by Nora Roberts
8
BALTIMORE, 1996
How tough could it be? Reena circled the innocuous-looking trailer, dubbed “the maze.” Maybe it had earned an almost mythical rep within the department, but it didn’t strike fear in her heart. Sure, she’d heard the stories, the jokes, the warnings about what a recruit faced inside that box, but really, wasn’t it just a matter of staying focused?
She’d handled the training in burn buildings right here at the Academy. She’d dealt with the physical stress. Climbing ladders, rappelling walls—in full gear. She’d worked shifts—mostly ride-alongs, true—but she’d done stints as a nozzleman in two residential fires.
And manning a live hose wasn’t for the weak or the faint of heart.
She was a cop now, wasn’t she? And proud to wear the uniform. But if she wanted to climb up to arson investigator, to carry a shield for that unit, she wanted to understand fire from the inside out. Until she could do what a firefighter did, until she had done it, she wouldn’t meet her personal goal.
Not just in the lab, not just simulations. She wouldn’t be satisfied with less than hands-on.
She was in good shape, she reminded herself. She’d worked hard to sculpt muscle onto a bony frame. The kind that could carry her in full turnout gear up and down five stories at a jog.
She’d earned this rite of passage, and the respect she’d gain from the men and women on the front line of the battle with fire.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
She turned, looked at John Minger. “Yeah, I do. For me. And it’s more to the point that I can do it.”
“Hell of a way to spend a pretty Saturday morning.”
He had her there. But this was her mission, and in a way she couldn’t explain, her reward.
“Sun’ll still be shining when I get out. Birds’ll still be singing.” But she’d be different. At least she hoped. “I’ll be okay, John.”
“You’re not, your mother’s going to have my head.” He shifted his stance, studied the maze. He was nearing sixty.
The squint lines around his eyes were deep.
He trusted the girl, had a father’s pride in her accomplishments and her dogged pursuit of her goals. But with pride came concern.
“I’ve never seen anyone train as hard as you.”
Surprise flickered over her face, an instant before her smile. “That’s nice to hear.”
“You’ve crammed a lot into these past few years, Reena. The training, the study, the work.” And he wondered if what had lit in her eleven years before had gone active and hot the day the boy she’d cared for died in fire. “You move fast.”
“Any reason I should move slow?”
Hard to explain to a girl of twenty-two how much life there was, not just to live but to savor. “You’re young yet, hon.”
“I can handle the maze, John.”
“I’m not just talking about the maze.”
“I know.” She kissed his cheek. “That was a metaphor for the life I’m heading into. It’s what I want. What I’ve always wanted.”
“Well, you’ve made plenty of sacrifices to get it.”
She didn’t think of it that way. Summers spent working, studying, training were investments in the future. Added to it was the rush, the adrenaline spill she experienced when she put on her uniform, or when she heard someone call her Officer Hale. The heart-hammering, stomach-tightening thrill she knew when she was surrounded by fire, pitched in that battle.
Or the absolute exhaustion that came after the war.
She’d never be Fran, serenely content to run a restaurant, or Bella, juggling salon appointments and luncheons.
“I need this, John.”
“Yeah, I know that, too.” Hands in pockets, he nodded toward the maze. “Okay. It’s rugged in there, Reena. You don’t want to go in cocky.”
“I won’t. I’ll just come out cocky. Here comes a couple of smoke eaters.” She lifted a hand in greeting, and regretted she hadn’t bothered with makeup.
Steve Rossi, dark and wiry with eyes like a cocker spaniel, was Gina’s current hot item. That simmer had been coming to a boil since Reena had introduced them six weeks before. But his companion, the buff, bronzed Adonis in jeans and a BFD T-shirt, had a great many possibilities.
She’d shared a meal with Hugh Fitzgerald—and a kitchen full of other firefighters—at the station. They’d played poker, had a couple of beers. And, after some major league flirting, had done the pizza and a movie routine, followed by several very juicy kisses.
Even so, it seemed to her that more than half the time he thought of her as one of the guys.
Hell, in turnout gear and Fire Line boots, she thought of herself as one of the guys.
“Hey,” she said to Steve, “what did you do with my roommate?”
“She’s sleeping like a baby. Couldn’t budge her to come out for this. You up for it?”
“Ready to go.” She looked at Hugh. “Did you come to watch?”
“Just finished my shift, thought I’d swing by in case you need CPR.”
She laughed, began to don her turnout gear, stepping into the protective pants, adjusting the suspenders. “The two of you got through it, so can I.”
“No doubt about it,” Hugh agreed. “You’re as tough as they come.”
Not exactly the sort of description a woman pined for from a potential lover, Reena thought. But if you were going to work in the boys’ club, you often ended up one of the boys. She tied her long, curly hair back into a tail, donned her hood.
No, she’d never have the innate femininity of her sisters, but, by God, she’d have a firefighter’s certification before the end of summer.
“Maybe we can catch a meal after you’re done,” Hugh suggested.
She fastened her coat, heavy in the heat of August, and lifted her eyes. His were like lake water, she thought, somewhere fascinating between blue and gray. “Sure. You buying?”
“You get through the maze, I spring.” After helping her on with her tank, he gave her shoulder a friendly pat. “You bail, you buy.”
“Deal.” She sent him a smile as sunny as the day, put on her mask and helmet.
“Radio check,” John ordered.
She checked her radio, her gear, gave John a thumbs-up.
“I’ll be guiding you through,” he reminded her. “Remember to regulate your breathing. Panic’s what gets you in trouble.”
She wouldn’t panic. It was a test, just another simulation. She breathed steady and normal, waited for John to click his stopwatch. “Go.”
It was dark as a tomb and hot as the seventh layer of hell. It was fantastic. Thick black smoke smothered the air so she could hear her own breath, wheezing just a little as she drew oxygen from her tank. She oriented herself, put the points of the compass in her head before she felt her way along, hands, feet, instinct. Found a door.
She eased through it. Already, sweat slicked over her face.
There was some sort of blockage. She tried to see it through her gloved fingers, located the low, narrow gap and bellied under.
There could be people trapped inside. That was the purpose of this exercise. She was to search the “building,” find any survivors or victims and work her way out again. Do the job. Save lives. Stay alive.
She heard John’s voice, strange and foreign in this black hole, asking for her status.
“Good. Fine. Five-by-five.”
She felt her way up a wall, then was forced to squeeze through a narrow opening. She was losing her bearings, paused to try to orient herself again.
Slow, steady, she ordered herself. Get in, get through, get out.
But there was nothing but black and smoke and unspeakable heat.
She dead-ended, felt the first trickle of panic in her throat, heard it in her quick, gasping breaths.
John’s voice told her to keep calm, to keep centered. Watch her breathing.
Then the floor dropped away beneath her.
She grunted
on impact, lost her breath, felt her control slip another notch.
She was blind, and for a terrifying moment, she was deaf as the blood buzzed in her ears. Sweat was rivers now, pouring off her face, down her body under the smothering turnout suit. Her gear weighed a thousand pounds, and the mask was gagging her.
Buried alive, she thought. She was buried alive in smoke. Survivors? No one could survive this suffocating black hell.
For a moment, she fought a desperate need to rip away the gear, free herself.
“Reena, check your breathing. I want you to slow your breathing and give me your status.”
I can’t. The words were nearly out. She couldn’t do it. How could anyone do it? How could she think when she couldn’t see or breathe, when every muscle in her body was screaming from the strain? She wanted to claw her way out, through the floor, the walls. Just get out into the light, into the air.
Her throat was on fire.
Had it been like this for Josh? Tears burned her eyes now because she could see him. No compass points in her mind now, but that sweet face, that shy smile, that curtain of hair when he dipped his head. Had he been conscious long enough to be blinded and choked by the smoke before the fire took him? Had he panicked like this, struggling, struggling to find enough air to call for help?
Oh God, had he known what was coming?
That, of course, was one reason she was here, in this hideous hole of heat and misery. To know what it was like. To understand. And to survive it.
She got shakily to her hands and knees. She wasn’t dying, she told herself, even if it seemed like she was in her own coffin.
“I’m okay. Hit one of the drop floors. I’m okay. Moving on.”
She pulled herself up, crawled. There was no sense of direction now, just movement. Another door, another dead end.
How could the place be so damn big?
She climbed through a window opening. Every muscle trembled now and poured sweat like water. Time and space clogged. Her eyes strained to see—to see anything. Light, shape, shadow.
Smoke and disorientation, panic and fear. They killed as insidiously as the burn. Fire wasn’t just flame, hadn’t she learned that? It was smoke and vapor, weakened floors, caving ceilings. It was smothering, blinding panic. It was exhaustion.
She hit another drop floor—the same one?—and was too tired to curse.
She felt another wall. What sadist had designed this thing? she wondered. She pushed her body through yet another opening, found yet another door.
And opening it, stumbled out into the light.
Dragging down her mask, she pulled in air, braced her hands on her knees as her head spun.
“Nice job,” John told her, and she managed to lift her head enough to see his face.
“Nearly broke a few times in there.”
“Nearly doesn’t count.”
“Taught me something.”
“What’s that, hon?”
She took the bottle of water he offered, drank like a camel. “Any doubts I had about going into investigation instead of smoke eating have been put to rest. That’s not how I want to spend my time.”
He helped her off with her tank, patted her on the back. “You did good.”
She drank again, then set the bottle on the ground to once again brace hands on knees. A shadow crossed her, bringing her head up again as Hugh joined her. He mimicked her position, grinned into her face.
She grinned back, and though she heard her own breath huffing, felt the laugh bubble out. One as much from relief as triumph.
He laughed with her, and caught her helmet when she shoved it off.
“She’s a bitch, isn’t she?”
“A big one.”
“Looks like I’m out the price of the breakfast special at Denny’s.”
She laughed again, and let her head dangle between her knees.
Then I get inside, into the showers, and see myself in the mirror.” Reena winced, shifted the shopping bag—a score from the personal reward of an afternoon at White Marsh Mall with Gina. “My hair is nothing but frizzy strings smelling of sweat. My face is black from the smoke. And I stink. Seriously stink.”
“He still asked you out,” Gina reminded her.
“More or less.” She paused, distracted by a pair of sexy red shoes in a display window. “Breakfast at Denny’s, and we had some laughs. And we’re going to go hit some balls tomorrow. It’s not that I don’t like an hour in the batting cages, Gina, but I wouldn’t mind a fancy dinner now and then. The kind where I could justify buying those shoes.”
“Oh, they’re fabulous. You have to.”
As was her duty as best friend, Gina dragged Reena into the store.
“They’re eighty-seven dollars,” Reena said as she looked at the price on the sole.
“They’re shoes. They’re sexy, red shoes. They have no price.”
“They do on a rookie cop’s salary. But I want them. They should be mine.” Reena clutched the shoe to her breast. “No one else should have them. But they’re just going to sit in my closet.”
“So?”
“You’re right.” She found a clerk, gave him the shoe and her size, then sat with Gina and their bags. “They’ll be my reward for surviving the maze. And don’t say the outfit I just bought was supposed to be my reward.”
“Why would I?” And the genuine surprise in Gina’s voice had Reena grinning. “That was your reward twenty minutes ago. This is your current reward.”
“I love you.”
She cocked her head to look at her friend. Gina had let her hair grow, and it was now a tumbled mass of ebony waves. “You look all dewy.”
“I feel all dewy.” Gina hunched her shoulders up, wrapped herself in a hug. “Steve is all . . . He’s tough and strong and sweet and smart. Reena, he’s the one.”
“The one?”
“And only. I’m going to marry him.”
“You—Gina! When? We’ve been shopping over an hour, and you just drop this now?”
“He hasn’t asked me yet. But I’ll work him around to it,” she added with an airy wave. “I think we should get married next May. Or maybe wait until September. I’m thinking maybe September because then I could use all those wonderful fall colors. You’d look great in burnt gold. Or russet.”
It was, in Reena’s mind, a big leap from hot guy to choosing bridal colors. But she could see Gina was taking it in stride. “You really want to get married.”
“I really do. I know it might be hard, a firefighter’s wife.” She dug a box of spearmint Tic Tacs out of her bag, shook some out, offered them to Reena. “The hours are so long, and the work’s so dangerous. But he makes me so happy. Oooh, red shoes. Put them on!”
Obediently, Reena slipped on the shoes the clerk brought her. She stood, testing them out, admiring them in the low mirror.
She was trying on red shoes she couldn’t afford and would probably never wear. Gina was planning a future. Even while she preferred the shoes, there was a little clutch of envy in her belly.
“Is Steve thinking about marriage?”
“No, not yet. I wasn’t until this morning when he came in and kissed me good-bye. I thought, Oh my God, I’m in love, and I can see myself waking up every morning with this guy. I never saw that with anyone before. You’re buying those shoes, Reene. I give you no choice.”