made his way downstairs. He stood in the hallway outside the kitchen listening to the familiar voices talk about him.

“He hasn't missed a beat.”

“He's reckless.”

When the subject changed to the latest movie releases, he went inside. There was a brief pause in the conversation. Trent ignored it and fixed himself a plate. A few guys nodded at him as he sat down at the table. The conversation died out, and the only sounds were the clink of silverware and water running as the probie started washing dishes. Trent wanted to say something, anything, to get things back to the way they had been.

He wasn’t really hungry, but forced himself to take a bite of the lasagna. He’d need his strength to do the job. He hated feeling like everyone was walking on eggshells around him waiting for him to lose it. Not going to happen.

He took another bite. “Damn, this is good. Chief, you take cooking lessons while I was gone?”

Nervous laughter

“You make dessert, too?”

Real laughter

“Fuck you, Barlow,” Chief Culmer said.

He was home.

Trent saw Lora before she saw him. His gut still twisted in that first instant as the painful memories rushed back, then he forced himself to study her profile. He couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was, even dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. And here she was, in the middle of aisle 7 of Super Foods. He moved towards her before he could think about what he was doing.

Lora sensed someone watching her. She walked around a cracker display featuring a cardboard cutout of a NASCAR driver and snuck a glance across the next aisle. She nearly dropped her basket of groceries. Trent Barlow was the last person she expected to see in her neighborhood grocery store. She continued to watch him. He looked like a different person from the one she'd seen in the courtroom. Not quite like the carefree young man he'd been in the photos in her case file, but he looked good. Damned good. And he was walking towards her. She nonchalantly picked up a can of soup and pretended to study the label.

“Detective Tatum?”

She looked up and smiled, setting the can back on the shelf. “Mr. Barlow.” She shifted the basket to her left hand and reached out to shake his hand. “It's good to see you.”

“You too.” He paused, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I want to apologize about what happened in the hospital. I didn't mean to offend you when you were just doing your job.”

“Well, I certainly never had that effect on a man before, but given the circumstances…” She shrugged and looked down. Damn, he had nice calves, all hard muscle covered with dark hair. She shook her head. What the hell was wrong with her?

She raised her eyes. He had an amused smile on his face and was looking into her basket. She felt her face flush at the contents: bagged salad mix, diet pop, pretzels, a pint of ice cream, and half a dozen chocolate bars. She ran a hand through her hair. “Yeah, it's not much fun shopping for one.” She gestured towards his basket. “What've you got in yours?”

He held it closer. Peanut butter, boxed macaroni and cheese, Power Bars, and deodorant. He laughed. “Between the two of us we almost have a meal.”

“At least I have vegetables in mine.”

He laughed again. “Let me take you to dinner. Because I really don't want to eat mac and cheese again tonight.”

“Okay,” she said because she couldn't think of a logical reason not to.

She put the ice cream back in the freezer section. They checked out and stowed the remaining groceries in their cars.

“Feel like a walk?” he asked.

“Sure. There are lots of good places to eat nearby. I’m sure we can find something.” And, she wasn’t sure how she felt about being so close to him in the tiny space of a vehicle. Maybe she could walk off some of her nervous energy.

As they walked in silence, Trent ran the past few minutes over in his head. He'd certainly never meant to ask the detective to dinner. At least it would be an interesting evening. He looked down and wished he'd taken a shower after his run. He was still dressed in his running shorts, a very old ratty T-shirt, and trail shoes. He ran a hand over his face, feeling the rough stubble.

Lora on the other hand, looked amazing. How strange that after all the time he'd spent avoiding her face, he couldn't stop staring at it now. Every detail fascinated him. He tried to picture her at her desk in the police station working on his case. What an odd thing to think about.

He hadn't noticed how tall she was earlier. He was 6' 2” and she didn't have to look up much to talk to him. He also had the distinct impression that she could easily kick his ass if she wanted to. He could feel her apprehension, the toughness, probably because of the way he’d acted towards her the last time they’d been together. He struggled to think of something to say to put her at ease.

“You live near here?” he asked, because he couldn't think of anything better.

“I live on First.”

“Nice area,” Trent said.

“Yeah. I always liked the riverfront. How about you?”

He figured she already knew his address, had maybe even been there. Not wanting to pursue that line of thinking, he answered. “Couple blocks down the road. On East Fifth. No river view from my apartment, but there is a nice park with running trails close by.”

He snuck glances at her as the conversation trailed off while they walked. Her face didn’t have the same effect on him this time. This time there was no fear, no flashbacks. The longer he looked at her, the more he felt the urge to get closer to her.

“You’re staring at me,” she said.

“Sorry.” He gave her what used to be his charming smile, wondered if it would still work.

Trent nodded at a bar and grill in the next block. “How about greasy burgers and fries?”

She finally gave him a smile. “I think you read my mind.”

Lora expected dinner to be awkward, but after a few drinks, beer for him, coffee for her, they both relaxed and were soon talking about everything and anything. Well, everything except the case and what had brought them together in the first place.

She wondered if they'd talk about it someday. He probably needed to talk about it. For reasons she couldn't even begin to understand, she wanted to be the person he talked to. At least seeing her didn’t freak him out any more. That was a start.

She watched him coat two French fries with ketchup before eating them. For some strange reason the sight of him eating French fries turned her on more than she ever would have imagined. Oh for God's sake, she thought, forcing herself to concentrate on her own food.

But Trent Barlow was much more interesting to look at. He looked healthier. His hair had grown out a bit and he'd bulked up. He used humor, he asked her questions, he smiled at the appropriate times, but his dark eyes still had that wary, haunted look. Occasionally he'd get a faraway look in them and she knew he was thinking of his days in captivity. How could something like that not change a person? Thinking you were going to die at any minute, only to be resurrected over and over again.

She wanted to be the one to make it go away. She wanted to see his eyes like they'd been in the pictures his brother had given her – happy and without a care in the world.

Though he appeared to be handling things, she had to wonder. She knew firsthand how fine someone could look on the outside while struggling so hard on the inside to keep it together. Did he have nightmares? Did he wake in the middle of the night gasping for breath alone and scared? Her stomach clenched. If he did, she wanted to be next to him.

She shook her head and took a long drink of her now cold coffee. Jesus. If he knew what she was thinking … He was giving her a curious look.

“Want a refill?” the waitress asked, coffee pot in hand.

“Sure.”

And just like that, the moment was gone.

Trent knew the instant he entered the burning house that someone was dead. He and his crew battled back the flames and found the two bodies in the bedroom at the back of the one story house. One moving, one not.

None of the guys spoke on the way back from the call. Trent could still see the young woman's eyes as she took her last breath. She'd died in his arms. He'd tried. He'd tried so hard to save her. The man had already been dead, but the woman had been clinging to life when they'd arrived. Newlyweds, a neighbor had said. Probably fell asleep with candles burning.

He'd forgotten how hard this part of the job was. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't save everyone. But dammit, why was he still alive if he couldn't make a difference? If he couldn't save them?

Now, exhausted physically and mentally, he rolled from one side of his bunk to the other, trying to get comfortable, trying to block out the day's images. He didn't succeed. The memories and images came anyway, some recent, some old.

Part of him still wondered if he deserved what Caroline had done to him. He'd be lying if he said there weren't times he'd blamed himself for Eddie's death. If only he'd looked for him sooner. If they hadn't gone to the stream that day … He'd told himself hundreds of times that it wasn't his fault. It was an accident. Maybe Eddie got caught in the undertow, maybe he'd gotten a cramp. Hell, maybe he'd just tried to hold his breath a minute too long. They would never know for sure and knowing wouldn't change what happened anyway. And yet, the guilt lingered. Or maybe something in him needed the guilt. Needed to continue punishing himself just like his father had all those years ago.

He thought of Lora, how when he'd been with her he'd felt like a normal man again. He reached for his cell phone. No. His hand dropped back to the bed. That would be a mistake. They'd had dinner one time, that didn’t give him the right to burden her with his problems. She’d wasted enough of her time helping him.

Exhaustion finally won out and his eyes closed.

Trent saw the article on the front page and left the paper lying on the kitchen table in the firehouse. The headline was enough. He didn't need to be reminded of his most recent failure.

Not up to socializing, he retreated to the workout room at the end of the hall. Scott gave him a quick glance as he got off the treadmill, grabbed his towel, and headed for the door. The other guys respectfully left him alone when he worked out. Some were a bit intimidated, maybe even afraid, of the intensity with which he attacked the weights, similar to the way he was when he was fighting a fire. Whatever. At least no one bothered him.

Trent finished his set of bench presses and shook his head as he took off the hundred and eighty pounds. Forty-five pounds short of what he'd been lifting. He was making progress, just not as fast as he would like. He needed to get back in shape as quickly as possible. And the physical activity helped relieve some of the pressure and anger at the changes in the house. Not only Chad's absence, but the change in the overall vibe of the company. It would never be like it was before, no matter how much any of them wanted it to be. But maybe, someday, it would be good again.