GirlNextDoor

by Lyra Marlowe

  “You’re used to being the first one to leave.”

  “Yeah. That’s probably part of it. But she just seems so…like she’s more scared than I am.” John took a deep breath. “And that’s pretty damn scared.”

  Nolan looked at him steadily. John felt his cheeks grow warmer still. He liked his partner’s serious face. “You never admitted that before.”

  “What? That I bang and run because I’m scared to death of a real relationship?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t have to. You already knew.”

  Nolan nodded. “I did. But I didn’t know you knew I knew.”

  “I always knew you knew.”

  Their eyes locked for a moment. John felt something twist in his chest. In Nolan’s brown eyes he saw no judgment. Just compassion. Understanding. He knew that his friend knew his biggest fear, and that he didn’t blame him for it. It was more caring than he’d ever felt before.

  I could kiss him, John thought. I could just reach over and kiss him.

  He shook his head firmly. He couldn’t, and he wouldn’t. Even if he had any reason to think Nolan would like it, it was exactly the wrong thing to do.

  Nolan’s eyes changed when he shook his head. There was a new sadness in them. He looked away. “She was a tomboy,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Lucy.” Nolan looked back, and his expression was painfully neutral. “She lived right next door to me. She was a tomboy. Into everything. Honestly, she was more like a boy than I was. But we were friends, so she always dragged me into her adventures. You know, throw a clothes line over a tree branch and try to build an elevator. Catch two dozen frogs and put them in the school cafeteria. Stuff like that.”

  John looked out his own window, remembering that morning’s encounter. “She’s still kind of an adventurer.”

  “I’m sure.” Nolan shrugged. “Anyhow. The summer before high school she, um, blossomed. And the first day of school she caught the attention of this jock. He was a junior. Real popular. All the girls chasing him. You know the kind.”

  I know because I was that guy in my school, John thought. He simply nodded.

  “So Junior Jock got all over Lucy, and she was just young enough to be stupid over this popular guy paying her all this attention, you know?”

  “He nailed her.”

  “Yeah. And he—” Nolan stopped. “I’m not sure I should tell you the rest of this. It’s kinda…Lucy’s story to tell.”

  John nodded his understanding. He expected Nolan to keep his confidences. He didn’t begrudge that he kept Lucy’s as well.

  “Skip ahead to where he dumps her.”

  “No.” Nolan thought about it for a long moment. “No. It’ll be okay. Because it’s you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know. Junior knocked her up.”

  “Oh nice,” John said. He’d half-guessed this part. “She was what, fourteen? Asshole couldn’t use a condom?”

  “They interfered with his game. That’s what he told Lucy.” Nolan sneered, then sighed. “When she suspected, she came to me. Made me go to the drugstore with her and distract the clerk while she stole a pregnancy test.”

  “What, jock boy wouldn’t even give her the money for that?”

  “It wasn’t about the money, John. It was a very small town. If she’d tried to buy it, everyone would have known before we walked out the door. Including her parents.” He shook his head again. “Besides, she was pretty good at shoplifting.”

  He paused to take a long drink of his soda. “We went back to my house. And my mom was all, ‘Oh Lucy, we haven’t seen you in so long, let me get you some cookies and lemonade’. My mom thought we should be a couple. She still does. And we had to sit there and chit-chat with her while this pregnancy test was burning a hole in Lucy’s pocket. Anyhow, we finally got upstairs, she peed on the stick, and we waited. But we both knew, John. Way before that pink line showed up, we both knew.”

  “What did Junior say?”

  Nolan shook his head. “This was on a Saturday morning. Junior was at the state football championships. He was supposed to be back Sunday night. Lucy was going to tell him then. She stayed with me all day. We talked, tried to figure out what to do. Lucy was scared her parents would have him sent to jail.”

  “For statutory rape.” And deservedly so.

  “Yes. And they would have. Right before they disowned her.” He paused again. “We decided we’d tell everyone that it was my baby.”

  “What?”

  “I was the same age as Lucy, so I couldn’t get into trouble. Not legal trouble, anyhow.” He shook his head. “It sounds stupid now, but it made sense at the time.”

  “You were fourteen.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And gay.”

  His partner shrugged. “I was still in heavy denial about that.”

  “You really loved her.”

  “I’ll always love her,” Nolan answered simply.

  “I’m so sorry.” John felt like a world-class heel. “I never should have slept with her.”

  Nolan shook his head. “I don’t mind, John. Really. It’s not about sex with Lucy and me.”

  “But you said you slept with her once.”

  “That…was something else entirely.”

  “I’m confused.” John shook his head. He had to believe that Nolan was sincere about not minding the sex. Well, why would he? But it still felt wrong. “So what happened with the baby?”

  As if the universe had been listening, their radio alarm sounded and they had to respond to another car crash.

  *

  The crash wasn’t as bad as it could have been. A child had run into the street from behind a parked van. A teenage driver had swerved to avoid him and hit the van instead. His car was too old to have an airbag, so he’d bashed his forehead on the steering wheel. Lots of blood, but no serious damage.

  The child was not injured, but he’d peed his pants in front of his friends. On a hunch, John snapped a picture of him with his cell phone.

  They stabilized the teenager and transported him. By the time they got him turned over, his father had arrived. The man was the size of a small truck. He was red in the face and his voice was low, furious. John saw him leave the front desk and head for the treatment bay. He grabbed him before he could get to the boy.

  “What do you want?” the man snarled dangerously.

  “Want to show you something,” John answered. He brought out his phone, showed the man the picture of the child. “Your son wasn’t speeding. He’s not at fault. This kid ran out from behind a van and your son swerved to miss him. I know he’s a new driver. And right now he’s scared out of his mind. But he did exactly the right thing. He saved this child’s life.”

  The man took the phone and studied the picture. “This kid don’t look too bright.”

  “Nope.”

  “Looks like he pissed himself.”

  “Well, yeah. He almost got hit by a car.”

  The man glanced up at him. His face worked its way through several expressions until it found the right not-so-pissed-off, just-a-little-apologetic one. “You knew I was loaded for bear, didn’t you?”

  “Your voice kinda gave it away. You sounded just like my dad.”

  “He’s only had his license three weeks. It’s his mother’s car. I told him if he put a dent in it I’d kill him.” The father sighed deeply. The red receded from his face and he grew pale. “Damn. Damn.”

  “Dents are better than blood,” John answered. “Um, and speaking of which, before you go in there you should know that your son laid his forehead open pretty good on the steering wheel. It looks like hell. It bled a lot. Head wounds do. But he’ll be okay.”

  “Thanks for the warning. And thanks for…for keeping me from being a jackass. I guess he did good, huh?”

  “He did real good,” John assured him. “Real good.”

  The father went to see his son. Nolan came out of the bay and joined John.
“Paramedic, social worker, all-round good guy,” he teased.

  John grinned. “We just got the kid cleaned up. I didn’t want to have to do it all over again.”

  “Six minutes,” Nolan said.

  “What?”

  “Until our next run. I’m guessing six minutes.”

  Krulak glanced at his watch. “Twenty-one,” he guessed.

  “We should be so lucky.”

  They headed out to the squad to wait.

  The next run, a possible heart attack, came in eleven minutes.

  Chapter Nine

  The rest of the day was busy as hell. They finally got back to the shed half an hour after they were supposed to turn over to the night shift. Griffin and Hensley were watching Jeopardy and waiting to take over. Griffin looked over the run report. “Holy shit, guys, you got all your runs and all of ours too.”

  “Yeah,” John said wearily. “You should have a quiet ni—” Before he even had the last word out, a call came in.

  It was a traffic accident on the freeway, a semi and at least two other vehicles, four or more victims.

  “We got this,” Hensley said brusquely. “Go home.”

  Krulak glanced at his partner. He had a feeling. Nolan simply nodded. “We’ll follow you,” he said.

  Griffin and Hensley rolled with the squad. John and Nolan threw all the extra gear they could fit into the back of Nolan’s car and followed.

  “Call Lucy,” Nolan said as he drove the car through a just-red light behind the squad.

  “Huh?”

  “Tell her we’re going to be late. Maybe really late.”

  “Right.” John pulled out his cell and called her quickly. He got her voicemail and left a message. “Not home,” he said as he put his phone away.

  “Probably in the shower.”

  John let himself contemplate Lucy in the shower for a moment. It was a pleasant distraction from the blur of cars they were passing. It was funny, he never minded Nolan’s fast driving when they were in the squad, but in a sedan it was all he could do not to scream. Maybe all that red, reinforced steel made him feel safe.

  A police car pulled out behind them, running lights and sirens. Krulak hoped his partner would pull over. Instead, he stuck his arm out the side window and waved. The squad car pulled up beside them. The cop in the passenger side looked over at them, waved in recognition. The squad pulled in front of them, and Nolan mashed his foot down on the accelerator, tailgating the police car.

  “Oh my God oh my God,” John murmured.

  “Oh suck it up.”

  “I’m gonna die. I’m off-duty and I’m gonna die.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just hang on.” The squad car went screaming up the on-ramp to the freeway, and Nolan followed, accelerating.

  Blessedly, the wreck was only another mile away. The squad was already there, along with two fire trucks and three squad cars. The police were setting up flares, blocking traffic. A second rescue squad came in behind them.

  Before Nolan had the car in park, John jumped out. It was bad.

  He scanned the scene quickly. The semi was stopped in the second lane from the right. A black SUV had crashed into the back of it. The front of the vehicle was crushed all the way to the windshield. John could see the white silhouettes of deflated airbags. The driver was still in the SUV, but moving. That was good. Griffin and Hensley were with him.

  There was a man walking beside the semi, in jeans and a green shirt and a red cap. Probably the truck driver. The fact that he was walking was good too, though John hoped someone would sit him down and check him out.

  The firemen all seemed to be hovering beside the semitrailer, just in front of the back axle. At first Krulak thought they were studying the damage on the SUV, which annoyed him—free the victims first, gawk later. Then he moved closer and saw something shiny and blue.

  There was another car involved. It was some kind of sports car, two-door, metallic blue, and it was all the way under the trailer. The top of the car had sheared off at the bottom of the windshield. The people in that car were very likely dead. And gruesomely dead at that.

  He broke into a sprint. He felt Nolan at his shoulder, and it warmed the ice in his heart just a little. If I’m about to see a decapitated person—or several of them—I want him beside me.

  The nearest fireman said, “Shit, man.”

  As he stopped beside the trailer, John heard yelling. It wasn’t the firemen. “What the hell?”

  “Two, trapped,” Garcia said quickly. “We’re getting the Jaws.”

  John crouched and clambered under the truck. Up close, the wreck looked even worse. The bottom of the trailer had scraped the paint off the hood and crushed down about three inches of the passenger compartment. Whoever was in there must be flat on the front seat, with almost no room to move.

  But at least he still had his head attached.

  “Hey,” John called loudly. “Hey, we’re going to get you out. Try to stay calm.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” a man answered. “We’re crammed up in here like sardines. How calm do you want me to be?”

  “What’s your name?” Nolan asked. He slipped behind the car and approached the passenger side.

  “What?”

  “What’s your name?” Nolan repeated. “Who’s in there with you?”

  “Smith,” the man answered. “Doug Smith. Shelly’s with me.”

  John tugged at the door, though he knew the firemen would have tried that already. “Okay, Doug,” he said. “We’re getting the Jaws of Life, and we’ll get you out of there. Try to stay still.”

  “You think I got any fucking room to move around?” Smith snapped back.

  Krulak grinned to himself. He didn’t mind the abuse. It meant that his patient was still alive, still conscious, still had a good airway. “Say anything you want,” he murmured to himself, “just keep talking.”

  “How about Shelly?” Nolan called. “Is she okay?”

  “Shit, I don’t know. She was in the backseat. She’s all pinned back there. I can’t even turn around to see her.”

  “Shelly?” Nolan called. “Shelly, can you hear me?”

  “She’s not going to fucking answer you,” Smith complained. “Shelly. Hey, Shelly. Speak up, girl.”

  There was no answer.

  The fire crew came back with the Jaws. “Which side?” Waldron asked.

  “Doug,” John called, “which way is your head pointed?”

  “What?”

  “Is your head closer to me, or to the passenger side?”

  “What the fuck difference does that make? Just get me out of here.”

  “My side,” Nolan said.

  The fire crew moved around the car to the other side. John backed out to the road and stood up straight. “I need the cart and a backboard,” he said. A couple firemen went to get it.

  “Hey,” the truck driver said. “Hey, um, are they okay?”

  John turned and looked him up and down. No blood anywhere. His color was a little ashen, sweat beaded on his forehead. “He’s swearing like a sailor,” he said.

  “That’s good?”

  “It’s great,” John assured him. “You should really sit down and let someone look you over.”

  “Yeah, I will. In a minute. I was thinking, you want me to drop the stand?”

  “The what?”

  The truck driver turned and gestured toward the front of the trailer. “The landing legs. I can drop ’em and crank the whole thing up. It won’t be much, but it’ll give you maybe a foot of clearance.”

  “Might be a plan.” John stuck his head back under the truck. “Hey, Chief? Chief!”

  “What?”

  “Driver says he can drop the legs, give us a little clearance at the top of the car.”

  Waldron came around the car and out from under the trailer. He looked where Krulak pointed, shook his head. “What if it collapses?”

  “I’ll leave the cab where it is,” the truck driver said. “It comes d
own, you’re right back where you are now.”

  The chief considered for a long moment. John knew what he was thinking. The trailer could come down on a rescuer and take off an arm or a hand. Or a head. But they needed that little bit of extra clearance. “All right,” he finally said. “But nobody goes over the top of that car. Nobody.”

  “Got it.”

  He left to tell the rest of the crew what they were doing. John crept back under the truck. “Doug. Doug, you still with me?”

  “Man, you are just a fucking genius, aren’t you? Where the hell would I go?”

  John grinned. He loved this guy, sight unseen. “We’re going to jack the truck up a little bit.”

  “Thought you were getting the Jaws of Life. What, you afraid they’ll fuck up the paint job?”

  “We’ll still use them. This will just give us some room to work. But listen to me, Doug. There won’t be enough room for you to climb over the top, okay? I don’t want you to try. The trailer could come down and crush you.”

  There was no answer.

  “Doug?” John asked firmly, “do you understand me?”

  “Yeah, I got you.” The victim sounded resigned. “You’re just a ray of fucking sunshine, aren’t you?”

  “Just sit tight. We’ll get you out.”

  “All right,” Waldron shouted. “Everybody out from under.”

  “He doesn’t mean me, does he?” Doug asked wearily.

  “I’ll be right back,” Krulak promised.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  John retreated again to the safety of the road. He glanced around. The police had blocked off the lanes on either side of the wreck with squad cars, so traffic had to use the shoulder on the far left to get around. They had set flares farther out. Traffic wasn’t heavy at this hour—rush hour was over—but squeezing three lanes into one, and then everybody slowing way down to have a look was backing it up fast. There would be fender-benders before the wreck was cleared. Griffin and Hensley had the driver out of the black SUV and on the cart. His face was bloody, but he was moving his arms and legs. His airbags had probably saved his life.

  Nolan was on the other side of the trailer with Waldron and some of the others. One of the cops was walking with the truck driver up to the front of the trailer. Still needed to check him out, Krulak noted. He sighed and looked back toward the decapitated sports car. He was probably going to be too busy in a minute.