How would she get in?
In the past she and Ash would have hit the front door with a battering ram and dropped it in two blows. She didn’t have the strength to try a brute force entry.
She saw the child-sized rocking chair on the porch beside two adult chairs. There was no need to be pretty. She picked up the first large chair, its metal cold and hard to grip as all her strength was now awkwardly in her left arm. She sent the chair crashing through the living room window. Only a small amount of smoke swirled out. If the fire was high and held in the roof, there was still a chance.
She knocked out the glass at the bottom of the frame with the flashlight.
For a decade she had loved doing this. She’d been crazy.
She went over the windowsill.
Edge of the district. Late at night. Jack braced his hand on the dashboard as Nate made the difficult right turn onto Holly Street, needing every inch of the road to handle Engine 81’s length. The neighborhood was old, the streets narrow, the sirens and lights were waking people up. Jack willed the engine to close the distance faster. 1437 Cypress. They were heading to the blocks behind where Cassie’s store was located.
This had the hallmarks of one of the arsonist’s fires. But it was not Gold Shift on duty this time, it was Red Shift. It was chance that Nate and Bruce had been available when this call came in. Rescue 65 had been dispatched to a car accident, and Nate and Bruce had arrived at the station in answer to the callback to replace personnel just as the dispatch tones for this fire sounded.
Jack had to assume it was the arsonist and plan for the worst case. The address made it another house—but was it unoccupied or occupied?
“Bruce.”
“I’ll be at your heels with the fire pole.”
Jack nodded. He didn’t want a team entering a house with a ceiling ready to come down on them.
Cassie whimpered at the heat. It invaded her jacket and penetrated her long-sleeved shirt. The healing skin from the last surgery screamed. She found the hallway and the stairs going up. The smoke was deceptive. It remained wisps of white in her beam of light on the first floor, but her light shining up couldn’t penetrate the blackness at the top of the landing.
She wanted to retreat. She knew what was waiting at the top of the stairs.
Go or get out?
Cassie grasped the railing and took the stairs two at a time.
The smoke drove her to a crouch. Coughing, struggling to get her bearings, she moved right, feeling her way. Air was still breathable low but it was hot. Her eyes burned with the smoke and visibility was abysmal. She didn’t waste her breath trying to call out. She would be grabbing and dragging.
The roar of the fire in the roof was deafening. The owners had probably filled the attic and never thought about what a decade of dry rot would do to boxes put into storage and forgotten. Plaster was beginning to drop. Outlets were smoking. Flames were shooting from nail holes marking where pictures had fallen from the wall.
Her options were limited. Breathable air wasn’t going to be available for long.
Thirty seconds. Clockwise search.
She hit the first bedroom with the end of the duct tape already tugged free so that two quick twists wrapped it around the hot doorknob. She let the tape stream out behind her as she dove into the smoke to find the bed.
Find a bed that wasn’t made and hope her grasping hands touched an arm or leg, pray she didn’t find an empty child’s bed. Children in a fire had the deadly habit of crawling into closets or under furniture. There was no way she could do a full-room search without gear.
Her right shin hit wood and the painful gasp cost her precious air as she fell against the bed. The down comforter was stretched taut. She cringed at that realization—this was probably a guest bedroom.
Cassie turned and dove back into the hallway. She dropped to her knees, coughing, getting a breath in the clearer air inches from the carpet. The air was so hot it hurt to breathe.
She scrambled into the thick smoke to reach the next door, ruthlessly denying her fear. The next door turned out to be a bathroom. The third door jammed when she tried to force it open. Had someone tried to get to the door and fallen inside?
Cassie set the flashlight by her left foot. She accepted the blisters she was going to get, wrapped her left hand around the hot metal, and put her weight against the door. Her lungs burned as she strained. She managed to wedge her right hand into the crevice and get desperately needed leverage.
There was fire behind the door. As the door inched open she found herself facing the dragon. The door suddenly opened all the way and the flames slapped at her. Plaster. She’d just shoved aside a chunk of plaster and a beam. Cassie jerked away from the flames back into the hallway. Flames shot across to touch the opposite wall. All breathable air became swallowed in the swirling smoke. There was no time left.
Get out.
There was no way to get past those flames.
Cassie turned…and stumbled on a teddy bear lying in the hall.
Six
Jack tightened the wrist straps on his gloves as Engine 81 pulled in front of the house and slightly past it so Engine 65 could take the hydrant. They would buddy tank the water, Engine 65 feeding it forward so they could place four attack lines and keep the water pressure even.
Ladder Truck 81 moved past, sirens still screaming, pulling to the east side of the house. Rescue 81 took the street side of the engines. The fire was already crowning through the roof. Jack swung from the seat to the ground relieved they had rolled all engines. They would need the men. They were going to need to lay a lot of hose to get water on the fire.
Was the house occupied or empty? Jack scanned the spectators, dozens of them, searching to spot the one or two neighbors who might have that answer. Two cops were present and a reporter had already made it to the scene.
“She went in to search the bedrooms.” Jack locked in on the words of the distraught elderly man now with the captain. “She said to tell you she was searching clockwise. She was real insistent about that word.”
“Who?”
Jack spotted the car. There weren’t two people who drove blue sedans with white trim who had chili cook-off bumper stickers saying: Firefighters Like It Hot stuck on the front bumper.
“Cassie,” Jack hollered, adrenaline surging. “Has she come out of the house since she entered?” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice as he grabbed his air tank. He ducked and dropped it into place on his back. Bruce and Nate shifted from hose to grabbing fire blankets and spare air tanks, priorities immediately changing.
The two from Rescue Squad 81 were already racing for the door.
“No. She’s been in there three minutes,” the elderly man said.
Faced with the possibility of people inside, Jack knew she would have had no choice but to go in. He needed a word with more punch than fear to handle the emotion that absorbed him. Shingles slid from the roof and crashed with an explosion of embers onto the walkway.
“Jack, backup rescue.” Frank keyed his radio and grabbed the attention of the lieutenant for Truck 81. “Five are going in. Tear open the roof but don’t drown it until we know we won’t be bringing it down on them as they search.”
“No one’s home!” The cop struggling to get into the garage had just gained entry. No vehicle. Whoever lived here was away for the holidays. Jack wanted to swear. Cassie wouldn’t have known that. And that meant she would take the time to try and reach each bedroom.
She knew how fire moved and breathed. She would know the dangers. But that was a two-edged sword. She would stay inside until the last possible moment. And the smoke would take her down. After eighteen months sidelined she wouldn’t know her own limits. Stress, heat, smoke…she should have been out of the house long ago.
Bruce and Nate were at his side as he sprinted toward the house. He wished Ben had been called back to duty. He wasn’t coming out without her, and he could use the man’s intensity right now.
/> The paint was blistering. Jack’s breath hissed inside the mask as his light picked up the sight he feared. Penetrate these walls and flames would surround them. Let oxygen get to the base of this fire and it would roar. The building was primed to go.
Jack followed the guys from Rescue 81 up the stairs while Bruce and Nate veered off to search the first floor.
Where was she?
Flames had the ceiling, a deep red glowing monster that rolled like waves through the thick smoke feeding on the paint. The two men from Rescue 81 moved forward together into the smoke to literally sweep the width of the hallway with their bodies. Jack knew the reality. They were hoping to trip over Cassie.
She was down on all fours crawling. The firefighter in him applauded her smarts; the guy who had visited her in the hospital wanted to weep. His bright light caught the odd color of blue. She was grasping a teddy bear in her left hand. No wonder she had kept searching. The guys from Rescue 81 swallowed her in a fire blanket to protect her from falling embers and lifted her toward him.
Jack did his best to avoid the healing skin grafts on her arms as he took her weight. Cassie was convulsing with coughs. There was no way she would be able to walk the stairs without stumbling. He put her over his shoulder and turned to retrace his steps down the stairs, moving with only one thought in mind—getting her out of the house fast.
The instant he cleared the front door he ripped off his mask. He shifted Cassie, shoving back the fire blanket, alarmed at the first clear look at her face. Tears streaming, she was gasping for air, gagging. Seared lungs could kill. “Where’s the ambulance?”
“Here.”
The boots felt like lead on his feet when he wanted to run.
Cole was there as well as two paramedics from the area hospital. Jack was grateful to see it was Neal and Amy who had been on duty. They were pros at fire scenes. He still wished it were his brother Stephen who had received the call as he carefully set Cassie down.
Jack heard the order to drown the fire and knew it meant his men and the rescue squad were clear. An incredible rush of noise followed as water flowed.
Cassie refused to lie back on the gurney. “Hot,” she protested.
As Cole peeled away her jacket, Jack spotted the burn spots in the leather. She was going to need another jacket for Christmas.
Amy slipped on an oxygen mask over the coughs.
Jack stripped off his gloves. He unbuttoned the cuffs of Cassie’s shirt and carefully rolled up her sleeves. The healing scars on both arms were an angry red, inflamed by the heat, her right arm much worse than her left. Neal handed over cold packs and Jack rested them against her forearms. She flinched.
“Better,” she whispered.
Jack tipped up her chin looking for new burns. Her eyes were streaming and she couldn’t open them to more than a squint. He carefully slipped off her glasses, relieved to see they hadn’t been cracked. The exhaustion he had seen earlier in the evening was swamping her now. “The house was empty, Cassie. The family is on vacation.”
Her relief was palpable.
Neal slipped an ice pack behind her neck to help cool her down. “Cassie, hold on, the eye drops will help.” He brushed back her hair and carefully opened her eyes to add the drops. He blotted her streaming eyes with sterile gauze. “Let them water and clear.”
A fit of coughing doubled her up.
It hurt to hear.
Jack had to get back to his men but he didn’t want to leave her side. He could only imagine how hard it had been to face a fire again.
A firm hand settled on his shoulder. Jack looked up to find his captain beside him, watching Cassie. “Company 26 is half a minute away,” Frank said. “We’re covered. Stay with her. Anything she needs, let me know. Anything.”
Jack nodded, grateful.
Neal nudged his arm and Jack looked over. Neal had uncurled Cassie’s fingers to slip off her watch. There were blisters on the fingers of her left hand and palm, some already open and raw. Jack recognized the pattern: She’d grasped a doorknob. His own hand spasmed in sympathy.
“Cassie, we’re going to get you to a hospital.” He stroked the inside of her right wrist, feeling her erratic pulse. “We’ll get someone to look at the blisters.”
Her eyes opened, and in an uncoordinated way she lifted her right hand to push aside the oxygen mask. “No. No hospital.”
There was fear in her eyes, but the hospital wasn’t a choice. She had to see a doctor, not just for her hands but her lungs. He didn’t need a fight with her, not over this. “Cole.” He appealed to the one person she would listen to.
Amy tried to get her to put the mask back on and Cassie pushed it away. She tried to look around to see Cole. “No. I won’t go.”
The man was her former captain. The history between the two of them extended back a long way before the nursing home fire, and Jack could almost see the silent conversation going on. Cole finally nodded. “Neal, do what you can here. She’s not going.”
Incredulous, Jack turned, furious at him for that. A look from Cole silenced his words before he could speak.
Cassie closed her eyes and let Amy slip back on the oxygen.
Jack moved aside to give Neal room to work. “Cole—” He was ready to argue the point.
“I want my glasses,” Cassie mumbled.
Jack glanced at them in his hand. They were grimy with smoke residue. If he gave them to her, she’d just accidentally knock them off, possibly break them. “Later, Cassie. You can’t see right now anyway.”
She patted her shirt pocket. “Here. Only pair.”
“I won’t lose them.”
She opened her eyes enough to squint at him. “Swear?”
If she wasn’t protesting a pair of glasses, he would have laughed at the irritation in her question. “I promise not to lose them.”
She was reluctant to believe him. Jack reached down and gently squeezed her ankle. He understood why she would cling to something so simple. She’d spent three weeks with her eyes bandaged after the nursing home fire. Without the glasses her vision was very poor. “Promise, kiddo.”
“Cassie.” Neal got her attention. “I need to clean this hand. It’s going to sting.”
She just nodded at that. Jack supposed everything was relative. A sting wasn’t high on the pain meter compared to the pain she’d been through.
Jack turned his attention to his friend and pitched his voice low. “Cole, she needs to see a doctor.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Then why—?”
“She’d have to be dying before she would voluntarily step foot back into a hospital.”
Jack supposed if he had dealt with over a year of being in and out of hospitals, he might feel the same. “It doesn’t change the fact she needs to see a doctor.”
“So I’ll find one who makes house calls.” Cole pointed to the fire. “One of his?”
Jack forced himself to focus on the problem they had to deal with. “Fire in the walls,” he confirmed. “Better than even odds we’ll find his signature.”
“Peter Wallis owns this house.” The quiet statement was underscored by the significance of the information.
“Chairman of the fire district board?”
Cole nodded.
Jack could feel the open question of motive for the arsonist finding definition.
“That hurt.”
Jack turned at Cassie’s words, saw the taut edge of pain around her mouth.
“Almost done,” Neal sympathized. He had her hand clean, was dealing with a blister forming between her two small fingers. Jack stepped back to her side and let his hand touch her shoulder.
Cassie pushed away the oxygen mask. “This fire was set?”
“It looks that way.” Jack nudged the mask back on, wishing she was a better patient. She ignored him.
“He set it,” she murmured.
“What?”
She frowned and shook her head.
“Cassie, did
you see something?” Cole pushed. “Anything?”
“By the drive. Watching the fire. Weird the way he was watching the fire,” she whispered. “A tall man, brown jacket, jeans.” She looked down at her hand. “I didn’t really get a good look. He was in the shadows.”
Jack shot Cole a look. They had been hoping for someone to see the man, but Cassie— Jack was afraid of what that meant. She had seen him; that meant he had seen her too.
Cole dug his keys out of his pocket. “As soon as they say she can move, take her to the station and get her statement,” he said quietly. “I’ll bring her car.”
Seven
Jack knew Cole used his vehicle as his mobile command center. He hadn’t realized that meant there was barely room for people. In the back were empty paint cans to use for evidence collection, metal screens for sifting debris, shovel, rake, crowbar, garbage bags, a large red toolbox, and rolls of plastic sheeting to protect evidence.
Jack nudged down the volume on the radio dispatch calls, keeping his attention on the traffic even as his peripheral vision stayed locked on Cassie beside him. “Leave that oxygen on.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re still coughing between every other word.”
“It’s not the first time I ate smoke. It’s almost cleared.”
He frowned at her. “I can tell.”
She raised the mask again.
Cole’s jacket swallowed her slim frame. Cassie’s system had swung from overheated to chilled as it coped with the crashing adrenaline. Jack was feeling very responsible for her as she’d been entrusted to his care and he wasn’t all that happy about it. He wasn’t a paramedic.
She should have stayed under Neal’s and Amy’s watchful eyes for at least another hour. But she’d insisted she was ready to move and trying to stop her was like stepping in front of a steamroller.
“You didn’t tell me I shouldn’t have gone in.”
Jack turned his head long enough to look at her, surprised by the touch of irritation in her voice. He’d cleaned her glasses and her eyes seemed huge behind the lenses. They were still red and watering from the smoke irritation and she was blinking to try to clear them. A fact that just made her look cute. “Because I think you did the right thing.” He wondered why she had assumed he would have disagreed with her decision. It might have added about ten years to his life, and until she stopped coughing he was going to be wheezing in sympathy, but it had been the right decision. “You needed to go in.”
The Protector Page 6