by J. R. Ward
“I’ll be careful. Thanks, Jack.”
* * *
Like most of the fire stations in New Brunswick—except for Chief Ashburn’s fancy present from Charles Ripkin—the 499 had been built for its purpose in the early 1900s. Made of brick that was given a fresh coat of red every five or six years, it had three bays for the engines and the ladders, a shorter addition for the ambulance, and bunks and bathrooms on the second floor. The kitchen and eating/hang-time space was in the back on the first level, and there was also an office for the captain.
Danny was in the galley, surveying the cupboard contents. After check-in, Moose had taken up res on the sofa in front of the TV, Deshaun, Duff, and T.J. were lifting weights in the bay, and the other six men on duty were scattered throughout the stationhouse, cleaning equipment, checking the engines, restocking the ambulance.
Against his better judgment, Danny had volunteered for cook duty, even though he’d caught shit from everyone about it. But he couldn’t sit around without doing something between out-calls, and pumping iron with the boys was not an option thanks to him and Anne having worked on his farmhouse’s backyard all day yesterday.
Uninspired, he went over and opened the fridge. As he became threatened at the sight of the eggs and the milk, the leftovers and the blocks of cheese, he was confronted with the fact that even after all these years in the stationhouse, he still had few cooking skills. And he gave Duff a hard time?
Closing the icebox’s door, he decided to go out the back and have a cigarette while he considered his options. There were ten guys on shift today, and he had about two and a half hours, barring an alarm or training drill, to get this figured out.
When in doubt, he could do sandwiches. There were enough cold cuts and lettuce in the fridge. Fresh jar of mayo in the cupboard. Chips, too. For dessert, he could give them ice cream.
Looked like he had it sorted, after all.
“Where you going?” Moose said from the sofa. “You don’t want to miss this. The mother-in-law is in denial and Phil’s about to serve her a whole lot of reality.”
Moose loved Dr. Phil. Then again, he was probably looking for tips on how to handle his wife.
“I’ma go out back for a sec.”
“You need to stop smoking.”
“Give up your beer first, then we’ll talk.”
“Fuck you,” Moose replied genially.
The back door opened out to the parking area, which was fully fenced in, the crew’s personal trucks parked against the chain link. No sun today. Colder.
As he lit up, he leaned back against the bricks and propped the sole of his boot on the side of the building.
When his phone went off, he nearly dropped the cig into his undershorts as he fished it out of his pants pocket. Was it Anne—
Frowning, he nearly let the call go into voicemail. “Yeah.”
There was a pause. “Is that any way to speak to me?”
“Deandra, what the hell are you doing on my phone?”
“I wanted to talk to you.” There was a rustle. “I wanted to hear your voice.”
“You gotta stop this.”
“Why.”
“Because you’re married to Moose.” He took a drag. “Come on, Deandra.”
“I told you I wanted it to be you.”
“It never will be. And I’m not answering anymore, ’kay? We’re done with this bullshit—”
“Why, because you’re with Anne?”
“No, because you’re not my type.”
“I used to be.” That voice dropped into the phone-sex-operator octave. “You know you liked it with me. You know you want me, Danny—”
Moose put his head out the door. “Yo, Captain Baker wants us to review Friday’s apartment fire.”
“Coming.”
Deandra cut in. “I can make you come. You remember, Danny?”
As Moose ducked back into the stationhouse, Danny had really fucking had it with the two of them. “Don’t call me anymore. If you do, I’ll have to tell your husband.”
“Tell him. I don’t give a fuck. I’m tired of that house out in the sticks, I’m tired of him, this whole thing was a fucking mistake.”
“Then fix your own damn mess, I got more than enough of my own to work on.”
“She’s never going to be with you, Danny.” That cruel edge he knew so well sharpened the corners on all those consonants. “Anne’s never going to want you the way I do. She knows the truth about you and it turns her off.”
“Says the woman with fake tits. Forgive me if I don’t look to you for opinions on authenticity. Don’t call me again or you won’t like where it takes you.”
“Two can play at that game.”
“I’ve got less to lose than you do, sweetheart.”
As he hung up, he banged his head back against the building. Deandra was a road that he should never have gone down. Their hook up had been a classic across-the-bar kind of thing. Danny had been sure that he didn’t have a chance with Anne, and he’d taken up on the offer Deandra had so emphatically presented to him.
As far as he’d been concerned, it had been a one-nighter, an over-and-done-with-the-sun. Deandra had disagreed with that assessment and had come by the apartment at all hours of the day and night. Seeing a lady in distress, Moose had stepped into the void, first as counselor, then as a willing piece of gym equipment that the woman had ridden to much vocalizing effect.
Danny hadn’t bothered to point out what seemed obvious to everyone but Moose. Then again, the guy had needed a “win.” After he’d had a rough time in the foster care system, he’d barely graduated from college, had failed at SWAT, and compared to Danny, Jack, and Mick, had always been the Michael Anthony instead of the Eddie Van Halen or David Lee Roth. The George Harrison rather than the John or Paul.
The store brand, not the name brand.
Deandra had taken things way further than anyone had expected, all the way to that walk down the aisle. And now that she was trapped with Moose, she was thrashing in the net she’d thrown over herself. Talk about knowing the truth, though. She wasn’t the type to jump ship until she had another landing pad, so these phone calls were attempts to set up her exit strategy. When it didn’t work, she was going to move on to someone else.
Which was how she’d wound up with Moose in the first place.
chapter
39
The call Anne had been waiting for didn’t come in until she was packing up to leave her office at the end of the day.
The male voice on the other end of her desk phone was brisk and efficient. “I’m calling from traffic enforcement. You’re seeking access to camera feeds down at the wharf?”
She sat back down in her chair. “Yes. I have the dates—do you want me to send them to you?”
“We’ve got a form I can email you? It takes two weeks to process.”
“Two weeks?” She looked over at Soot, who was curled up in his crate. “Is there any way to get it faster?”
“That’s for a subpoena.”
“I’m working six fires, and there were at least two deaths. I’m really trying to get through all this.”
“How far do your dates go back?”
“A while.”
“We don’t keep footage very long. Only thirty days.”
And it takes two weeks to get the access? What the hell? “Okay, well, I’d appreciate it if you’d email me the form. I’ll get the ball rolling with you, then see if there are some other angles I can get to.”
“Listen, the form tells you to send it back to the open inbox, but shoot it back to me. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you. That’d be great.”
Hanging up, she’d been hoping there was another way, but it looked like she was going to have to go with option two: hardball.
Getting to her feet, she grabbed a folder she had prepared during lunch. “I’ll be right back, Soot. And then we’re going home.”
The Arson Investigation and Fire Inspection
Division of the City of New Brunswick took up one floor of the Fire and Safety Building with its dwindling number of inspectors and their support staff working out of a rabbit warren of little spaces with more doors than windows. Don had a corner office, but it was not luxurious, what with its two-sided view of the parking lot.
As she knocked on the jamb, he looked up from his computer. “Now what.” But he eased back and took his “World’s Greatest Boss” mug with him. “You look like you’re on the warpath.”
“I need your help.”
“Wait. I want to be prepared.” He opened a drawer and took out a bottle of Motrin. After taking two, he muttered, “Let’s do this.”
She handed him the folder across his desk and then took a step back while he read.
Her boss went through the paperwork twice. Then looked up at her. “You want a warrant for Ripkin’s security cameras on those buildings.”
Anne paced around, unable to stand still. “I’m surprised the previous investigators on the first five fires haven’t already. No offense, but I think they were writing the scenes off because of the warehouses’ location and their lack of intrinsic value. We need to see who was going in and out of those buildings because if the Ollie Popper theory is right, he had a sizable amount of evidence to move around. There would be a vehicle that would pull up to the site and someone would transfer the goods and set the fire. Maybe we could make a positive ID.”
She sat down in one of the two vacant chairs opposite Don and remembered the wired seat Ripkin had made her sit in while they’d spoken in his office. “But I’ve also been thinking about something else. Ripkin Development is a huge corporation, and I have a feeling the guy’s paranoid about security and monitoring. So maybe Ripkin could be the one disappearing hard drives and laptops. There is no way to completely wipe out memory from computers, unless you melt them.”
Don closed the folder. “You’re focused on Ripkin.”
“And Ollie.”
“Mostly Ripkin. Be careful about seeking information to confirm your hypothesis.” Taking a pen, he signed the bottom of the form. “But I like your diligence, Ashburn.”
“Thanks, boss. I’m going to send this over to the court right now.”
When she got back to her own office, her cell phone was ringing and she caught the call right before it went into voicemail. “Tom?”
Great, her brother only called her when something was wrong.
“Hello?” she prompted when there was no response.
“Can you meet me over at Mom and Dad’s now?”
Anne frowned. “Your voice sounds weird. Are you okay?”
“Just meet me over there, all right?”
“Yeah. Sure—gimme ten. I’m still at the office.”
Maybe the renovations needed to repair the tree damage were much more than he’d thought? Or . . . she couldn’t think what else it could be.
“Is Mom going to be there?” she asked.
“No, just you and me.”
* * *
As Anne turned onto her childhood street, she looked around at the houses and was surprised to find that her current neighborhood was almost identical. Why hadn’t she noticed before? Then again, when was the last time she’d been down here?
A couple of years.
And why wouldn’t she live similarly? Her father had bought the family’s house on the same salary, adjusted for inflation, that she was earning now. Sure, she didn’t have a wife and two kids—but he hadn’t started out like that and her mom had contributed a kindergarten teacher’s assistant salary to the household income in the beginning.
Jesus . . . it was still pale blue.
The two-story had been built in the late sixties, and the siding had been white back then. But her mother hadn’t wanted to lose the opportunity to “pretty” it up. So that blue had been born and thrived, despite the fact that it turned the place into an Easter egg that no one wanted to pick up.
Anne parked the Subaru in the driveway, behind her brother’s SUV. “Soot, I’ll just be a few minutes. You already went out, so you’ll be okay. Bark if you need me.”
There was no sun out, and the temperature was at fifty, so he’d be fine, but she cracked all the windows anyway.
As she got out, she looked up at the second floor. Her parents’ room had been on the right, hers on the left, her brother’s in the rear. In the middle, there was the bathroom she and Tom had shared. Downstairs, there was a bay that anchored the living room and then the kitchen and the family room opened to the porch and the backyard.
The bushes were all clipped precisely. The walkway was free of weeds. The lawn was trimmed like it was a rug.
Going up to the front door, she propped the storm door open with her hip and fiddled with her key chain, her fingers sifting through to find the right one. It had seemed odd to have the key with her, especially as it was a symbol of everything that had been lost: Her father no longer the hero she had thought he was, her mother a weak person she couldn’t understand.
God, it still smelled the same. Her mom loved scented candles, the sweeter and more flowery the better, and as a result, the house was like a Yankee Candle store, all cloying gardenias and lilies.
She was going to be smelling the stuff for like an hour after she left.
“Tom?” She closed the door behind herself. “Where are you?”
The living room was not arranged the same, the furniture she was familiar with having been moved around into different corners and straightaways. The drapes had been changed, too. Now they were peach. Rug was new as well.
Guess Nancy Janice didn’t just work on other people’s houses.
“Tom?”
When there was a soft answer, she went through into the kitchen and expected an addition to have been blown out the back or something. Nope. Decorator lust had not inspired a renovation of the dated, pickled pine cabinets or the white Stormtrooper appliances.
Didn’t her mother know everything was gray and stainless now?
Then again, the house was a blue only her mom seemed to appreciate, so fads, based on the opinions of others, might not hold much weight. Anne had never bothered to ask how it all worked for the woman, and she wasn’t about to start now.
The door to the back porch was slightly ajar, but she checked out the internal damage to the family room’s flat roof first. The tree had been removed, and there was fresh Sheetrock on the ceiling, as well as a new window set into a freshly mounted, unpainted jamb.
Nice work, and she wondered who over at the 617 had done it. Probably Vic. He was the carpenter of the bunch.
There would be no charge for the labor. The NBFD took care of the widows and orphans of its firefighters. Her mom had never had to call plumbers, roofers, electricians, or woodworkers; someone was always ready to help from the extended blue family.
Stepping out onto the porch, she found her brother sitting in a lawn chair by the grill, his hands linked in his lap, his knees out to the sides, his eyes trained on the square of dying grass and yet totally unfocused. His NBFD T-shirt had flecks of sawdust on it—so did his navy blue work pants. And his boots were smudged with drying mud.
Behind him, the outside of the house showed where the repair had been made, the bald wood and feathered-in siding like a scar in mid-healing.
“Guess you did the fix.”
As she spoke, he jerked as if she’d surprised him. But he didn’t look over. “Yeah.”
Frowning, she went across and sat next to him. For no particular reason, she noted that the pair of lawn chairs, along with the lounger and the two little tables, were going to have to be taken in for the winter. The grill would be stored in the garage. The swing across the way would stay.
Just as it had always been, the rotation of the outdoor furniture set tracking the seasons and measuring the years. Until its utility was lost and it required replacing.
It was the same with people, she decided, the older generations passing as new ones were born, the cycle repeatin
g.
She looked at her brother. His icy blue eyes scared her. So did his stillness. “Is Mom sick? Are you?”
“What?” He finally glanced at her. “What are you talking about?”
“You need to just tell me. I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Do you find me . . .” He cleared his throat. “Am I hard to deal with? You know, about . . . anything?”
Anne’s brows shot up, and she momentarily blanked. Of all the things she had ever expected Tom to say, that was not it.
Not even close.
chapter
40
As Tom put the question out there, he knew Anne’s answer by the way she straightened and stared at him like she’d temporarily forgotten the English language. And then there was a silence that suggested she was trying to find an appropriate way to answer.
Trying to tread carefully.
Which was reply enough, wasn’t it.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he muttered.
God, he was tired, and not just because he hadn’t slept since Mayor Mahoney had tuned up her size-whatever stiletto and kicked him in the can: He was exhausted on a molecular level.
“Where is this coming from, Tom?”
“Just wondering, you know. Just . . . thinking.”
As the silence stretched out, he waited. His sister never shied away from conflict, so she was going to reply. Eventually.
“You can be a challenge,” she said after a while. “You’ve got your own way of doing things and it tends to supersede everything and everyone else around you.”
“I’ve got to keep people safe. There are lives in danger every day on the job, and if I don’t make sure things are done correctly—”
She put her palm up to stop him. “Hey, if you didn’t want my opinion, you shouldn’t have asked for it.”
“Sorry.” He scrubbed his face with his dirty hand, and his eyes stung from the sawdust on his palm. Shit, he had to change the subject here. “The house is fine for Mom to move back in, by the way.”