Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1

by Unknown

  “It is.” Alexandra shrugs. The older she gets, the more she looks like their mother, faint creases around her eyes and mouth. “I was awake.” She stubs the cigarette out on the concrete, picking up the butt and tossing it in the ashtray outside the door. “Except not really awake, apparently, because then I got here and I didn’t have my keys.”

  Nick mumbles noncommittally, pulling his own keys out of his pocket and nudging her aside to unlock the door. Their grandparents bought this place for twenty grand back in 1962, a family business built on deluxe egg breakfasts and Saturday night prime rib specials, checkerboard floors creaking underfoot. Their father shot the shit with the regulars from his perch behind the register every single day until he died. Nick makes enough as a paramedic to pay his mortgage, and their sister Ioanna’s husband does pretty well at an insurance company in Springfield, but the fact of the matter is the diner wouldn’t float without all three of them working a couple of mornings a week. And none of them have the heart to sell it.

  Mornings like this, Nick’s not sure why. “Fuck,” he hisses when two of the overhead lights blow as soon as he flips the switch bank. “Dammit.”

  “Hey there, Stormface,” Alexandra says, an old expression of their father’s. She frowns, making a beeline for the coffeemaker. “What’s eating you?”

  Nick shrugs. “Sorry.” In theory it’s nothing a cold shower shouldn’t have taken care of, so he can’t figure out why he’s still in a mood that could peel the bark off a tree. “Didn’t sleep so much myself,” he calls over his shoulder, heading down to the basement for extra lightbulbs. The storage space smells like onions and coffee, familiar.

  “Ah.” Then, once he’s back and has the ladder set up, “You want to talk about it?”

  Nick shakes his head, pulling a new bulb out of the package. “I’m okay,” he tells her. “Thanks.”

  Alexandra’s unconvinced. “I’m just saying— Hi, Victor,” she calls as one of the line cooks lets himself in, raising a hand in greeting. “I’m just saying,” she continues, attention back on Nick with a laser focus. “It’s not good not to talk to anybody about how you feel.”

  Right. Nick climbs down the ladder more carefully than he really needs to, wanting to avoid his sister’s gaze. She thinks it’s Maddie-related. Alexandra and her husband Bill never had any children of their own, but Nick is a full ten years younger and Maddie was like a daughter to them. Ever since Nick first brought her home when they were teenagers, Alexandra doted on her, taking her shopping at the Eastfield Mall and sending her care packages while she was away at college. She and Maddie had a standing lunch date every other Thursday right up until Maddie was too sick to leave the house anymore, and when that happened Alexandra started bringing food over herself. As slow as Nick’s been to recover from what happened, he thinks it’s probably been just as bad for his sister. The offer to talk might not be for his benefit alone.

  “I’m fine,” he promises her anyway, gently as he can muster. “Really.”

  Ioanna shows up around eight, hair knotted on top of her head and both her children in tow. It’s a teachers’ conference day so her kids set up in one of the booths by the window, coloring on the backs of place mats with a cupful of stubby crayons. Stevie, who’s seven, spends the morning practicing a card trick he learned from his viola teacher. Nick picks the four of hearts and remembers it, just like his nephew tells him, but when he looks up both his sisters are eyeing him skeptically across the room.

  “Niko’s not sleeping,” Alexandra announces, like that might somehow tempt him to share his darkest emotions. Stevie holds up the six of spades.

  Kanelos doesn’t text the next morning to see if she needs a ride.

  Which, fine—Taryn doesn’t text him to see if he’ll give her a ride either. On top of which she doesn’t actually need one; the weather’s clearer today, a hint of blue sky, and the roads across town won’t be that much of a problem. Everything is under control.

  Fuck, she really can’t believe she did that.

  Okay, she can believe it. It’s not like she didn’t know he liked her. It makes Taryn feel like a jerk to admit that, even to herself, but she knew. It’s been building, her and Kanelos and their weird, loaded thing, since way back before breaking it off with Pete was even on her radar—Nick bringing her a cup of coffee if he stopped at the Dunkin’, Taryn calling him for rides when she could have asked anybody and being careful not to think about why. Not to mention the night of the fire last summer and how gross and sweaty both of them were, Nick dropping to his knees on his kitchen floor, the way he dragged her jeans down her legs and propped her bare foot on his shoulder and—

  Anyway. Last night. She’ll apologize.

  She’ll avoid him, or she’ll apologize.

  One or the other.

  In the meantime, there’s laundry to do and dinner to make and leave in the fridge for later. Her mom’s having a bad spell, so the kids were basically on their own last night, her little brothers and sister. Jesse, who’s the second-oldest Falvey after Taryn, was supposed to come home and watch them and then just blatantly didn’t, which means they were running around like the fucking Indians out of Peter Pan until one o’clock in the morning. When Doc dropped Taryn off, she walked in the door and found Connor passed out upside down on the armchair with something in his hair that looked like blood. It turned out just to be ketchup, but it scared the shit out of her anyway. What a nine-year-old is still doing playing with his food is beyond Taryn.

  “Just throw this in the micro for like two minutes, okay?” she tells Caitlin now, pushing a tub of margarine and some off-brand orange soda to the back of the fridge and sticking the bowl of beans and cut-up hot dogs in front. “And then stir it, and maybe like another minute and a half after that.” The franks and beans are gross, and not very nutritious, but they’re the sum total of Taryn’s culinary abilities.

  Caitlin nods seriously. She’s eleven, small and skinny just like Taryn was. Taryn hates leaving her in charge like this when she’s so young, especially since Connor and Mikey are fucking terrors, but what can you do. It’s not like they’ve got extra money for a sitter.

  She fishes her phone out of her jeans pocket, deletes two I’m really sorry voicemails from Pete and hits the button for Jesse’s cell. “It’s your sister again,” she says when she gets his voicemail for the fourth time this morning. “Just calling to see if you’re dead in a ditch, or if you possibly might come home to watch the kids later. Ma’s still passed out, so…” She picks at a peeling seam of wallpaper, the pattern faded pictures of herbs with ribbons tied around them. “Plus the gas company called again. Anyway, if you could stop being an asshole for five minutes and help me out, that’d be awesome.” He’s probably at his girlfriend’s, Sheena or Shawna or something. He started disappearing there on the regular after Taryn announced she was moving in with Pete. At the time she let it go, seeing as how she was technically the one abandoning him, but it’s been months now and she really needs the help.

  She hangs up and digs a clean thermal out of the dryer, throwing her hair into a haphazard braid. At the last second she runs back upstairs and puts on some mascara, which—ugh, who the hell knows why.

  He’s good-looking, all right? Kanelos. He’s got that dip in his bottom lip and everything, a jaw you could use to crack open a beer bottle. Just because Taryn’s a disaster in every single area of her life doesn’t mean she wants him to think she looks dead around the eyes.

  “I’m going to work, Ma!” she calls as she passes the bedroom door, then yells at the kids to be good before she goes.

  “Easy,” she mutters to herself, saying a prayer just like always as the engine turns over—one deep breath after another, one mile after the next. “You’re okay.”

  Nick carries his bad mood all the way in to work, spending the better part of the drive telling himself to chill the hell out. There’s no reason to think he’ll be riding with Falvey—it’s Lyn’s night off but there’s always Ortiz or J
erry, any of the other part-time guys. Nick could stand a break. He makes himself suit up before he even checks the roster, takes his time with his jacket and his boots. But in the end there’s no changing what’s already done, and there it is taped to the cinderblock in the hallway: Falvey/Kanelos, Bus #5722.

  So. Here they go.

  He’s on time but Falvey’s already done with the checklist when he gets there, ticking off the last couple of supplies on the page. “Hey,” Nick says carefully, dumping his pack through the open window of the cab. “You wanna drive?”

  “Nah, it’s all you.” Taryn tucks the pen behind her ear, shoving her hands in her pockets. The weak winter sunlight is glinting off the gold in her hair. “Ready to go?”

  “Sure thing.”

  They climb into the bus, kick the heat up a couple of notches. “So,” Falvey says, before Nick’s even got his seat belt buckled. She’s got this tone in her voice like she’s trying to sell him a life insurance policy, oddly jocular. “That was probably a mistake.”

  Not two minutes and they’re off to the races. Nick raises his eyebrows; he can’t help it. “Hey, I asked if you wanted to drive.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “I do,” he agrees. In the cab it smells like McDonald’s, whatever fried garbage the morning guys were eating. He’d roll down the window if it weren’t so fucking cold. “I remember from last time.”

  Taryn scowls at him. “Well, last time it was definitely a mistake.”

  Last time she was with Pete, he guesses; last time—and this time, actually—she came after him. For three whole months after the fire she barely glanced at him, like if they never talked about it that meant it hadn’t happened. Nick nods and looks back at the road. “Ah.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Taryn sighs, leaning her head back against the seat. She’s got freckles all across her cheeks, this pale, pale skin. “It was a dick move.”

  Nick raises his eyebrows. He has no idea what she wants from this situation. Thinks chances are good she probably doesn’t know either. “Which part?” he asks.

  “All of it!” She sounds frustrated now. She sounds like a kid. “Can you help me out, please?”

  “Falvey—” Nick begins, no clue what he’s going to say to her, but in the end it doesn’t matter because he gets cut off by the radio, a burst of static and dispatch announcing a quadruple pileup along the I-90 on-ramp. The call is for multiple responders, and he and Falvey are the third-closest team. Nick nods, and Taryn dives for the transmitter with something that looks a lot like relief. Up go the lights and sirens, and then there’s no more talking.

  It’s a messy accident, spreaders necessary for two of the cars at minimum. Another team and the fire department are already on scene, prying apart a truck and a minivan; it’ll be nothing but bodies coming out of those. Thankfully the whole ramp has been closed down, so at least they aren’t going to have to worry about oncoming traffic. He and Falvey take the vehicle with the least damage, a Prius crushed by itself against the guardrail.

  “Smoke,” Taryn declares, pointing to the rear. It’s thick, curling up from the undercarriage. Falvey ducks her head in the open window, addressing the passenger. “Ma’am, can you hear me?” The fire department has already shoved box cribs around the wheels, securing the car and cutting all the glass out. Legally, no one can help immobile patients until an EMT or paramedic gives the okay.

  “Gonna have to take off the roof,” Nick says. The driver is a woman in her midthirties, unconscious with a head injury. He has a cervical collar ready before Taryn even asks.

  “Airbags,” Falvey points out as she’s securing it, and yeah, Nick sees the problem too. They haven’t deployed. It’s bad news, and not just because of what it means for the driver—they could be triggered by the extraction and injure her further, or even pop out to surprise him and Falvey. Nick knows a paramedic who broke an arm in six places like that. Then he realizes something else.

  “Christ, Falvey, this is a hybrid.” Nick can see real flames now, licking their way around the trunk. “We gotta get her out before that battery explodes everywhere.” Gas tanks never do, that shit is for the movies, but high-volt packs are trickier. Nick tries the crushed driver-side door on a Hail Mary, but the handle comes away in his grip. The passenger’s side is completely blocked by the guardrail.

  “Yeah, already on it.” Falvey’s swung herself through the driver’s window and into the passenger’s seat without disturbing the patient, gymnast-bendy. “Okay, take the cribs out.”

  Nick looks at the piles securing the wheels, then back at Taryn’s face. The on-ramp is a steep, curving hill, the Prius pointed nose down beside the guardrail. “That’s not a good idea,” he says.

  Falvey shoves aside some hair that’s fallen out of her tight ponytail. “Sure it is. We can’t wait to get the roof open, so we’re gonna unjam the door. It’s fine. We’ll coast, I’ll pull the emergency brake. Easy.”

  She has a point. The car is totaled on the driver’s side, door mechanism crunched, but other than being blocked by the guardrail, the passenger’s side looks intact. All they have to do is move the car a few feet. “I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to like it,” Falvey huffs. “You just have to do it. We don’t have time to argue.”

  It’s against regs. It’s a dangerous plan, and it’s completely against regs.

  Nick kicks the piles out from in front of the wheels.

  “Thank you so much,” Falvey calls snottily out the window, then throws the car into neutral. Nick watches it roll forward, streaming smoke. At least half the firefighters are watching too. Through the back window he can see Taryn’s hand on the wheel, steering it away from the railing.

  Start to finish the whole production takes thirty seconds. It feels like decades to Nick, the strange way time can stretch when you’re holding your breath. But then Taryn’s jamming the car into park and kicking open the newly freed door, Nick already waiting with a spine board, and after that it’s just one quick slide to get the patient out of the wreck. Taryn scrambles out behind her, the jolted airbags deploying with a whoosh just as she touches pavement.

  “Good timing,” Nick jokes, steadier than he feels. Falvey is grinning like she hasn’t got a care, already setting up the IV. She lives for accidents like this. The firemen start streaming around the stretcher to put out the smoking car, one of them high-fiving Taryn as he races past.

  “Watch the batteries,” Falvey calls.

  They run on lights and sirens all the way to Berkshire Medical Center, traffic parting like a wave. The patient isn’t critical enough to warrant the rush, but both of them are hopping with leftover adrenaline, albeit for different reasons. Nick lets Taryn be the one to help the doctors with the unload, and she’s still catching her breath when she climbs back into the bus, greenish eyes shining with satisfaction. “That was pretty good,” she says, grinning. She looks so fucking pleased with herself that Nick can’t help smiling back.

  “Yeah, Falvey.” He huffs a quiet laugh into the warm air of the cab. She’s got a pretty good smile on her, is the truth. “It didn’t suck.”

  They stare at each other for a long minute. Nick looks away first. “What happened with Pete?” he asks.

  “Nothing.” Falvey shrugs in a way that almost certainly means something. “It didn’t work out.”

  Nick shrugs back. “Okay.”

  They sit there for a long time, not talking. After a while it starts to snow outside the bus. Nick thinks of the first day he ever met Falvey, shiny new rookie and how there wasn’t any fear in her at all. “You ready to go back?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” Taryn nods, tucks her hands between her thighs to warm them. It would be better if he didn’t think about her so much. “Let’s go.”

  Taryn gets home by eleven thirty and miracle of miracles everybody’s still in one piece and where they’re supposed to be, the boys passed out on the floor in front of the TV and Caitlin reading a
Nancy Drew on the couch. There’s still no sign of Jesse. Taryn tamps down her annoyance and chases everybody upstairs. It’s the weekend, so it’s not a huge deal if the kids are up late, but it’s hard enough to keep them on any kind of schedule as it is. The hallway smells like something might have been burning earlier.

  “How’d it go with the hot dogs?” Taryn asks, standing in the doorway of the room she shares with Caitlin. Twenty-four years old, and she sleeps in a twin bed next to a middle-schooler. There’s a poster of Justin Bieber on the opposite wall.

  Caitlin shrugs, not looking up from her book. She’s a reader, Caitlin. She’s smart. “Fine.”

  Taryn nods. Glances at the closed door down the end of the hall. “Ma?”

  Another shrug. “She came down for a while,” Caitlin says.

  “She eat?”

  Caitlin shakes her head. “Went to Sully’s, I think.”

  Sully’s is the liquor store on the corner. Taryn rolls her eyes. “Okay,” she says, tapping her short nails on the doorframe. “I’m gonna shower. Don’t stay up too much longer, all right?”

  She’s halfway through when someone starts pounding on the bathroom door. Rosemary, from the sounds of it, three sheets to the wind. Taryn wraps a towel around herself, combing the worst of the soap out of her hair. “Ma?”

  “You’re hogging it,” Rosemary slurs, listing in the open doorway. Her blue eyes are bloodshot, cheeks bloated with an alcoholic flush. “Get out.”

  The Falveys have one bathroom between the six of them, a mildewy tub and toilet that haven’t been replaced since the eighties. Sometimes, when she’s drunk or in a mood, Rosemary times the kids while they’re using it. Once, she hauled Caitlin right off the toilet.

  “I’m almost done, Ma,” Taryn tries, but Rosemary reaches for her elbow, missing and yanking the towel. Taryn has to fight to keep herself covered. “Okay,” she snaps. “Lay off.”