I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, but please know that I loved you both, your mother and those two sweet little girls more than anything money can buy. That’s the truth.
Dad
By the time she’d finished reading, the words had blurred on the page. A tear escaped the corner of her eye and dripped onto the paper, smearing the ink. As she scrambled up from the floor to grab a tissue, her nostrils filled with a strange scent. Like something was burning.
Her chest tightened, and her heart pounded, as the lights in the room flickered. Suddenly, the room was cloudier than it had been a few moments before. How had she been so caught up in those documents that she hadn’t noticed? The ceiling light blinked again and then went dark.
Just as her mind started to wrap around the possibility, the smoke alarm in the hall blared.Fire. After a lifetime of practice and instruction from the men in her family, she dropped low to the floor and pulled her sweater up to cover her nose and mouth. Though she told herself she couldn’t panic, as she reached around for her phone and found her back pocket empty, a cry escaped her. She closed her eyes, shoving back her hair, and then forced them to open again. She refused to die here.
On her hands and knees, Rachel made her way back to the cabinet and reached inside. A gush of relief filled her as her hand closed over her phone. She tapped to awaken it, rested it on the floor and dialed for help.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” the dispatcher said once the call connected.
“My father’s—I mean my brother’s—house is on fire. I am inside.”
“And who am I speaking to?”
“My name is Rachel Hoffman.”
* * *
The all-call tone went off just as Mick stepped out into the apparatus bay to monitor the morning inspections.
Captain Louie Nash moved to the center of the room. “McMillan, Ellison, Lucas. Engine 1 will be command.”
As the whole crew went into action, staffing Engine 1, Ladder Truck 1, Tanker 1 and Squad 1, Mick raced to the locker room and suited up himself. All hands would be needed on this call.
With his face mask already in place, he slid into a seat across from Felicia and accepted the headset she offered to him. By the time he’d slid his arms into his SCBA, tested the line and buckled in, they were already on the road.
“Did you hear the address?” she said into her microphone.
“I did, but—”
“It’s the chief’s place. I mean the former chief,” she clarified.
Mick gasped into the mask and then cleared his throat to cover it. He couldn’t manage the question that burned on his tongue. The one his gut told him he already had the answer to.
Cody Ellison, one of the newer crew members on Rotation 3, spoke up instead. “But I thought that Hoffman—”
“He’s not there,” Felicia said. “Rachel called it in. She might be trapped inside.”
Mick blinked several times, the faces inside the rig blurring.
Felicia waved a hand at him, low near the leg of her turnout pants. When she had his attention, she pointed to him and then made the okay symbol, asking if he was all right.
He nodded and then took a few more breaths to make it less of a lie. At least she hadn’t said it in the microphone with the captain and driver/pump operator right up front and listening. The last thing he wanted to do was to arrive on scene and be unable to help. But he could barely hold himself still. Rachel might have been still inside that house, and all he could do was sit inside this rig, begging it to go faster, so they could reach her before smoke became too much for her or the flames trapped her inside.
When the rig arrived at the house and, as command, Nash surveyed the scene to orchestrate the attack, Mick had to force himself to not do something ridiculous like run into the house without a plan.
Felicia caught hold of his shoulder as they unloaded the first hose and the rig pulled away, stretching it along the driveway. She said something that sounded like, “She’s going to be all right, Chief,” but with the mask, plus the deafening sound of the diesel engine and the pump, he couldn’t be sure.
He didn’t even care that someone had figured out he was with Rachel. Or at least his heart was. He only prayed that Felicia was right.
Chapter 24
Aloud thud brought Rachel’s head up from the floor where it was becoming easier to stay. Whether it was help arriving or the ceiling beams starting to fall, she couldn’t tell. Around her, sizzling sounds like frying bacon filtered from all the outlets, and even with the collar of her crewneck sweater over her face, her nose and throat burned. Her eyes were on fire. She had to work just to draw in air.
Then came a shattering of glass. She lifted her heavy head again and turned toward the windows on the opposite side of the room. Daylight outlined the shape of a firefighter in a helmet, mask and full turnout gear. The thing in his hand must have been an ax.
