Through the Fire (6 page)

She tightened her lips and looked away.

“You keep trying to fit me into some preconceived notion of a husband in your head.”

“Obviously a role you’ve never seriously considered.”

“You have a ring, don’t you?” This plane was edging toward a nosedive.

She twisted and pulled on her finger and held the diamond up in front of me. “What is this to you?”

I shook my head. “It’s your engagement ring.”

“
My
engagement ring?”

“Okay. Ours.”

“For engagement?”

“Yes. What? What are you getting at, Christine?”

“Exactly that. That is all this has ever been to you. A never-ending engagement.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Did you ever intend to actually marry me?”

This was ridiculous. “What do you think I gave you the ring for?”

“I don’t know, Aidan. Why haven’t we set a date? Are you afraid? Why can’t you move forward with anything in your life?” She looked down at the table. “You can’t, can you? Not with your father. Not with the case. Not with us.” She held the ring over the wineglass and dropped it, clinking to the bottom.

“You’re not giving me a chance.”

“A chance for what, Aidan?” Her lips pressed in a frown. “You’ve lost my heart.”

I was supposed to fix this. “Let me find it again.”

She shook her head.

“Let’s start again.” I bent my head to catch her eyes. “Let’s . . . we can build again.” I—”

“Nothing’s going to change. Maybe you can’t see that. But I can.”

“Just believe in me.”

“Why, Aidan? Why do I need to believe in you? What do you even believe in?”

Her words stung. “I . . .”

“I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. I can’t . . .” She exhaled and crossed her arms.

I dropped to the couch and rubbed my eyebrows with the heels of my palms. She was just quicker to acknowledge what we’d both known for some time. What I’d always known deep in my heart.

“If you’re not obsessing about your father’s case,” she said, her voice steady and chilled, “you’re working another extra shift, running into fires with no regard for reason or your future. You can’t raise a family that way. You’re in a self-destructive cycle, and I won’t be a part of it. Not anymore.”

Wind funneled down the chimney.

“Your father’s dead, Aidan. Just accept it.”

Anger surged through me. I snatched the wineglass and threw it in the fireplace. It shattered against the brick, shards refracting and flashing yellow.

I stood shaking, turning my hands up in the heat and light, staring at the scar in my palm. I clenched my fist. “I miss him so much.”

Hot tears welled. Everything in my life was slipping from my grip. Out of my control. “He . . . he always knew what to do.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “With him . . . in everything. It didn’t matter. The world could crumble but he would be standing.” I squeezed my eyes shut and tears streamed down. I opened them to see the picture on the mantel of me at five years old, on my father’s shoulders, wearing his helmet, him grinning that unfailing grin. Shadows flickered. “But it did crumble.” I dried my cheeks with my sleeve. “And now he’s gone. And no one knows why.” The fire popped. Sap bubbled.

I turned around to an empty living room, the kitchen door hanging ajar.

CHAPTER
10

C
aptain Butcher’s voice called over Station One’s loudspeaker, “Roll call.”

I crossed the third-floor dayroom and pushed through the blue swinging door to the kitchen. The air wafted warm, filled with the din of laughter and clattering pans and coffee pouring into ceramic cups and the underlying hum of two commercial refrigerators. The north wall was all windows and the city sprawled out beyond with new morning mist and dark diesel exhaust and the quiet motion of small cars on linear streets. Across the room, a red sign with white lettering hung on the pole-hole door:
In Case of Fire Use Stairs.

“A-O.” Lowell Richmond leaned his chair forward from the west wall, his wispy brown hair tousled, face unshaven, with purple crescents doubled under his eyes. He shifted the newspaper into his left hand and extended his right. “Glad to see you survived your purgatory.”

I smiled and shook his hand. “Man, if you only knew. This place keeping you busy enough?”

“It’s been crazy.”

I lowered my voice. “How’s Hartman? Heard anything?”

He nodded. “I went in yesterday with a couple guys. He’s still on a vent.”

My heart sank.

“But—” He coughed. “They said that’s only to fully drain the blood from his lung cavities and let the ribs heal up. So they’re keeping him sedated.”

“So, he’s not . . .”

“Gonna die? No way, man. You guys got him out in time. CT scans are otherwise clear. Just the hemothoraxes and a bad concussion.”

I took a deep breath and looked around the room. Chris Waits, a stocky Asian man with a black handlebar moustache, strolled over from the coffee maker.

Lowell leaned back against the wall. “Don’t let the second-floor Admin screw with you, man. I know you guys were just trying to do your job.”

“What’s up, Mr. O’Neill,” Waits said with a pat. “Good to have you back.” He nodded toward Lowell. “This guy already boring you with stories about his tank?”

I looked at Lowell. “You bought a tank?”

His eyes lit up.

Waits sat and placed his mug on the table. “You know, and I’ll say it again, there is the world we live in and the world Lowell lives in.”

Lowell leaned his chair forward and lifted his hands. “What?

C’mon, Chris.”

Beside Waits sat John Peyton, a tall, solidly built man in his thirties. He looked up from his paper with eyes tinted red at the edges. He nodded with a smile. “Hey, Aidan.”

Lowell looked as if he was fighting to hold back a grin. “And you know what the best part about it is?”

Waits lifted his coffee mug. “I don’t know, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“It’s street legal.”

Waits stared at him. “You’re kiddin’ me.”

Lowell shook his head and laughed, tapping the table with his free hand. “And it fits in a standard-sized garage.”

“Now I know you’re crazy.” He took a sip.

“No, see, it’s a light-armored reconnaissance tank. They’re made for cruising over any kind of terrain. It—” He glanced in his empty coffee cup. “Where’s our new new kid?”

“Right here, sir.” A slim blond fireman stood at semi-attention by the table holding an empty coffeepot.

Peyton looked at him sideways. “At ease there, son. We’ll be in the area all day.” He set down his paper. “You from Hartman’s class?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How is he?”

“I saw him this morning, and it’s looking like he may come off the vent soon.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Waits shifted in his seat. “What’s your name?”

“Brian Sortish, sir.”

“Sortish?” Lowell said.

“Good to meet you.” Waits shook his hand. “I’m Chris. Now, let me ask you a question.” He motioned across the table. “You believe anything this guy says?”

Sortish laughed and threw an uncomfortable glance at Lowell.

“See,” Waits said. “Even the new kid thinks you’re full of—”

“We got everybody here?” Butcher called out, holding a sheet of paper.

Sortish extended his hand to Lowell. “Hi, I’m Brian.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lowell said. “I was right here when you just told Waits. You know how to make coffee?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why don’t you?”

I scratched my forehead and glanced at the floor. Requisite rite of passage for a probie.

Brian nodded and spun around. “I’ll get on that.”

Waits shook his head. “Sheeze, Lowell. You’re such—”

“Okay, people, let’s get this roll call done so we all know who’s where and doing what.”

“Don’t worry, Butcher,” Lowell said. “We’ll help you out. You are currently in the kitchen, and today you get to ride on the big red engine with all the yellow hoses. And if you’re really good, maybe Aidan will even let you talk on the radio.”

A swell of laughter rolled through the room. Peyton shook his head and smiled at his coffee.

“Thank you, Lowell.” Butcher stroked his moustache. “Now that I am apparently all squared away, let’s go ahead and run down rig and house-duty assignments for everyone else.”

Lowell leaned on the table. “You got that coffee made, Swordfish?”

“Sortish,” he said.

More chuckles.

“I’m working on it.”

“New kid’s got coffee, Butcher.”

“Yes, all right. Thank you again, Lowell.”

Waits lowered his newspaper and looked at Lowell. “Would you shut up?”

Lowell deferred and sat back.

A voice spoke from a far table. “And tell him not to make it rocket fuel like Kat likes it.”

Operator Katrina Breckenridge glanced up. She leaned back on the island, silver-streaked hair tied in a ponytail, stirring a spoon in a mug. She squinted her eyes at the man who’d made the remark. “You just can’t take it, you big—”

“We’re never gonna get through this,” Butcher said.

“All right, all right. Sorry, Mark.” She smiled at him. “You go ahead.”

“Engine One is myself, Kat’s driving, Aidan O’Neill and Timothy Clark are the firemen. Truck One is Captain Sower—”

“Where is he, anyway?” Kat said.

“He’s tied up talking with Mauvain.”

“New info on the fires?” Waits said.

“You know”—Lowell leaned forward— “Mauvain called up here about ten minutes ago, and I swear I could smell the starch through the phone.”

Laughs rumbled. The kitchen door swung open and the room fell silent.

Battalion Chief Mauvain stepped in, his football-sized brass belt buckle leading the way. “Morning, all.” His tone held the icy candor of someone whose ears had just been burning.

Behind him, appearing to be half his width, stood a slender woman in a white lab coat. A jolt shot through my solar plexus. She had azure eyes that glowed in a frame of light chestnut hair. I was confident that I didn’t know who she was, I had no idea of her name, and yet my instinct was that somehow I knew her. Her simple elegance and beauty left Mauvain looking like a shaven Cro-Magnon in a frumpy white badge shirt.

The chief cleared his throat and turned to Butcher. “Captain, mind if we move this meeting into the dayroom?”

CHAPTER
11

I
crossed to the wall opposite the windows and sat back in a mustard yellow lounge chair, the kind with a chrome frame and rubber cushions. The more senior guys took up residence in the newer recliners along the walls. Mauvain was all about throwing his weight around, and by changing rooms he’d shifted the momentum. His smug expression showed that he knew it.

Miss Lab Coat stood in front of the chalkboard, her arms crossed. Thin white sunlight traced her profile, lending a crisp brilliance to her features. She scanned the room before catching my eye. I smiled, but she looked away, staring at the glass-framed fire patch collection on the far wall as though it had morphed into butterflies.

My cell phone vibrated.

“Hello?”

“Aidan? It’s Cormac. I’m so glad to hear your voice! Where are you?”

“Hey. I’m actually at work.”

“At work? I can’t believe it. I came back to the hospital and they said you’d already left. I couldn’t believe it.”

Timothy Clark hit my arm, nodding toward Miss Lab Coat. “You know her?”

I shook my head.

“I hated to leave,” Cormac said. “They were talking like the coma could be permanent.”

“Come on, now,” Timothy whispered. “Do tell, do tell.”

“Cormac, can I call you back? I’m in a big meeting right now.”

“No problem, bud. It’s just great to know you’re alive.”

“Absolutely. We’ll talk later.” I hung up and pocketed my phone.

“Beauford Maddox Biltman,” Mauvain boomed, commanding the room like a Shakespearean orator.
He’ d make a good Macbeth.
Or maybe Richard the Third
. He held up a photo of a firebug I recognized from a couple years earlier. “Convicted arsonist in the Fourth Street fires, if you recall.”

Lowell laughed. “If that ain’t an arsonist’s name, I don’t know what is.”

Mauvain flashed a look at Lowell like an old cat toward a puppy. “Due to certain legalities, a wealthy family with skillful lawyers”—he was counting off with his fingers—“the overcrowding problem at the jail, and I don’t know, probably a politician in there somewhere, Biltman, believe it or not, is now free.”

Voices muddled through the room.

Waits raised his hand.

“Quiet, please.” Mauvain pointed to Waits. “Chris?”

“How long has he been out now?”

“Three weeks.”

Kat retied her ponytail. “Is he living downtown again?”

“My understanding is that he’s renting a one bedroom off of East Taylor.”

Waits folded his arms across his chest. “Right back in District One.”

“Yes,” Mauvain said. “Which is why I wanted you all to see this. I know we’ve been getting beat up around here. Some of you haven’t been home for four or five days. But I need your eyes and your vigilance. These fires are not only increasing in frequency, but with an intensity that I personally have not witnessed in my career.” He motioned to Miss Lab Coat. “In lieu of Investigator Blake Williams, who is still out at the scene of last night’s fire, I’ve asked recently hired prevention analyst Julianne Caldwell to share a bit about the latest test results that support the mounting case for Biltman as the prime suspect.”

Julianne stepped forward. Her quiet demeanor gave way to a confident delivery. “Essentially, the latest lab tests conducted affirm that the recent fires are in fact arson, and are related to each other.” Her voice stirred in me the sense of hearing an old, old song, like one from an heirloom music box that only comes out at Christmastime. “We still know very little about the incendiary method being used. But we do know this—recent fires have been burning hotter and faster, and the risk for flashover is exponentially higher. One second the fire is in its incipient phase, the next second the entire place flashes into flame.”

Timothy Clark leaned forward. “So, we don’t know what’s causing it to do that?”