Disguised Blessing (25 page)

C
ATHERINE SAT WITH HER HEAD IN HER HANDS
, paralyzed with relief. Finally she looked up and gave Rick a trembling smile. “Now all I have to do is figure out a way to get my car out of a canyon.”

“After what you’ve been through today, that should be a piece of cake.”

Her heart did a funny little skipping beat. He’d come there without being asked, quietly supplied the strength she desperately needed, and expected nothing in return. “I couldn’t have made it without you,” she said with stark honesty.

“Sure you could.” He stood and stretched. “You’re a lot stronger than you think you are.” He moved toward the door. “Tell Lynda to call me when she gets a chance.”

“Can’t you wait? She’ll be here soon.” Catherine didn’t want him to go.

“I promised the chief I’d get back as soon as possible.”

She nodded. “Will you come to dinner?” she
asked, surprising them both. “Let me do at least that much.” She wasn’t being fair. She’d told him that she couldn’t love him, that a relationship was impossible, and yet here she was, opening the door again. “At the new house. As soon as we move in.” She smiled nervously. “As soon as I know where the new house is, of course.”

“You don’t have to cook dinner for me. And you sure as hell better not send a thank-you note,” he said. “We moved past that stuff a long time ago. Or at least I hope we did.”

She couldn’t let him go. At least not this way. “I want to see you again,” she blurted out. “And it has nothing to do with Lynda or thanking you for staying with me.”

He ran his knuckle over her chin and touched her lip with his thumb. “You’re an emotional basket case right now. Give it a couple of weeks and see if you still feel the same. If you do, call me. I’ll meet you anytime, anywhere.”

Slowly, pausing to give her the option of refusal, he came forward and brushed her lips with a whisper-soft kiss. She closed her eyes and swayed toward him. She opened her mouth when he kissed her again, a soft moan in her throat.

Rick broke the kiss, looked at her, and smiled. “I can see you have some serious thinking ahead of you. Just remember, I’m on your side. Always have been. Always will be.”

She walked him to the door and waited while he backed out of the driveway and her mother drove in.

“Where’s Rick going?” she asked, carrying a bag
of Chinese takeout in one hand and a suitcase in the other. She’d insisted she was going to stay until Lynda came home, even if it took all night.

“He had to get back to work.” Catherine took the suitcase.

“But I bought all this food.”

“I’m sure Lynda and Brian can handle it.”

Phyllis spun around, almost dropping the bag. “You found her? Where?”

“Brian found her. Some place up in the foothills where they go to watch the sunset.”

“And she’s all right?” Phyllis went into the kitchen and put the food on the counter.

“Surprisingly, yes.”

“That poor girl. She’s had one bad thing follow on the heels of another all summer long.”

Catherine thought about her mother’s statement. “Maybe, but I’ll bet if you asked her, she’d tell you that she doesn’t see it that way.”

“You mean Brian?”

“And Rick.”

Phyllis shook her head. “He’s become such an important part of this family, I have to remind myself that he hasn’t always been here.”

“Did you know that he and Gene were in the same fraternity at USC?”

“I was wondering how they knew each other.” She turned on the faucet to wash her hands, then stood frozen in place while the water ran unattended. She stared at Catherine and burst into tears.

“What is it?” Catherine asked.

“I don’t know what I would do if something hap
pened to you or Lynda.” She turned off the water and grabbed a tissue. “When I lost your father I swore I would never take another day for granted, but I slipped right back into the same old complacency. How could I ever think I would be happy in Arizona with all of you here?”

“It breaks my heart to think what Ray will miss,” Catherine said. “What was stolen from him.”

“Do you want me to call Ray’s aunt to find out about the funeral and where we should send flowers?”

Flowers…she’d forgotten. Of course they should send flowers. But what kind? Mums to represent the football games Ray would never play? Orchids for the corsage he would never buy another prom date? Roses for the boutonniere he would never wear in his wedding tuxedo?

“Why don’t we wait and find out what Lynda and Brian would like,” Catherine said, sadness threatening to overwhelm her.

“It’s too bad the funeral is so far away.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I know the modern feeling is that funerals are too expensive and overdone. I agree that things have gotten out of hand, but I think people get the trappings and the need for closure confused. There’s a tendency to throw one out with the other. What gets lost is the fact that when someone leaves us, we all have a need to say good-bye one last time.”

There it was, the answer to what she had to do. Simple, but absolutely necessary for Lynda and Brian to begin their healing process. She reached for the phone book.

“What are you going to do?”

“See if I can get Lynda and Brian to Kansas in time for the funeral.” Catherine hesitated. “Remind me to call the rental agency to cancel tomorrow.”

“What about work?”

She’d been on the job such a short time, it was easy to forget. “They’re wonderful people. I’m sure they’ll understand.” No matter how wonderful, they’d hired her because they needed her. She hated to let them down.

“Is there any reason I couldn’t go for you?”

It was the perfect solution. “You wouldn’t mind?”

Phyllis waved away the thought. “I like feeling needed. And this way you can use my car while I’m gone.”

After getting lost in the maze of new parking lots at the airport, Catherine had to run to get to the terminal on time. She arrived just as the plane taxied up to the ramp. Phyllis was the first one off, explaining that Brian had stepped forward to volunteer her to be moved to first class when it was announced the plane was overbooked.

“I think he’s a keeper,” Phyllis said. “I’ve always wanted to fly first class and could never bring myself to part with the money.”

“I think he’s a keeper, too.” Anxious to see Lynda, Catherine searched the steadily moving stream of passengers. For a moment she was sure she’d spotted her, and then decided it had to be someone else. The blonde with the short-cropped
hair wasn’t wearing a cap, and Lynda hadn’t been without one since leaving the hospital.

But then the blonde glanced up, saw Catherine looking at her, and smiled. Catherine caught her breath at the glimpse of the beautiful young woman her daughter had become over the past summer. She wasn’t a child anymore. While Catherine experienced a swell of pride, there was also a poignant sense of loss.

Lynda worked her way through the flow of departing passengers and threw her arms wide for a hug. “I’m so glad to be home. I missed you, Mom.”

“I missed you, too.” She gave Brian a hug. “And you,” she added. “It got a little lonely around here without the both of you.”

“You were right,” Brian said. “We needed to go. For a lot of reasons.”

“For one—we found out Ray’s aunt isn’t the witch we thought she was,” Lynda said. “She really did care about him. She just didn’t know how to show it.”

Brian hitched his backpack over his shoulder. “We knew him a lot better than she did.”

“She asked a million questions after the funeral when we went back to her house.” Lynda looked up at Brian. “I think she was really happy we came.”

“I know she was,” Phyllis said, joining them. “She told me so.”

“I probably shouldn’t ask,” Lynda said. “But what did you find out about the car?”

“The insurance company decided it wasn’t worth fixing.”

“Does that mean we get a new one?” Lynda said, excited.

“A nice little economy model.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of that new little BMW.”

“Well,
new
and
little
apply.” She put her arm around Lynda’s shoulder. “Two out of three isn’t bad.”

On the way home, Catherine drove by the house she’d rented the day she’d gone out with the agent. She pulled to a stop out front. “I wanted you to see it first,” she said to Lynda. “But there was someone right behind me who was going to take it if I didn’t. This was the best one I looked at—by far—and I didn’t want to chance losing it.”

Lynda rolled down the window to get a better look. “Can we go in?”

Catherine asked Phyllis, “Do you have the time?”

“I have all the time in the world.”

“What about you, Brian?”

“I told my folks not to expect me before dinner.”

The house was three years old, two stories, half the size of the one they were leaving, and located in the middle of a cul-de-sac that backed up to a large tract of undeveloped land. At least they had the illusion of property, even if that property belonged to someone else.

Catherine opened the front door, praying Lynda would keep an open mind. She didn’t know what she would do if Lynda didn’t like the place.

A small tile entranceway led to a sunken living
room. The walls were white, the carpet beige, the curtains and miniblinds cream. To the right was an oak stairway that led to a wide landing. Oak floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the back wall.

“Where’s my room?” Lynda asked.

“Upstairs. You decide which one you want.”

“Come on, Brian. You can help me.”

Catherine and Phyllis went into the kitchen. “I like it,” Phyllis said.

“I do, too. Or at least I think I will when I get used to it. It’s a big change.”

Phyllis unlocked the sliding glass door off the family room. “Just look at this view. You’re going to love being outside in this backyard.” She turned and looked at Catherine. “A little paint, a little wallpaper, and we’ll have this place looking like a million dollars.”

“The paint and wallpaper are going to have to wait. The movers are coming next week.”

“Why so soon?”

“I want to get in and get settled before I have to start work on the rummage sale with Karol,” Catherine said.

“I decided which one I want,” Lynda called from upstairs. “The closet’s a little small, but the whirlpool bath makes up for it.”

Catherine went to the bottom of the stairs and called up, “Where are you?”

Lynda came out of the master suite. “Right here,” she said innocently. “In my new bedroom.”

Catherine was at a loss for words.

The look on her mother’s face was too much for
Lynda. “Gotcha,” she said gleefully.

When Lynda and Brian left to continue their exploration, Catherine folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall. It had been months since she’d heard Lynda laugh with such honesty and abandon.

The fears she’d carried like hoarded coins were spent. She had no idea what was ahead for her and Lynda, only that the journey would be a joy.

H
E HAD A BAD FEELING ABOUT THE FIRE THE MINUTE
he pulled the address from the computer. The house was on a block of old Victorians, many of them beautifully restored, but none able to pass modern building codes for fire suppression. The balloon construction meant there were no firebreaks in the walls. The spaces between the lath and plaster became runways for the flames to travel unimpeded from the basement to the attic.

No matter how quickly they responded, they faced sudden death overtime, with the other team in possession of the ball. Their normal second-in engine and the truck assigned to accompany them to fires in their district were both tied up fighting a warehouse fire. Help would be a good five to seven minutes later than usual.

As soon as they rolled out of the firehouse, Rick gave Steve the hydrant location and checked the late afternoon sky for smoke. A single, dark gray plume rose like an exclamation point in the windless
October sky. Even Paul sensed the urgency of the situation and kept his banter to questions about what to expect when they arrived.

Steve drove with his usual caution and confidence but pushed a little harder, giving an air horn blast to thoughtless drivers who refused to yield or pull to the side of the road to let them pass.

“Serve ‘em right if it was one of their houses,” Paul said, expressing a rookie frustration over something he would learn to take in stride as a veteran.

For Rick it wasn’t the lack of respect for the red lights and siren that bothered him; it was the disregard for the equipment. Empty, their engine was a formidable vehicle. Filled with the thousand gallons of water they carried for immediate fire suppression, it was a behemoth. To race it to a corner or dash in front of it at a turn was tantamount to playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun.

Rick began assessing the fire as soon as the house came into view. He read the situation as if it were a familiar book sporting a new cover, determining his plan of attack. In a glance he took in how close together the houses were, the intensity of the fire, and the number and demeanor of people standing around on the sidewalk and street.

Thick black smoke poured from the front door while thin gray wisps escaped through the weathered siding. The only immediate visible flame was from an air vent near the peak. Like a playful child trying to touch its tongue to its nose, the flame reached for the tinderbox eaves, its efforts growing stronger with each attempt.

As they drew closer, Rick saw the fear that comes from understanding in the faces of the observers. These were neighbors who recognized their vulnerability to a fire that only need send a second tongue of flame to taste the house next door to spread the destruction and loss.

One woman stood out from the rest, her fear a raw, gaping wound, her jeans and T-shirt gray from the smoke and ash. Rick focused on her as Steve pulled to a stop in front of the house. “We’ve got a rescue,” he said with gut-deep certainty.

She ran to them, screaming, “My little boy is in there! You have to help him!” Reaching for Janet as she climbed from the backseat, the woman clung to her, begging, “Hurry. Oh, God, please hurry. He’s in there all alone. I couldn’t reach him. I tried. I kept going back, but I couldn’t find him.”

“How old is the boy?” Rick asked, drawing her attention. Janet left to get the airpacks.

She turned pleading eyes to Rick. “Seven.”

“Is there any chance he could have gotten out by himself? Have you checked the area?”

“The window in his room doesn’t open.”

“Where is his room?”

“The back of the house.”

“First floor?”

She nodded.

“Left or right?”

She paused to think as if the question were too much to take in on top of everything else. “Left,” she finally said.

“Lead the tank line,” Rick called to Steve.
Although it would restrict their ability to fight the fire by limiting the water they could put on it to the thousand gallons in the engine, they didn’t have the extra five minutes it would take to connect to the hydrant. With a child inside, time was the paramount concern, the structure was expendable.

Steve pulled the inch-and-a-half hose from the engine and dropped the nozzle at the front door. He then went back to the pump panel on the side of the engine and turned the dials that controlled the flow of water to charge the line. Too much pressure and he could knock Janet off her feet when she opened the nozzle.

“Please hurry,” the woman pleaded. “Please, you have to get in there. He’s only seven. He can’t save himself.”

Rick nodded to the woman as he contacted the com center on his portable radio, telling them they were leading a tank line to perform a rescue and to dispatch a code three ambulance. “Have our second-in company drop a wye, and a feeder line. The hydrant is a block down on the right side of the street.”

Janet came up behind Rick and handed him his airpack. He heard the faint cry of sirens as he loaded the forty-pound tank onto his back and tightened the straps. Moving toward the house, he shouted one final instruction into the radio before slipping it into his pocket. “Tell the second-in captain to assume incident command.”

By going in with his firefighters he relinquished control of the fire scene to the captain of the responding engine. Two seasoned firefighers could have handled the rescue by themselves, but Paul was
still too green to recognize the subtle warning signs that came with house fires. Rick wasn’t about to let them handle it alone.

Thick black smoke rolled and curled from the front door. There was heat, but no visible flame. Janet picked up the nozzle and opened it to spray wide, creating a wall of mist, trying to force the smoke backward. But without the truck crew there to cut holes in the roof and break windows for ventilation, the smoke had nowhere to go. It enveloped them in a menacing false night devoid of stars.

Paul took the hose three feet behind Janet. Rick brought up the rear several feet behind Paul. Once inside, they dropped to a crouch, hugging the floor, where the smoke and heat were most forgiving. Pops and squeaks and groans accompanied the soft roar of the advancing fire as the house shouted in futile protest over its imminent death.

They came to an open door and made a quick sweep of the room. As convinced as the mother was that her son was at the back of the house, they couldn’t count on that fact. He could have moved. Too many victims were found where no one believed they would be.

Rick’s ears began to burn when they returned to the hallway. Despite department regulations that dictated they wear Nomex hoods under their helmets, Rick went without. He wanted to feel the heat. His ears were like the miner’s canary. If they were too hot, it was too hot for everything else and time to get out.

The black smoke cleared to a thick fog and took
on an orange cast. Five more feet and they discovered flame hungrily consuming the kitchen, tasting the table, devouring the cabinets, spitting out the curtains. Unwilling to leave the dragon behind them, Janet ended its meal with a thirty-second fog that stole the oxygen and created dense roiling smoke. She hit the window with the nozzle wide open, shattering the glass outward, sucking smoke out while pulling more into the room from the hall.

Heated water rained on Rick, soaking his turnouts, creeping down his neck and onto his back. Again there was claustrophobic darkness as they crawled further into the house, searching for another doorway, another room.

They found two. Both bedrooms. They swept the closets, under the beds, in the corners and behind dressers. Children hid from fire. They had to think like a child.

Nothing.

Frustration, fueled by failing hope, kept them there for a second sweep. The heat grew unbearable. Rick’s ears blistered. Finally, defeated, he tagged Paul and then Janet on the shoulder and motioned for them to fall back.

It was then that Rick heard the sound he’d only heard once before in all his years of firefighting, an ominous staccato cracking: the fire’s victory dance. Instantly he was back at the warehouse fire. The horror of catching his best friend as he fell through the roof, the struggle to pull him free of the consuming flames, the defeat when he could only hold on and watch him die.

“Out!” Rick shouted, knowing the word reached Paul and Janet as little more than a muffled cry. He jumped to his feet and started backing down the hall, pulling the hose with him, forcing them to follow.

They made it to the kitchen doorway before the ceiling collapsed. The force of the impact threw Rick backward, the top of the airpack hitting him in the back of the head. Dizzy, fighting to stay conscious, he scrambled to his knees and dug through the flaming debris, looking for Paul.

Paul put up a hand. Rick snagged it. The other hand appeared, frantically clawing the air. Rick clasped it and leaned back to give himself leverage to pull Paul free of the burning weight that sat on his body.

“Goddamn it, don’t you die on me!” Rick shouted. Slowly, too slowly, he inched down the hallway to the front door. “We’re going to make it. We’re almost to the door. You fucking hang on, Paul.”

A painting dropped through the opening and fell on Paul’s legs, the landscape bubbling, searing, and then bursting into flame. Rick strained to pull harder, faster, praying Steve had heard the thunder of the collapsing ceiling above the roar of the fire.

Rick hit something he wasn’t expecting and fell over backward, losing his grip on Paul. He swung his arm in a wide arc and made contact with Steve, who had come in on his hands and knees to look for them.

Righting himself, he pointed to Paul, got up, and headed back through what had become a wall of fire to look for Janet. Blinded by the flame and
smoke, he reached down, found the hose, and picked it up to use as a guide.

He found her, unconscious, the nozzle still clutched in her hands. Adrenaline shot through him. For a moment he was invincible—for that second he could do anything, and then it would be all over.

For both of them.

He acted now, or not at all.

Grabbing the nozzle, he shot a narrow fog at the flame, opening an escape window that could last from ten seconds to one. When it closed, it would be with deadly fury. From the moment he dropped the hose and grabbed Janet’s airpack harness, they would be at the mercy of the dragon.

The hallway cleared. A tunnel of light opened and Rick saw through to the outside. Paul was stretched out on the lawn. Steve stood over him, directing the ambulance crew. Firefighters from the second-in company appeared, shouting, pointing, running.

The bell sounded on Rick’s airpack and then Janet’s. Five more minutes and they would be out of air.

Five minutes.

A lifetime.

He dropped the hose and reached for Janet’s harness. A deafening roar raced through the dying house.

The window closed.