by Malone, Cara
“If you want a little post-lunch cardio, go with Carter,” she said, and he raised his hand so they would know who he was. “He’ll show you what we do to stay fit when we’re not fighting fires.” About five people elected for the high-energy version of events, and Simone said to the rest of them, “Everybody else, come with me and I’ll give you the grand tour.”
Her probies started to follow her too and Simone gave them a sharp look.
“You three better know your way around here by now,” she said. “You get to play janitor. Stay here and clean this mess up.”
They retreated back to the lunch tables, and Simone waved everybody else toward the stairs to the second floor. As they walked, Amelia appeared at Simone’s elbow, saying, “Well, someone’s a stern boss.”
“You like that?” Simone asked softly. “Because I can be bossy elsewhere too.”
“That’s… intriguing,” Amelia said, a subtle smile on her lips.
The ideas she was giving Simone was enough to drive her up the wall, but with both their crews around them, this was not the place to start down that line of thought. Better to stick to safe subjects for now.
“Well, you have to make sure new recruits will obey in even mundane situations,” she explained. “One of the most important things in an emergency is being able to trust your crew to do what you tell them.”
“Makes sense,” Amelia nodded. “When my team reports to a scene, they’re dealing with death, but your crew faces life-or-death situations.”
“The good news is we train constantly for it, even after the probationary period ends,” Simone said. “And this batch of probies are significantly less like unruly puppies now… nobody’s peed on the rug since Wednesday.” That earned her a smile from Amelia. “This week has been one hell of a sink-or-swim situation for them.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
They reached the top of the stairs, where there was a hallway with a railing on one side and a row of doors on the other. The doors led to sleeping and living quarters that the firefighters used when they were on call, as well as a conference room and kitchen. Simone walked the ME employees through all of it, then invited everybody to look around for themselves.
Amelia stuck close to Simone. The two of them walked lazily up the hallway, and when Simone was sure no one would see, she grazed her finger across the back of Amelia’s hand, then lightly over her palm.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad you forced us all to take a break,” Amelia said. “And I’ve been meaning to find a way to thank you for sending me dinner on Tuesday. You have no idea how much I appreciated it.”
Simone smiled. “Well, you already thanked me via text.”
“That’s not much of a thank you,” Amelia said.
Simone shrugged. “If you really feel that it was insufficient, maybe you can let me take you out to an actual restaurant once things settle down a little.” Amelia laughed, and it caught her off guard. “What?”
“How is letting you take me out a way for me to say thanks for the dinner you already bought me?”
Simone smiled. “I’ve been dying to spend more time with you ever since we met. I don’t care who pays—a night out with you is a favor in my book.”
“Well, in that case, I accept,” Amelia said. “But I’m paying. And I have to remind you that, mass disaster or not, I don’t have a lot of time for dating. So don’t expect this to turn into anything beyond dinner.”
“We’ll see about that,” Simone said. It was a risk, pushing Amelia when she’d clearly stated her boundaries. But there was no way Simone could feel as strongly about Amelia as she did without picking up on the reciprocal emotions Amelia was sending her way. She didn’t have a lot of free time? Neither did Simone. It was a challenge she was willing to accept.
She felt her body involuntarily orbiting closer to Amelia’s. Yes, if they were alone right now, this moment would definitely end in a kiss. It was a tragedy that it couldn’t.
A few of Amelia’s people wandered back into the hall and Simone said, “If you want, we can set up a practice drill. My new recruits will show you how fast we have to respond when that alarm goes off, even if we’re sound asleep or in the middle of a meal.”
“That sounds cool,” one of the investigators said.
“Can we go down the fire pole after them?” Jordan asked, pointing to the polished steel pole a few feet away from the stairs.
“You can’t come to a firehouse and not use the pole,” Simone said. Then she leaned over the railing and called the probies upstairs. She told them to go into the bunk room and pretend to be asleep, then she and Amelia gathered the whole group in the hallway to watch the practice drill. Simone used an airhorn to simulate the fire alarm, shouting, “Fire drill! Go, go, go!”
Velez was the first out of the bunk room, followed by Williams and then Larson. All three of them had toughened up in the past two weeks, and Simone didn’t have nearly as many reservations about Larson as she did on day one. The tornado had whipped him into shape faster than she could have on her own.
The three of them raced down the hall and, one by one, disappeared down the fire pole to the ground floor. Everybody watched over the railing as the probies dashed over to the fire engine and grabbed their protective gear off hooks nearby. They hustled into heavy coats and oxygen masks, and they were on the truck in a little over a minute.
Simone blew the airhorn again and shouted, “Good job, guys!”
The ME employees clapped for them, then Simone let them try out the pole. Jordan was the first one down, whooping the whole way to the floor. A few people took the stairs, and then it was just Simone and Amelia left on the landing.
Amelia said, “I guess I better take the stairs—I’m in heels.”
“Do you want to try the pole?” Simone asked.
She was standing close to Amelia, closer than she would have with other people around. But they were all downstairs now and Simone could see a glimmer of playfulness in Amelia’s eyes—a new type of desire that told Simone the answer. She dropped down to her knees.
“What are you doing?” Amelia asked.
“Raise your foot,” Simone said. Amelia did as asked, and Simone slipped off one heel. “Go down barefoot and you’ll be fine. If you want me to go first and catch you so you don’t dirty your socks, I’d be happy to.”
Amelia smirked at her. “I bet you would.” Then she raised her other foot.
Simone removed the delicate heel. They were Mary Janes, which made it a little easier to hold on to them. She dangled the straps from one finger. “We better get down there or we’ll miss all the fun.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Damn, she was being flirty. Simone couldn’t wait to take her out to dinner, then see where else the night might take them. “Who do you want to go first?”
“You,” Amelia said. “Show me how it’s done.”
Simone stole a fast kiss, and before Amelia could reprimand her for it, she disappeared through the hole, a grin on her face. She got to the bottom just in time to enjoy the sight of Amelia’s slender leg reaching out and wrapping around the pole. Simone set Amelia’s shoes on the ground, and as she descended, her blouse billowed up and gave Simone a peek at the supple curves of her satiny bra.
Then Amelia landed in her arms, and Simone helped her to step into her shoes.
“Thank you,” Amelia said, her voice breathy and seductive.
Then one of the young women from her office called, “You go, Dr. Trace! I didn’t take you for the adventurous type.”
Amelia arched an eyebrow in the girl’s direction. “Regardless of how it seems to you, I’m not of hip-breaking age just yet, Reese.”
Everybody laughed and the tension melted away. Then Larson, sweating in his protective gear, asked, “What now, Lieu?”
Simone smiled. “Do the drill again. Faster.”
14
Amelia
Amelia was at her desk t
he following morning, catching up on the emails that had come in while she and her staff were at the firehouse. It was Saturday, but they were all still working a lot of overtime to process the tornado victims, so she was in the office too.
She’d been whittling down her inbox for about half an hour when her phone rang. It was so rare lately to for her to take calls as they came in instead of just answering voicemails that she actually stumbled over her greeting.
“Hello?” Well, that was casual. “Err, this is Dr. Trace.”
“Hey, it’s Tom.”
“What’s going on?” Amelia put the phone on speaker, planning to split her attention between the homicide detective and her inbox.
“We got an ID on Jane Doe number eight,” he said, and that got her attention.
“Finally.”
“She’s not local,” he said. “That’s why it took so long.”
“Huh, that’s unusual,” Amelia said. “So, who is she?”
“Megan Hunter,” he said. “A nineteen-year-old student at Granville State University.”
“That’s at least two hours away,” Amelia said. She’d been to medical conferences at that college before, so she was familiar with the area.
“Closer to three,” Tom said, “if you’re not a speed demon.”
Guilty as charged, Amelia thought. Road trips could be so boring, especially when she was in the car by herself. But what was Megan Hunter doing making that drive?
“Do you know what she was doing here?” Amelia asked.
“Not yet,” Tom answered. “Her parents filed a missing person report as soon as they legally could. You have to wait seventy-two hours after an adult goes missing, and Megan left Granville early on the morning of the tornado, apparently without telling anyone where she was going.”
“And she’s got no known ties to this area?” Amelia asked. “No significant other or friends up here?”
“Not that her parents are aware of,” Tom said. “Anyway, they’re coming up to identify the body on Monday. I told them I’d see what I could do about making sure it was ready to be released then too, so they don’t have to make the trip twice.”
“Of course,” Amelia said. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
She made a quick note to herself on a notepad on her cluttered desk, then told Tom what time he should bring the Hunters into the office on Monday. After she hung up, she sat back in her chair for just a minute, imagining how awful it must be to grieve a teenaged child.
It was hard enough just to work on a case like this—she couldn’t fathom being a parent in that situation.
Maybe that was part of the reason she’d never settled down, never contemplated the possibility of starting a family of her own. Besides the fact that she hadn’t found the right woman, and the weight of her work responsibilities, there was a part of her that was afraid of how much it would hurt to love someone and lose them. She saw it every day at work—it destroyed people.
She took a deep breath, clearing her head. There was work to do and no time for all those twisty, complicated emotions.
On Monday in the late morning, Amelia asked Jordan to bring Megan Hunter’s body into the viewing room and make her as presentable as possible for the family. This would be the first time they laid eyes on their daughter since she went missing three weeks ago.
Amelia went out to the lobby so she’d be ready to greet the Hunters when they arrived with Tom, and she pulled her phone out of her back pocket while she waited.
JD #8’s family will be here any minute, she texted Simone. Her name is Megan Hunter.
Amelia figured she might want to know, since it had been Simone’s case too when they were on the scene together. Mostly, though, she was just looking for an excuse to contact her.
They’d been texting ever since they exchanged numbers, but Amelia was swamped with cases and Simone was busy training her new recruits. There hadn’t been time to go out like they’d discussed at the firehouse.
Amelia’s phone lit up with a reply. Glad she has a name again, and that she gets to go home.
Emotion knotted at the base of Amelia’s throat but she had to swallow it down when she saw Tom’s SUV pull into the parking lot. She stood and tucked her phone away, fixing a muted, sympathetic smile on her face.
The couple that walked with Tom to the front door appeared to be in their mid-fifties. The woman’s eyes were glossy and her cheeks were red—she’d clearly been crying recently. The man’s lips were pinched tightly together, rigid like the rest of his body.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Trace,” Amelia said, extending her hand to each of them. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” the man said stiffly. “I’m Bill Hunter, and this is my wife Nancy.” Nancy barely met Amelia’s eyes, clutching a balled up tissue. Bill added, “Let’s just get this over with, please?”
“Of course.”
She led them through the front offices to the viewing room, which was the first room beyond the keypad-locked door dividing the front and back offices. The front could have been any other office building, with groups of cubicles arranged by department. The back was much more clinical and sanitized.
Amelia held the door open and guided the Hunters inside the small room, made even smaller by the hospital curtain hanging from the ceiling to conceal the body until they were ready to see it. There were a couple of chairs and a small end table on their side of the curtain. Tom stepped in behind the Hunters, and Amelia was the last into the room.
Softly, she asked, “Are you ready, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter?”
Nancy leaned against her husband and put one hand to her mouth. Bill spoke for both of them. “Yes.”
Amelia drew back the curtain, revealing Megan on a gurney, a white sheet pulled neatly up to her shoulders. Mrs. Hunter immediately burst into fresh tears and Tom automatically reached for a box of tissues that he knew from experience were available on the end table.
“Yes, that’s her,” Bill said, doing his duty to identify his daughter’s body and then turning away.
Amelia reached for the curtain, but Nancy shook her head. “No, leave it open. Can I touch her?”
“Go ahead, Mrs. Hunter,” Amelia said, and Tom grabbed her a chair.
The grieving mother grasped her daughter’s hand through the sheet and accepted the seat offered to her. Bill continued to stand toward the back of the room, eyes on the floor.
Amelia had seen just about every reaction a person could have in this room, and these two, although displaying very different grief reactions, were typical. She was about to suggest that she and Tom step out for a couple of minutes when Nancy started to talk.
“Damn it, Megan, why didn’t you tell anybody where you were going?”
“She was nineteen, Nance,” Bill answered. “She was an adult. She didn’t need to tell anyone.”
“She always used to tell me everything,” Nancy said, turning to Amelia with a look that begged for an explanation, or maybe just empathy. The sympathetic smile she’d honed over the years fell pathetically short of providing actual comfort, and Amelia felt helpless.
“She was growing up,” Bill said, “asserting her independence.”
“By driving way out here in the middle of a tornado,” Nancy said bitterly. “What’s in Fox City, anyway?”
At last, her husband seemed to break out of his stupor and he went to her. He put his hand on Nancy’s shoulder and said, “That’s what the detective is going to find out. Right?”
Tom nodded. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”
Amelia said gently, “We’ll give you two a moment alone with her. There’s a telephone and a list of local funeral homes on the table there if you need them.”
Bill shook his head. “She belongs in Granville with us. We’ve already made arrangements for her to be picked up.”
Amelia nodded. “Okay, good. Well, please let me know if there’s anything more I can do for you.”
He met her eyes for the first time si
nce they’d come into the office. Light blue just like his wife’s, they welled with emotion but Amelia could see he had a stranglehold on it, forcing it to stay just below the surface. “Thank you.”
Amelia told them to use the call button near the door when they were finished, then she stepped into the hall and Tom followed, closing the door behind them.
“Could I get a cup of coffee while we wait?” Tom asked.
“Sure,” Amelia said. They headed for the break room and Amelia paused with her hand on the door that separated the labs from the office side of the building. She was thinking.
When Tom noticed, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Did you already talk to the Hunters before you brought them here?” she asked, moving toward the break room again.
Tom nodded. “Yeah, why?”
“Did they say anything about adopting Megan?”
“No, and I didn’t exactly think to ask.” Tom gave her a probing look. “What are you thinking?”
“Both of the Hunters have blue eyes,” Amelia said. “Megan had brown eyes. Genetically speaking, that’s exceedingly rare. It’s likely that one or both of them are not her biological parents.”
“Interesting,” Tom said.
They went to the coffee pot and Amelia poured for both of them, then Tom reached for the powdered creamer. Amelia asked, “What color eyes do the Thomases have?”
Tom frowned. “I’ll have to check—not something I write down in the normal course of an investigation. You think that’s what Megan was doing here, tracking down a biological parent?”
“Maybe,” Amelia said. “But you’re the homicide detective. That’s for you to decide.”
He smirked. “I’ll ask the Hunters once they’re done in the viewing room.”
15