The Rescuer (4 page)

He held out his hand. "Jack wil love it for his birthday."

"Oh, that's awful and so perfect." Meghan passed him the phone.

"Hi, Jen. Yes, buy and ship it."

"It comes close to matching that set of painted eggshel salt and pepper shakers he gave you last year. I saw this and thought of you," Jennifer said.

"You're flea market shopping?"

"I'm making a house cal on a fourteen-year-old who likes to paint. She's actual y pretty good. The fish painting, however, was a joke for her brother, and in the end she couldn't go through with wrapping it."

"I love this kid. Trust me; I'l have no problem giving it to Jack."

The radio up front sounded dispatch tones. "Jen, I've gotta

go-"

Meghan scrambled off the bumper and grabbed the bucket

of water. "I'l dump this for you."

"Thanks, Meg." Stephen shoved back supply cases and slammed doors. He piled into the driver's seat while Ryan ran out the ER doors and scrambled into the passenger seat.

Ryan cal ed up the address and details. "A fire on Lexington

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Street. Better rush it. They've already gone to a second alarm so it must be big."

Stephen punched on the lights.

Meghan stood holding the bucket and watched the ambulance pul out. The man needed a haircut. She had to think of something that could be improved on, for the bottom line was when Stephen smiled at her, her day turned over. That smile made it impossible to look away. Then he'd notice she was looking at him that way and his eyes would fil with laughter. He'd inevitably tease her about it.

He didn't see her as anything but a friend. It was for the best: Stephen wasn't interested in settling down. As far as she knew he had never set foot inside a church, and she couldn't imagine him ever being content to live in a smal town that only had a volunteer EMS crew. She'd watched him grow into a tal strong handsome guy who inspired confidence by his presence. His years as a fireman had forged his muscles into an impressive build, and the last years as a paramedic had added a touch of gray now streaking through his brown hair.

She watched him play basketbal with his brothers and thought he was the best looking of the O'Mal ey guys.

She was probably a bit prejudiced there.

Meghan washed out the bucket with the garden hose hidden by the planters and flipped it upside down to dry. She lifted a hand to the cop car pul ing into the circular drive. She hoped Stephen's date with Paula Lewis fel through again. The doctor was nice and likely to turn Stephen's head, but she was heading to California in a couple months to take a position with a university medical group. Meghan didn't want to listen to Stephen's inevitable, "I miss her" remarks.

The guy was lonely. She knew him too wel not to know that.

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He always kept dating relationships casual and short.

Her mom said he wasn't yet ready to risk his heart-with people or with God. Maybe Mom was right and it was time to let go of her teenage crush. It just felt like a failure to give up on him.

"You know he likes you."

Meghan glanced at Kate O'Mal ey who was strol ing over from the hospital side entrance. "I saw the ambulance heading out," Kate explained.

Meghan grimaced. "Stephen stil sees me as a twelve-year- old."

"Not entirely. He just doesn't think about dating old friends." Kate draped an arm around her shoulders in a show of sympathy. "He notices when you're not at work, keeps tabs on your travels, comments when you are happy or sad. You're in a class by yourself. Think of Stephen as a tree that is inevitably going to fal hard someday. He's looking for something without realizing it's right in front of him."

"Right now I just want him to notice me so I can turn him down."

Kate laughed. "That's my Meg."

"How's the hand?"

Kate moved her bruised fingers. "The ice helped. Next time a kid slams my hand in a door, I'm asking for hazard pay. Come on, let's get a late lunch."

Meghan took one last look at where the ambulance had disappeared and nodded. Stephen would be back after he rescued someone. He just didn't seem to realize how much he needed rescuing himself.

SILVERTON

Ken hung up the phone in his home office and jotted down Friday's temperature and humidity numbers cal ed in from the

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barge floating down the Mississippi. The captain was a fel ow amateur weatherman. The weather map on Kens table showed isometric lines coming close together at Davenport. The coming storm tonight would be big. He had to get out there. His phone rang as he packed his camera bag. The name on the cal er ID

urged him to answer. "Are we on, hon?"

"Two weeks in the Bahamas." His wife bubbl^l with the news. "Mom loved the idea of coming back to work for a couple weeks. I told you she was bored," JoAnne said. "She'l handle the store. You want me to cal and confirm the tickets?"

"Absolutely. Neil said he'd buy the brooch himself if he couldn't find an immediate buyer for it. Book the tickets and I'l stop by to see Neil this afternoon then make the bank deposit."

"I'm so excited about this."

Ken folded the latest weather map and slid it in his case. "You found the locket and brooch, hon. You should get the vacation of your dreams as a reward.

That and a new dishwasher."

"We might get more for the pieces if we waited a while to sel them."

"We weren't expecting to find real jewelry in that music box in the attic. There's no use being greedy. We'l keep the locket, sel the brooch, and enjoy the honeymoon we never had."

"Okay, I'm cal ing. Are you going storm chasing?"

"Just for an hour. I'l be back before you get home from work."

"Is Meghan coming home or should I cal to tel her the news?"

"She's driving down tonight." His cousin and wife had been best friends since high school.

"I get her for shopping tomorrow. You'l have to take her storm chasing another day."

"How about a tnp to Davenport to shop, then we can keep going to get some pictures?"

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"If the sky looks interesting," JoAnne compromised. "I'l see you in a couple hours."

"Love ya, JoAnne. Dnve careful."

Some things were too valuable to trust to the jewelry store vault. Neil returned the workbench to its original position and earned the hidden ledger over to his desk.

A brooch and a locket... He had to turn the pages back to 1982 to find the pieces. They had been stolen from a couple at the Wilshire hotel in Chicago during a false fire alarm, and excel ent fakes were substituted for the genuine pieces. He vaguely remembered the theft.. .it had been so very long ago. There was no star by the line to indicate the theft had ever been discovered and a police report filed. The lady or her heirs probably stil thought they had the real stones. It was rare for one of his substitute pieces to hold up for twenty years, but it was possible if they were in an unopened jewelry box or a safe deposit box.

He never sold the originals until the thefts were at least a decade cold and never in the same state as they were taken from. Stashing the brooch and locket in the music box as a place to let them cool off had been a bad move. He didn't know when his wife gave away the music box, or to whom, but it eventual y ended up in Ken and JoAnne s attic.

It was only the fourth time in years he'd had to buy back a piece he had original y stolen. He would have to do something about that locket. If JoAnne had taken a fancy to wearing it- He had best make another fake piece and recover the original from her. She wasn't the kind of woman to stay in a smal town like Silverton when a few hours' drive could have her shopping in Chicago or in Davenport. Someone who knew jewelry would find the piece fascinating, and that locket was in a jewelry catalog

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as an interesting piece of work by a French artisan. He didn't want a chance question raised.

Neil flipped past pages of entries and wrote a new line for this purchase. Someday he would have to create a list of where exactly he had stashed al the pieces he had cooling off. It was getting rather hard to remember.

For security reasons, he had never written down that information. It was ofte thing to record al he knew about a piece that had been stolen, another to admit he stil possessed it. He refused to hide pieces at his store, and safe deposit boxes weren't worth the questions. Everyone in town knew he owned his own vault.

As friends in the business died off, he sold fewer and fewer pieces when they reached their decade cold mark. The new generation of young men wil ing to move a valuable piece such as those he acquired had no honor, and Neil refused to deal with a man whose word wasn't good for something. He was too old to spend a day in jail, and his wife needed someone around to take care of her.

He sold enough that they never lacked money, and he had enough pieces to last him through a comfortable retirement. But a man had to keep his hand in the game, and occasional y a col ection was worth acquinng.

Tonight would be profitable.

He took the ledger back to its resting place. Where should he hide the pieces Craig was bringing back?

He needed somewhere special for a special col ection.

35 Two

CHICAGO

he house on Lexington col apsed on itself, flames raging

T

5 against multiple streams of water from fire companies

fighting it. Stephen watched the fire crews from the com- ,|.fort of the ambulance left running to keep the air-conditioning

$on. He was a fireman before training as a paramedic.

He knew

Hthe risks the guys were in from the flames, steam, and heatstroke.

He watched for trouble but was content to be bored.

Firemen rescued people; paramedics kept them alive.

The profession change gave him the greater chal enge.

When the fire was suppressed and they were final y released from the scene, rush hour traffic was wel underway. Stephen and Ryan took up station in a grocery store parking lot on the south end of the district waiting for the next cal . Stephen remembered why he hated the ambulance passenger seat. His knees were crammed against the dashboard, and he was ready to get out and yank the gray leather seat out of the vehicle to find the broken latch that wouldn't give him another two inches of legroom. Ken had been right about the storm. Heavy rain splattered against the windshield, the noise on the roof like crickets slamming into tin.

Stephen ate a bumto, trying not to mess up his new tie.

His

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dinner with Paula was in two hours, and he was stil trying to decide on what to wear. Ryan thought the tie he'd picked up was too upscale for the jeans. A 10-55

dispatch-car wreck with injuries-came as Stephen finished his late lunch. "There's construction on Cline.

You'd better come in from the north on Lewis," Stephen recommended, picking up the radio to confirm their ETA with dispatch. "Unit 59, Roger code orfe* to Cline and Lewis."

Ryan punched on the lights and siren and pul ed out of the lot. By the time he parked behind cop cars and a fire engine blocking off the accident scene, Stephen's knuckles were white on the dash. His partner did not understand Chicago drivers and actual y assumed they would get out of the way for an emergency vehicle.

"Nice driving, ace."

Ryan grabbed his slicker. "I learned it from you."

Stephen barked out a laugh, set down his drink, which miraculously hadn't spil ed al over his lap, and grabbed his own rain slicker.

A red Honda rested thirty feet across the interchange accor- dioned into a blue Toyota. A white van with Flowers and Finery painted on the side had come to a violent stop across the concrete median. Broken glass and a debris trail of headlight fragments and muffler parts marked the point of the three-vehicle col ision.

Stephen spotted two air bags in the Toyota stil inflated from their explosive deployment.

Firefighters were clustered around the crushed red Honda and two EMTs were working at the van. Not enough ambulance crews had been dispatched.

Stephen got on the radio to request two more.

Ryan opened the rear cabinet and grabbed the blue go-case with the airway supplies and trauma dressings. Stephen pul ed out the red case packed with drug and IV supplies. The fire and rescue guys would already have col ars, splints, and backboards out.

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The fire captain met them. "The van driver had a rack of flower vases crash forward and he's covered in glass. We've got a mother and her young daughter trapped in the Honda-the mom is critical; the girl is stable. The Toyota driver walked away a bit dazed."

Stephen absorbed the information. No fatalities; that was a relief. "Two more ambulances are on the way."

"I'l make sure the cops clear a route out of here."

Stephen nodded and headed toward the crumpled Honda.

The fireman helping the driver made room for him.

Thick black rubber mats had been draped over the jagged metal edges to make it possible to reach inside without being cut. As Stephen assessed the unconscious driver's condition, he tried to mental y ire-create what would have happened to her during the accident.

Her car had been hit hard from the side. That impact would have caused her to hit the window and then would have flung her to her left. While she was in motion to her left, her car hit the Toyota head-on. He winced. That meant the lady's left side and rib cage would have been exposed when the steering column came back. He felt careful y where he predicted the worst impact. Broken ribs, internal bleeding, and from the sound of her breathing a partial y col apsed lung.

She was bleeding from a deep gash on her lower abdomen. She didn't respond to his touch-the most dangerous sign of al .

He looked over at the lady's daughter. She was maybe ten, terrified, and because of the way she was pinned, unable to turn her head away from her mom. He smiled, hoping to reassure the child. "My name is Stephen, and my partner Ryan is behind you. We're going to get you out of this car very soon."

"Mom's real y hurt."