Trial by Fire

by J. A. Jance

  In the aftermath of a tough divorce, B., like Ali, had returned to his hometown roots in Sedona, where he started a computer-security company called High Noon Enterprises. Months after Ali had signed on to become one of his clients, he had come to her rescue when she had been the subject of a cyber-stalking event. Her computer had been hacked by a serial killer who used an Internet dating service to target and harass unsuspecting victims. B. Simpson had played an integral part in taking the bad guy down.

  In the months since then, High Noon Enterprises had become wildly successful. B. had, in fact, spent the last three weeks in Washington, D.C., doing something he couldn’t discuss, with someone at Homeland Security whose name was classified and couldn’t be mentioned.

  While B. had been gone, he had sent the occasional text message, several of them hinting that when he got back, he would like to look into the possibility of their being more than friends. That was another issue entirely. Ali had kept her responses breezy and noncommittal. Admittedly, she was attracted to the man. Why wouldn’t she be? He was smart and had plenty of money and a disposition that reminded her of a gentle giant (he towered over her at six foot five). Ali liked him, her parents adored him, and Chris thought B. was slick. As far as Ali was concerned, however, the difficulty lay in the difference in their ages. She couldn’t quite get beyond the fact that B. Simpson was closer in age to Christopher and Athena than he was to Ali.

  That disparity seemed to have no effect at all on B.’s apparent interest in her. She scanned through his text message:

  Bak n Sed. Bfast @ SLC. Prnts say u r in PHX. Kno u r workn 4 Sheriff Max, PHX in June! R U NUTS?

  Smiling, Ali texted him back:

  Nuts R U!

  The elevator door swished open. Ali looked up from her cell phone in time to see a stocky young man step into the hallway and stride purposefully toward the nurses’ station.

  “I’m here about the burn victim from Camp Verde,” he announced.

  Ali was suddenly all ears. Closing her phone, she turned her attention to what was happening at the nurses’ station.

  “Are you a relative?” the charge nurse asked.

  “No,” the man said impatiently, pulling out his wallet and displaying his identification. “My name is Caleb Moore, and I’m with the Camp Verde Fire Department. I’m the one who carried the victim out of the burning house.”

  The nurse glanced at his ID. Ali more than half expected that the man would be given the bum’s rush. Before the nurse could do so, Caleb rushed on.

  “I already know that you can’t give me any information about her condition. You probably can’t even confirm she’s here, not officially anyway, but I know this is where the helicopter brought her. I know that nun is here, too. You know, the one who takes care of dying patients. So I’d like to sign the logbook, please—the one Sister Anselm keeps. I want to let the woman and her family know that I was here and that I was thinking about them.”

  If Ali was surprised that Caleb Moore knew of the existence of Sister Anselm’s logbook, the charge nurse was not. Without a word, she handed over the notebook.

  While Ali watched curiously, Caleb Moore clutched the notebook to his chest and marched past her to a table in the far corner of the room. Tossing the notebook onto the table, he settled heavily into a chair, removed a pen from his shirt pocket, and began to write.

  Oblivious to everyone else in the room, he hunched over the notebook with an air of painstaking concentration, like a student dealing with difficult questions on a final exam. He wrote slowly and carefully, as though the words he put on paper would be judged as much for penmanship as for content.

  Had Caleb glanced up from his task, he might have seen Ali studying him. She realized then that she might have caught a glimpse of him the night before at the fire, but the scene had been chaotic, so she wasn’t sure. The man she had seen in full firefighting regalia had been hustled into an ambulance. Today, clad in ordinary jeans and a dark blue golf shirt rather than his firefighting garb, and with his crewcut brown hair, Lieutenant Moore looked perfectly ordinary, like a young neighbor who might stop by in the hope of borrowing a lawn mower or a rake.

  Halfway down the page, he paused long enough to cough a horribly wracking cough. When he turned to cough into his armpit, Ali noticed the hospital identification bracelet he wore on his arm. Ali had assumed that the injured firefighter had suffered burns as well. Now she realized that his injuries were more likely related to smoke inhalation. He had been admitted and treated. Now, after being released, he had come straight to the burn unit.

  Unwilling to interrupt his process, Ali waited until Caleb finished writing. Then she sat and watched while he read over what he had written. Only when he seemed satisfied with the result and started to return the notebook to the nurses’ station did Ali move to intercept him.

  “Mr. Moore?” she asked. “Do you have a moment?”

  He turned to face her as if noticing her presence for the first time. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?” he demanded. “How do you know who I am?”

  Startled by his apparent anger, Ali held up her sheriff’s department ID. “I overheard you give your name to the nurse. I’m Ali Reynolds,” she explained. “I was at the scene of last night’s fire.”

  He looked up from examining her ID with an expression of ill-concealed fury on his face.

  “Media Relations?” he demanded. “I’m not interested in talking to someone from the media. Not at all!”

  “I’m not a reporter,” Ali said quickly. “My job right now is to keep reporters away from everyone involved, including you, but I do want to offer my personal congratulations about what you did last night. Your efforts to save the woman were wonderful . . .”

  He tossed the book onto the counter and then whirled to face Ali. “You think what I did was wonderful?” he demanded with a bitter snort. “Pardon the hell out of me if I beg to disagree. It would have been wonderful if we had gotten there sooner and I’d been able to carry her out of that burning building before the fire got to her instead of after the fact. Wonderful my ass!”

  With that he turned and marched away, carrying his own burden of undeserved anguish with him and leaving Ali with the half-uttered compliment still stuck in her throat.

  The rest of the world might regard Lieutenant Caleb Moore as a hero, but that wasn’t how he saw himself. Despite his valiant efforts to save her, to him the unidentified burn-unit patient in room 814 represented a terrible failure on his part. As far as he was concerned, what he and the rest of the Camp Verde Fire Department had done on her behalf was much too little and way too late.

  Ali turned back to the nurses’ station. The charge nurse shook her head sadly as the elevator doors closed behind him.

  “That’s not unusual,” she explained in response to Ali’s unspoken question. “Firefighters tend to take their losses very personally.”

  “Could I see that book again for a moment?” Ali asked.

  With a shrug, the nurse handed over the notebook and then turned away to answer a ringing telephone. Ali took the logbook back to her chair and opened the journal to the second entry.

  My name is Caleb Moore. I’m a volunteer firefighter for the Camp Verde Volunteer Fire Department. I’m the one who carried you out of the burning house last night.

  Thirty years ago, when I was little, my younger brother, Benjamin, and I were playing with matches. His clothing caught fire. I was only two years older than he was. I didn’t know enough to roll him around on the ground to put out the fire. All I could do was stand there and watch. I have nightmares about that to this day. I wake up in a cold sweat still hearing his screams. He was burned over ninety percent of his body. An ambulance came and took him to the hospital, where he died two days later.

  My parents forgave me but I have never forgiven myself, and I’ve never forgotten it, either. Everyone tried to tell me that what happened to Benjy wasn’t my fault, but I know better. I was four. He was only two. I’m th
e one who got the matches down from the cupboard. I’m the one who lit the first one.

  I’ve spent my whole life trying to make up for what I did. That’s one of the reasons I joined the fire department. I’m here to tell you how sorry I am that we didn’t come to help you sooner. I hope they catch whoever did this to you.

  You and your family will be in my prayers every day. I wish I knew your name, but God knows it even if I don’t. If there’s anything I can do to help, beyond donating blood and praying, please let me know.

  I’m leaving my card here with a phone number. If you or someone in your family would like to talk to me, please feel free to call anytime, day or night.

  Sincerely,

  Caleb Moore

  Fighting back tears, Ali closed the logbook. Then she walked back over to the nurses’ station and deposited it on the counter.

  “Are you all right?” the charge nurse asked.

  “I’m okay,” Ali answered.

  But she wasn’t okay. Not really. Over the years, and especially in the aftermath of September 11, she had found herself wondering what kind of person would walk into a burning building in the hope of saving another. Now she had met one, a real American hero. She knew she was lucky to have done so, and so was the woman in room 814.

  Regardless of whether the patient lived or died, she and her unknown family owed a huge debt to a man who, despite his personal history or maybe because of it, had chosen to become a firefighter, placing himself in a position where he would have to face his worst fears on a daily basis.

  Maybe Caleb Moore’s previous night’s rescue attempt hadn’t lived up to his own high expectations, but Ali couldn’t help but admire the man’s raw courage and his continuing effort to right an unrightable wrong.

  Once more she emerged from a drugged sleep into a world of impossible pain. Unbelievable pain. She looked around, hoping to see the woman—the nun or the sister or the nurse—and hoping she would come and push the button.

  Who was she again? Right then, she couldn’t remember the woman’s name or what it was she had called herself. Not a nurse or doctor. Something else, but the pain blotted out any memory of those words just as it blotted out everything else. Everything.

  With some dismay she realized that beyond the fire—beyond the world of flame that should have been hell but wasn’t—she remembered nothing. The fire was all she could recall. Only the fire. It was as though she had come into existence in the fire. Before that she had been nothing.

  Who am I? she wondered. Where am I from? Why can’t I remember?

  The pain was brutal, beyond anything she could imagine. She wanted to howl in agony, but the ventilator stifled her ability to make any sound other than a muffled whimper.

  Suddenly the nun’s concerned countenance appeared above her. Seeming to sense her distress, the sister punched the invisible button that magically released the sweet narcotics into her veins. She knew that in a few moments the painkillers would push back against the pain. Once again she would drift into a state of welcome oblivion.

  Before that happened, however, she realized the nun was speaking to her directly.

  “Do you know who did this to you?” she asked. “Do you have any idea who left you in that building? Blink once for yes. Blink twice for no.”

  It seemed that she had been asked to do that once before, but blinking her eyes seemed like a very complicated concept. The idea that some person had placed her in that building and then set fire to it made no sense. Why? Had someone been trying to kill her? But who? Who in the world hated her that much?

  “Do you have any idea about who is responsible for what happened to you?” the nun insisted. “We don’t have much time before the drugs take over. Please blink once for yes. Twice for no.”

  She blinked twice for no because she had no idea.

  If the nun was disappointed in her answer, she didn’t show it. “Where do you live? Are you from Arizona? Again, blink once for yes. Twice for no.”

  She thought about that, too, as the narcotics began to seep into her body, dulling the pain and dulling her mind as well. Was she from Arizona? The word “Arizona” sounded familiar somehow, as though she ought to know it, but she didn’t, not for sure.

  “Again,” the nun reminded her, “one blink for yes. Two for no.”

  The answer should be perfectly simple, but it wasn’t. She didn’t know who she was or where she came from. One blink or two wouldn’t work for that. She blinked several times in rapid succession, and the nun got it.

  “Does that mean you don’t know?” she asked.

  She blinked once. Yes, for I don’t know. Yes, for I have no idea. None. As the painkillers gradually erased her pain, unanswerable questions tumbled through the falling curtain of drug-induced fog.

  One prospect was too terrible to consider—that no one else had done it, that she alone was responsible. That was the final despairing thought that surfaced as the narcotics took over. Maybe her previous life had been so bad that she could no longer tolerate it. Maybe no one else had put her in the house. Maybe she had walked into the house on her own, started the fire on her own.

  Somewhere in the far, dark reaches of her mind she understood that if that was true, if she had attempted to commit suicide, then she was damned. Forever. She really would go to hell.

  And even Sister Anselm … Yes, that was her name. She could remember the name now that the pain was less and when she no longer needed to know it. If that was the case, Sister Anselm, too, would desert her.

  She would be left alone—alone and helpless. Alone and in pain. Alone and unable to push the button.

  Drifting back into the searing flames of her ever-present nightmare, she heard someone screaming.

  The awful noise went on and on and on. Eventually she knew whose voice it was because in the nightmare there was no ventilator.

  “Help me,” she begged aloud in the dream. “For the love of God, please help me.”

  Ali wasn’t eager to place the call to Holly Mesina, but remembering the other charge she’d been given by Sheriff Maxwell, and after thinking about it for a while, she finally shaped up and picked up the phone. Holly’s voice was cheerful enough when she first answered, but the cheer drained away once she learned Ali was on the line.

  “Right,” she said curtly. “I’m looking into it, but as you can imagine, we’re buried around here today. I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

  Holly hung up without bothering to say good-bye and without asking for Ali’s number, either. In other words, it would be a cold day in hell before she deigned to call back with information of any kind.

  Yes, Sheriff Maxwell had asked Holly to work with Ali on the missing persons situation, but that wasn’t going to happen. Maxwell was enough of a politician to have won a countywide election, and he was smart enough to sort his way through dealings with the ATF, but Ali suspected that some of the political wrangling inside his department had so far escaped his notice.

  Ali was still wondering what to do about that when the eighth floor of Saint Gregory’s Hospital came alive with activity. A gurney pushed by two ER attendants came racing down the corridor. Before the two attendants shoved the loaded gurney into the open door of room 816, Ali caught sight of the sedated patient lying there—a dark-haired young man, a teenager by the looks of him.

  The room’s door swung shut, and the elevator doors opened. Two separate groups of people hustled into the waiting room. Ali soon realized that although the people had arrived in two elevator loads, they were all members of the same group—the distressed loved ones of the young man, who had just disappeared into room 816.

  As the new arrivals talked excitedly among themselves, Ali was able to gather that the boy, James, had accidentally set fire to his jeans in the garage at his home while working on the fuel line of an old Ford F-150 pickup he’d been given for his sixteenth birthday.

  One especially distraught middle-aged woman, the boy’s mother most likely, hurried over to
the door of room 816. While she donned the required antibacterial clothing, other concerned relatives—a grandmother, two aunts, a stray uncle, and two sisters, along with two not yet school-age younger children—settled into chairs in the waiting room, filling it with chatter and with a series of cell phone calls that would no doubt summon more relatives to come and join the vigil.

  The difference between the two patients—the boy in room 816 and the unidentified woman in 814—was remarkable. The young man’s arrival was accompanied by a whole retinue of care and concern. His presence filled the waiting room with people who were worried about his welfare.

  The woman in 814 was alone. Other than Caleb Moore, Sister Anselm, and Ali Reynolds, that nameless patient had no one. That thought had barely registered in Ali’s head when the situation suddenly changed. The elevator opened again, and this time a man in a gray business suit stepped out into the noisy room. Ignoring the clutch of James’s worried relatives, the newcomer made straight for the nurses’ station.

  Ali didn’t know the man’s name, but she immediately recognized him for who he was and what he represented. He was a fed. He pulled out an identification packet and thrust it toward the charge nurse.

  “Agent Gary Robson,” he announced perfunctorily. “I’m here to see the patient who was brought from Camp Verde last night.”

  Robson may have expected everyone to jump to his tune, but the charge nurse wasn’t impressed. “I’m sorry,” she said, holding up the logbook. “The patient’s condition is such that she can’t see anyone right now. You’re welcome to make an entry in the visitors’ logbook.”

  Unaccustomed to being told no, Agent Robson ignored the proffered book and raised his voice several notches.

  “Apparently you don’t understand,” he said. “I’m an officer of the law, and I’m investigating last night’s fire. I need to speak to the patient immediately. If she’s not available right now, perhaps I could speak to whoever is in charge of her care so we can get some idea as to when she will be available. Speaking to her is of the utmost importance.”