2
The initial report on scene had been “nothing showing.” Vasquez relayed the call back to the station as they’d pulled up to a nondescript house on a nondescript street in nondescript Seacroft, North Carolina.
“Dispatch, this is truck seven-two. We’re on-site at 171 Sand Dollar Crescent. There is nothing showing.”
Nothing showing. Lincoln Scott had been in Seacroft for two months. The town’s false alarms—not to mention the bogus callouts, which turned out to be a homeowner upset with the smell of their neighbor’s barbecuing—exceeded the actual emergencies by so many miles, he could have driven to Florida and back a dozen times.
The house showed no sign of danger as he slid out of the truck.
“This’ll be quick,” Vasquez said, coming to stand beside him.
The house’s front door burst open, and a kid with the reddest hair Linc had ever seen tumbled down the steps like he was being chased.
Maybe something was going on after all.
“It’s fine! It’s fine! It’s just my dinner.”
Nope. Never mind. Maybe Linc could rescue a cat from a tree somewhere close by to make the trip worthwhile.
Of course, Vasquez insisted on doing everything by the book, and, yeah, he’d heard the stories often enough in his training—the ones where a “nothing showing” call and a crew who couldn’t bother being thorough resulted in an entire city block burning down—but this was Seacroft. If the town got any sleepier, they’d all be in a coma.
“Let’s go.” Vasquez motioned to him to follow as the kid led them back toward the front door.
“This is a lot of fuss for an overcooked sweet potato.” The kid was breathless. As he calmed down from his initial panic, though, his voice dropped, settling on a decidedly adult register. He walked them down the stairs to a basement apartment, apologizing the whole time. With every step, the stench assaulted Linc’s nose.
Maybe not a false alarm after all, because holy God, what was that smell?
He’d heard somewhere once that the Inuit people had hundreds of words for snow.
As a firefighter, he’d learned about as many for the smell of something burning. Smoke came in so many different flavors, ranging from the comforting smell of campfires with friends to the burning sting of a chemical fire.
This one, though, was epically bad. It started with campfire, then turned harsh, like the time Lacey tried to toast marshmallows in her room using a curling iron, burned her hand instead, and melted a hole in the carpet. Sweet, but in a way that clung to the hairs in his nose.
And the whole apartment was full of smoke.
Something might not be burning now, but it had been recently.
The guy was still babbling. While Vasquez appeared to be listening patiently, the collar of her jacket inched up her neck as her shoulders bunched. But every time he started running off on another tangent, she stayed all business, gently bringing him back around to the source of all the smoke.
For the briefest second, the kid’s eyes flicked to Linc’s, but they didn’t focus before he was back to apologizing. The split second of missed connection caught Linc’s attention, though, when he should have been scanning the small apartment, looking for any other sources of smoke or the potential for a flare-up.
The kid was a classic ginger. More freckles than skin that disappeared down his neck and under the collar of the ratty old T-shirt he kept pulling on nervously.
He opened the microwave door and more smoke billowed out. “Holy shit!” He dove for whatever was inside. Linc almost called out for him to stop, but then the red-haired man was fumbling with a soup ladle—Linc didn’t miss the dry humor in Vasquez’s voice as she pointed out something metal would be safer—and coughing while he tried to fish out the smoking thing in the microwave with a silver gravy spoon.
This guy was seriously high maintenance.
And cute.
Linc’s amusement and boredom evaporated as cold fear shot through his chest.
The guy dumped the remains of his meal in the sink, letting the water run, and lifted his arms over his head before stuffing his fingers into his hair in dismay. He and Vasquez had their backs to Linc. He was only slightly taller than she was, even in her gear. With his elbows sticking out like that, it pulled the T-shirt taut over his back, making the flare of his shoulder blades and the dip of his spine visible, along with the edge of the elastic waistband of his underwear over the top of his jeans.
Linc flushed and spun, blinking rapidly. Arguably from the smoke, but who was he kidding?
Shut it down.
His lungs were tight, and not from the air.
