Forever After (2 page)

He reversed his direction. Thank God for those engines. Their clamor would guide him out. The taut thread of fear loosened a bit. Help was on the way.

“Pop?” he shouted. “You there?” He waited for a reply before moving forward. His air supply seemed thinner than before. Smoke choked him. He couldn’t stay down here much longer. He would have sold his soul for a two-way radio right now. He prayed Zach had gotten out … that his buddy would let them know he was still down here.

At that moment, a faint glimmer caught his eye. The voices of his fellow firefighters drifted to him. He crawled faster, heading toward the light.

“Hey! It’s Vermontez!” Molly Edmonds shouted. “Lucas is out! Tell the chief!”

Lucas collapsed on the damp concrete outside and felt strong arms pull him out, then help him to his feet.

He stripped off his mask and hood, gulping in the sooty air. “Where’s Pop? Where’s my dad?”

“He went in after you!” Molly yelled over the roar of the blaze. “Didn’t you see him down there? What about Zach?” She jogged back toward the building.

“Anybody seen the captain?” someone yelled. “Where’s Manny?”

“Morgan’s still in there, too!”

Yanking his headgear back on, Lucas stumbled to his feet and jogged after Molly.

He heard the men shout for them to retreat, but he didn’t care. His father was in that inferno looking for
him
.

Molly disappeared into the mouth of the building. He followed. A split second later another explosion rocked the earth, knocking him to his knees.
Oh, dear God! No! God, help me!

He scrambled for the entrance, but the opening had disappeared. Someone grabbed him in the darkness. He clawed at the rubble around him, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel his legs. Something was pinning him in.

He heaved against the weight on his calves and searing pain sliced into his thigh. He tried to move again, but the pain robbed him of breath. He found a crumb of comfort in the fact that he still had feeling in his legs.

“My dad’s down there!” His voice was raspy from the smoke. He couldn’t seem to get enough air to propel his words. “Somebody get down there! Pop! God! Help!”

The wail of sirens drowned his cries, and everything faded into blackness.

One year later, Saturday, November 1

L
ucas jerked awake, sitting straight up in bed. He put a palm to his racing heart, then wiped a fine film of perspiration from his forehead. Sirens wailed in the distance outside his bedroom window. Or was that only part of the dream?

He stilled to listen and heard only the quiet rustle of his bed sheets, and the frantic
rat-a-tat-tat
of a woodpecker in the backyard.

Through the haze of sleep, he eased leaden legs over the side of the bed and reached for his cane. It felt like an extra appendage after all these months.

He stretched his legs out, averting his eyes from the crazy-quilt of scars that stitched from knee to ankle on his left leg, and the mottled burn scars that went from the top of his foot up his calf on the right. More than thirty bones in his legs and feet had been shattered. He hadn’t
known the human body contained that many bones. His long, muscular runner’s legs had been his best feature before the fire. They’d inspired Cate Selvy to affectionately nickname him “Legs.”

Before pity could seize him, he forced himself to look in the corner of his room where the folded wheelchair was parked, and beside it an aluminum walker. He murmured a prayer of gratitude. It could be worse.
Had
been worse. He should probably store the wheelchair and walker away now, but they were good reminders of how far he’d come in one year.

Today was an anniversary he’d never wanted to celebrate.

His bedroom door nudged open a few inches, and Lucky slinked through the opening, purring loud enough to be heard across the room. Lucas clicked his tongue and the large tom tiptoed over last night’s dirty laundry. Lucas ran his hand over the silver gray fur.

He’d adopted Lucky—then a nameless kitten—two years ago after rescuing him from the ruins of a burned-out warehouse on the outskirts of the Falls. Once the cat’s scorched paws and singed whiskers had healed, he’d turned into a handsome animal.

Lucas hobbled into the bathroom with Lucky trailing him. His physical therapists—and his mother—had tried to talk him into getting rid of Lucky, worried the cat would trip him up. But Lucky was one of the bright spots in his life these days. One of the few.

Now
there
was a depressing thought. But he wasn’t about to get rid of one of the few friends who’d stood by him through it all.

He opened the medicine cabinet and stared at the bottle of Vicodin, steeled himself to not need it today. He’d been off pain meds for almost three months now, but the memory of the torment he’d endured wouldn’t let him throw the bottle away. Not yet.

In the kitchen down the hall, dishes rattled in the sink. Any minute Ma would be in to badger him to eat a breakfast he wasn’t hungry for.

He bent over the sink and splashed cold water on his face, waiting for the nausea to hit him, as it had every morning since that awful night.
The sick feeling came in waves as the icy water shocked him awake.
Pop is dead. And the other firefighters … Zach is dead. Molly. All of them.
Why did that truth have the power to crush him again with each new day?

Because he should have gotten Zach out. Because Pop had died searching for Lucas, trying to save him. He heard Pop’s voice inside his head now, clear and strong, telling his family, “Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Pop had quoted the words again and again.

Well, Lucas Vermontez had called out to God that awful day. And maybe God had heard him. He didn’t know. God hadn’t saved Pop. And since He
had
saved Lucas, Pop’s oft-quoted verse begged the question: saved for
what
?

Because it was starting to look like Lucas Vermontez wasn’t worth being saved.

Clarissa sat with her jaw hanging open. “How on earth could you let this happen?”

2

Wednesday, November 5

J
enna Morgan stared at the numbers on the bank statement in front of her and punched the figures into the calculator one more time. It was her third try at reconciling her checking account, and for once she wished the stupid checkbook
hadn’t
balanced. This couldn’t be right! Her account was overdrawn by almost eight hundred dollars.

Trying to quell the panic rising in her throat, she got the bank’s number off the statement and dialed it. She hadn’t even paid the mortgage yet, and it was already two days late. That would set her back another two thousand dollars, plus the late fee, never mind that she’d paid last month’s payment with a credit card.

The statements spread on the table beside her laptop warned that she was over the limit on two of her three credit cards already.

A recording, a woman’s soothing voice, came on the line and offered Jenna half a dozen choices she knew would only get her to someone else’s voice mail. She punched “0” and got another recording. She
dropped the phone in its cradle. The beginnings of a headache niggled at the back of her eyes.

Something had to give. Even with her in-laws paying Zach’s funeral expenses and buying his pickup from her, in the year since his death, she’d blown through what little insurance he had and spent his meager pension checks as fast as they came in, just trying to keep up with the bills.

She glanced up at the clock and gasped. She was late. Zach’s mother had somehow wrangled her an appointment with a new girl at Cutlines. “And don’t worry about the cost, darling,” Clarissa had said. “It’s already taken care of. Get the works.”

She’d better get “the works” because once Clarissa discovered the state her finances were in, that would be the end of salon perks for the next decade.

T
wo hours later Jenna stretched behind the wheel of her Volvo to check her hair in the rearview mirror. Her naturally blond hair sported highlights—or lowlights, the salon owner called the technique. She liked the look, but she wasn’t sure it was worth the hundred dollars it had cost Clarissa—not to mention the basketful of products Jenna had been coerced to purchase to “maintain” the look.

Zach had never really cared about her hair one way or the other. Whenever she talked about changing her style, he’d assured her, “You’re beautiful just the way you are.”

Clarissa, on the other hand, always had opinions. She’d been expressing them since the day Zach first introduced his mother to her. Jenna had been a junior in high school then, in St. Louis, where she and Zach both grew up. Zach was away at college in Springfield, and she’d lied to her mom and sneaked out to visit him one weekend. Clarissa showed up on campus unannounced, but Zach had been unflustered and treated
the two of them to lunch in Springfield. Standing on the sidewalk in front of Bruno’s that day, Clarissa reached up and brushed Jenna’s bangs off her forehead. “You really should let these grow out and show off your beautiful bone structure, darling.”

Jenna had taken it as a compliment and started growing out her bangs that day. Remembering the moment, she fingered the fish-shaped charm hanging from a silver chain around her neck. The necklace, fashioned of white and yellow gold—real gold—was an engagement gift from Clarissa. It was the first thing of any value Jenna had ever owned. Years after Clarissa had presented the necklace, Jenna read in a magazine that the goldfish was the Chinese symbol for prosperity and wealth. She wondered if Zach’s mother knew that. Probably.

At any rate, even after Jenna had collected a whole jewelry box full of more expensive treasures, the goldfish necklace remained her favorite. A talisman of sorts. She took it off only to shower.

Clarissa had quickly become the mother Jenna’s own mother could never be to her. She’d never treated Jenna like trailer trash, but taught her how to dress, how to do her makeup, and later—after she and Zach were married—taught her how to hold her head high and act as if she deserved to carry the Morgan name.

It had taken a dozen years of Clarissa’s mentoring, but most days Jenna could almost believe she was worthy to associate with Bill and Clarissa’s crowd. Could almost believe she deserved to live in a beautiful home in the Brookside development and that she wouldn’t be turned away trying to gain entrance to her in-laws’ home in Clairemont Hills, the new gated community on the outskirts of Hanover Falls.

She pushed away the sudden vision of her anemic checking account and turned off Main Street, heading to the east edge of town.

She entered the passcode and waited for the iron gates to slide open, then wound her way through the wooded enclave to the Morgans’ rambling property.

She pulled onto the circle drive in front of the elegant Tudor-style
home. Clarissa met her at the door, her little Shih Tzu, Quincy, yapping in her arms. Clarissa shushed the pup while she gave Jenna the usual once over.

Her eyes lit when she noticed Jenna’s hair. “Look at you! Lovely!”—she twirled her free hand—“Let’s see the back.”

Jenna obliged.

“Simply stunning. Do
you
like it?”

Jenna tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “I think so. It’s a little shorter than I’m used to, but I—”

“Well, of course you like it! Who wouldn’t? I told you that new girl was good. Dottie said it usually takes weeks to get in with her.”

Jenna took the hint. “Thank you again for getting the appointment for me. And for taking care of the bill.”

“Oh, heavens …” Clarissa waved her off, right on cue in this game they’d played for over a decade. “I was glad to do it. Come in, come in … Quincy doesn’t like this cold.”

Clarissa disappeared into the house and Jenna followed, closing the front door behind her. The scent of cinnamon and cloves wafted from a tray of candles on the carved mantel.

“Do you want coffee?”

“No, thanks.” She wiped sweaty palms on the thighs of her jeans. “I … I need to talk to you about something.”

Zach’s mother must have heard the tremor in her voice because she looked up, deep furrows etching her forehead. “What’s wrong, honey?”