But she did not go back to the office.
She went a number of blocks north, pulling up in front of a mostly bald lot that had been cleared with all the detail orientation and conscientiousness of a toddler. The debris, which was mostly building crumble and nonbiodegradable trash, was all small-piece and accessorized by weeds, the kind of stuff that would be there for a generation or longer.
Or until somebody built something else on the site, and when was that going to happen in this part of town?
Getting out, she walked across the street and stood on the sidewalk, hands on hips.
She could still smell that final fire she had gone into. Feel the weight of her turnouts and her air tank. See the flames and the smoke that had trailed away from the warehouse at first and then later, after the wind change, come inside. With total clarity, she remembered Emilio’s voice as he reminded her of protocol, and how she had told him to leave her.
Walking forward, she triangulated what she recalled of the layout and stopped at what was her best extrapolation for where she had been trapped in the collapse. God, she could picture precisely that desk, the beam, the debris, the fire and the smoke. The pulling at her stuck hand, the pushing at what had trapped her.
And then Danny Maguire breaking through the wall of orange flames, that chain saw in his hand.
No wonder they had worked so well together on the job. You were not allowed to bring accelerant directly into a known blaze, so gas powered-anything was a no-go. Except he’d known that she was trapped with time running out, the building had wood supports, and a chain saw was so much faster than an axe.
She would have done the same for him.
Lowering her eyes, she stared at the prosthesis that was attached halfway up her forearm. It was her day-to-day one, the one that was a flesh-colored random hand, the one that people like Dr. Delgado, the vet, didn’t always notice.
For no good reason, she lifted the thing and ran her real fingertips over the contours of the frozen digits, the static palm, the nonmoving knuckles. She felt nothing—and not just on the surface, which had no nerves to register sensation. She had no emotion about the thing, either. It was what it was, a part of her now that needed to be, by definition, as indigenous as all the stuff she had been born with.
What the hell did she have to get upset about?
On that note, she thought of Danny, and wondered how long it would take before she didn’t have an urge to see how he was doing. They were strangers now—not even professional colleagues—and what did they have in common outside of firefighting? The fact that they both kept going in their separate lives made sense and it was arguably healthy after all the trauma. If you got into a car accident, it wasn’t like you were required to turn the burned-out, mangled shell of the totaled sedan into a planter in your front yard so you could revisit it every single day.
Besides, if the female in that drunken voicemail was any indication, it was pretty clear what kind of self-medicating he was using.
Whenever her guilt got to stinging, she needed to remind herself that Danny was just fine and so was she. And with the passage of all the hours, days, weeks, and months since that warehouse fire, their lives were in different places and that horrible eternity when she’d been trapped in the hot spot was gone.
You had to keep going.
Staring over the cleared site, she thought . . . yup, just as the remnants of the warehouse were gone, so, too, the events had been struck out of the timeline of both their lives.
So, too, the connection they had once had.
Back behind her, her phone started ringing in the car. After a moment, she pivoted away and returned to her vehicle to answer it.
Chapter 12
“You got a cigarette?”
As Danny tossed the perfectly reasonable out there, Emilio looked at him like he’d suggested the guy give him a block of cocaine.
“What?” Danny muttered.
“You’re sitting on the back of an ambulance—”
“So I’ll light up over there.”
“—and I’m treating you for smoke inhalation.”
On that note, Emilio tried to put the oxygen mask back in place, but Danny was having none of that. Shoving the guy off of him, he braced his dirty hands on his knees and triangulated his torso to give his lungs more space to inflate. The wheezing was not something he could hide, and to cut off conversation, he stared at the steaming pair of houses. They looked like a bomb had been dropped between them, the kitchen side of the one on the right and the living room side of the one on the left all blackened, dripping, ruined.
As 499’s pumper pulled out, he cursed. That was his ride.
Emilio gave the mask another shot. “Come on, Danny. You’re wheezing—”
“No, I’m not—”
The coughing jag that hit him put liar to that one pretty good, but he was done with this. Getting to his feet, he yanked his turnout suspenders back on his shoulders and leaned down for his insulated jacket.
“Mind if I catch a ride on the ladder?” He clapped the other guy on the shoulder. “Great. Thanks. I’ll ride in the back—”
“You’re not going to the stationhouse.”
“The hell I’m not. Fire’s out and I’m—”
“Heading for the ER.”
“Amy, don’t be codependent. It makes your ass look big.”
“Don’t argue and I won’t have to be.” Chavez pointed off to the side. “Besides, you got to deal with him now. Have fun with that.”
Danny closed his eyes. And then faced off at what was coming on the attack.
Chief Tom Ashburn was bull-in-a-china-shop pissed off, his too-much-like-Anne’s eyes glaring, his prematurely gray hair standing up straight as if he’d been dragging a hand through it, his target site trained on Danny and Danny alone.
“Don’t even start,” the chief snapped as he arrived with all the subtlety of a grenade going off in a fireworks factory. “You will be seen at the ER. And now, not later.”
God, he reaaaaaally wanted a cigarette. “You can’t force me to do anything.”
Tom ignored him. “Chavez, place the patient on a gurney and head to University’s ER with him.”
As Amy dropped an f-bomb, Danny shook his head. “I’m not going—”
“Yes, you are—”
“I’m fine—”
From under his arm, the chief brought out a singed folder. “No, you’re off duty and on probation pending a psych evaluation.”
Okay, that got his attention. “What the hell are you talking about?”
The yellow folder swung right up to his face. “You went back into that building for this. You risked your own life for papers—”
“It’s her math homework. So I had to go and get it—”
“You risked your fucking life for nothing after you dumped your oxygen supply with her—”
“She’s asthmatic! She couldn’t breathe!”
“—and I’m tired of telling you the rules just to have you fuck them off because you have a death wish.”
Danny dropped his voice and leaned in. “My roommate Jack has been out to this house twice in the last three months. And you know damn well he’s fucking SWAT, not a beat cop. That kid has nothing but her homework, do you understand? Her father is in jail, and her mother’s been skating the system. So hell yeah, I went back in and got it—and I would do it again.”
“There’s always a reason.”
“That girl has nothing!”
“And you are out of a job unless you go get eval’d and are cleared.”
Danny narrowed his eyes. “Look, why don’t you just be a man about this, okay.”
There was a beat of silence. And then Tom stepped forward and met Danny eye to eye. “Excuse me.”
Danny glanced at Chavez, but the guy was no fool. He was shaking his head and backing off so fast, he tripped over his own feet.
Making sure his voice didn’t carry, Danny said, “You’re still pissed about what happened with Anne. Why don’t you just admit that to my face instead of playing this backdoor-game shit.”
The chief looked down at the ground, his jaw tightening. When his eyes lifted, they were cold. “I will not have a firefighter on my service that is a danger to himself and others. You will get that fucking psych eval or you can walk. Those are your two choices—and after that little crack about my sister, I care even less about the outcome. Chavez, get this fucking patient in the can!”