The Protector (8 page)

The man stepped back and disappeared into the shadows.

What was going on?

A hot ember brushed her cheek.

Cassie’s attention jerked back to the house. It couldn’t have been Ash. Not to watch a fire. Not to ignore her.

Smoke spewed out where the roof met the siding like a chimney pointed downward. Since she had arrived the fire had already grown in intensity.

She needed Ash to be here, not some spectator who thought he’d stand and watch.

How would she get in?

In the past she and Ash would have hit the front door with a battering ram and dropped it in two blows. She didn’t have the strength to try a brute force entry.

She saw the child-sized rocking chair on the porch beside two adult chairs. There was no need to be pretty. She picked up the first large chair, its metal cold and hard to grip as all her strength was now awkwardly in her left arm. She sent the chair crashing through the living room window. Only a small amount of smoke swirled out. If the fire was high and held in the roof, there was still a chance.

She knocked out the glass at the bottom of the frame with the flashlight.

For a decade she had loved doing this. She’d been crazy.

She went over the windowsill.

Edge of the district. Late at night. Jack braced his hand on the dashboard as Nate made the difficult right turn onto Holly Street, needing every inch of the road to handle Engine 81’s length. The neighborhood was old, the streets narrow, the sirens and lights were waking people up. Jack willed the engine to close the distance faster. 1437 Cypress. They were heading to the blocks behind where Cassie’s store was located.

This had the hallmarks of one of the arsonist’s fires. But it was not Gold Shift on duty this time, it was Red Shift. It was chance that Nate and Bruce had been available when this call came in. Rescue 65 had been dispatched to a car accident, and Nate and Bruce had arrived at the station in answer to the callback to replace personnel just as the dispatch tones for this fire sounded.

Jack had to assume it was the arsonist and plan for the worst case. The address made it another house—but was it unoccupied or occupied?

“Bruce.”

“I’ll be at your heels with the fire pole.”

Jack nodded. He didn’t want a team entering a house with a ceiling ready to come down on them.

Cassie whimpered at the heat. It invaded her jacket and penetrated her long-sleeved shirt. The healing skin from the last surgery screamed. She found the hallway and the stairs going up. The smoke was deceptive. It remained wisps of white in her beam of light on the first floor, but her light shining up couldn’t penetrate the blackness at the top of the landing.

She wanted to retreat. She knew what was waiting at the top of the stairs.

Go or get out?

Cassie grasped the railing and took the stairs two at a time.

The smoke drove her to a crouch. Coughing, struggling to get her bearings, she moved right, feeling her way. Air was still breathable low but it was hot. Her eyes burned with the smoke and visibility was abysmal. She didn’t waste her breath trying to call out. She would be grabbing and dragging.

The roar of the fire in the roof was deafening. The owners had probably filled the attic and never thought about what a decade of dry rot would do to boxes put into storage and forgotten. Plaster was beginning to drop. Outlets were smoking. Flames were shooting from nail holes marking where pictures had fallen from the wall.

Her options were limited. Breathable air wasn’t going to be available for long.

Thirty seconds. Clockwise search.

She hit the first bedroom with the end of the duct tape already tugged free so that two quick twists wrapped it around the hot doorknob. She let the tape stream out behind her as she dove into the smoke to find the bed.

Find a bed that wasn’t made and hope her grasping hands touched an arm or leg, pray she didn’t find an empty child’s bed. Children in a fire had the deadly habit of crawling into closets or under furniture. There was no way she could do a full-room search without gear.

Her right shin hit wood and the painful gasp cost her precious air as she fell against the bed. The down comforter was stretched taut. She cringed at that realization—this was probably a guest bedroom.

Cassie turned and dove back into the hallway. She dropped to her knees, coughing, getting a breath in the clearer air inches from the carpet. The air was so hot it hurt to breathe.

She scrambled into the thick smoke to reach the next door, ruthlessly denying her fear. The next door turned out to be a bathroom. The third door jammed when she tried to force it open. Had someone tried to get to the door and fallen inside?

Cassie set the flashlight by her left foot. She accepted the blisters she was going to get, wrapped her left hand around the hot metal, and put her weight against the door. Her lungs burned as she strained. She managed to wedge her right hand into the crevice and get desperately needed leverage.

There was fire behind the door. As the door inched open she found herself facing the dragon. The door suddenly opened all the way and the flames slapped at her. Plaster. She’d just shoved aside a chunk of plaster and a beam. Cassie jerked away from the flames back into the hallway. Flames shot across to touch the opposite wall. All breathable air became swallowed in the swirling smoke. There was no time left.

Get out.

There was no way to get past those flames.

Cassie turned…and stumbled on a teddy bear lying in the hall.

Six

J
ack tightened the wrist straps on his gloves as Engine 81 pulled in front of the house and slightly past it so Engine 65 could take the hydrant. They would buddy tank the water, Engine 65 feeding it forward so they could place four attack lines and keep the water pressure even.

Ladder Truck 81 moved past, sirens still screaming, pulling to the east side of the house. Rescue 81 took the street side of the engines. The fire was already crowning through the roof. Jack swung from the seat to the ground relieved they had rolled all engines. They would need the men. They were going to need to lay a lot of hose to get water on the fire.

Was the house occupied or empty? Jack scanned the spectators, dozens of them, searching to spot the one or two neighbors who might have that answer. Two cops were present and a reporter had already made it to the scene.

“She went in to search the bedrooms.” Jack locked in on the words of the distraught elderly man now with the captain. “She said to tell you she was searching clockwise. She was real insistent about that word.”

“Who?”

Jack spotted the car. There weren’t two people who drove blue sedans with white trim who had chili cook-off bumper stickers saying: Firefighters Like It Hot stuck on the front bumper.

“Cassie,” Jack hollered, adrenaline surging. “Has she come out of the house since she entered?” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice as he grabbed his air tank. He ducked and dropped it into place on his back. Bruce and Nate shifted from hose to grabbing fire blankets and spare air tanks, priorities immediately changing.

The two from Rescue Squad 81 were already racing for the door.

“No. She’s been in there three minutes,” the elderly man said.

Faced with the possibility of people inside, Jack knew she would have had no choice but to go in. He needed a word with more punch than
fear
to handle the emotion that absorbed him. Shingles slid from the roof and crashed with an explosion of embers onto the walkway.

“Jack, backup rescue.” Frank keyed his radio and grabbed the attention of the lieutenant for Truck 81. “Five are going in. Tear open the roof but don’t drown it until we know we won’t be bringing it down on them as they search.”

“No one’s home!” The cop struggling to get into the garage had just gained entry. No vehicle. Whoever lived here was away for the holidays. Jack wanted to swear. Cassie wouldn’t have known that. And that meant she would take the time to try and reach each bedroom.

She knew how fire moved and breathed. She would know the dangers. But that was a two-edged sword. She would stay inside until the last possible moment. And the smoke would take her down. After eighteen months sidelined she wouldn’t know her own limits. Stress, heat, smoke…she should have been out of the house long ago.

Bruce and Nate were at his side as he sprinted toward the house. He wished Ben had been called back to duty. He wasn’t coming out without her, and he could use the man’s intensity right now.

The paint was blistering. Jack’s breath hissed inside the mask as his light picked up the sight he feared. Penetrate these walls and flames would surround them. Let oxygen get to the base of this fire and it would roar. The building was primed to go.

Jack followed the guys from Rescue 81 up the stairs while Bruce and Nate veered off to search the first floor.

Where was she?

Flames had the ceiling, a deep red glowing monster that rolled like waves through the thick smoke feeding on the paint. The two men from Rescue 81 moved forward together into the smoke to literally sweep the width of the hallway with their bodies. Jack knew the reality. They were hoping to trip over Cassie.

She was down on all fours crawling. The firefighter in him applauded her smarts; the guy who had visited her in the hospital wanted to weep. His bright light caught the odd color of blue. She was grasping a teddy bear in her left hand. No wonder she had kept searching. The guys from Rescue 81 swallowed her in a fire blanket to protect her from falling embers and lifted her toward him.

Jack did his best to avoid the healing skin grafts on her arms as he took her weight. Cassie was convulsing with coughs. There was no way she would be able to walk the stairs without stumbling. He put her over his shoulder and turned to retrace his steps down the stairs, moving with only one thought in mind—getting her out of the house fast.

The instant he cleared the front door he ripped off his mask. He shifted Cassie, shoving back the fire blanket, alarmed at the first clear look at her face. Tears streaming, she was gasping for air, gagging. Seared lungs could kill. “Where’s the ambulance?”

“Here.”

The boots felt like lead on his feet when he wanted to run.

Cole was there as well as two paramedics from the area hospital. Jack was grateful to see it was Neal and Amy who had been on duty. They were pros at fire scenes. He still wished it were his brother Stephen who had received the call as he carefully set Cassie down.

Jack heard the order to drown the fire and knew it meant his men and the rescue squad were clear. An incredible rush of noise followed as water flowed.

Cassie refused to lie back on the gurney. “Hot,” she protested.

As Cole peeled away her jacket, Jack spotted the burn spots in the leather. She was going to need another jacket for Christmas.

Amy slipped on an oxygen mask over the coughs.

Jack stripped off his gloves. He unbuttoned the cuffs of Cassie’s shirt and carefully rolled up her sleeves. The healing scars on both arms were an angry red, inflamed by the heat, her right arm much worse than her left. Neal handed over cold packs and Jack rested them against her forearms. She flinched.

“Better,” she whispered.

Jack tipped up her chin looking for new burns. Her eyes were streaming and she couldn’t open them to more than a squint. He carefully slipped off her glasses, relieved to see they hadn’t been cracked. The exhaustion he had seen earlier in the evening was swamping her now. “The house was empty, Cassie. The family is on vacation.”

Her relief was palpable.

Neal slipped an ice pack behind her neck to help cool her down. “Cassie, hold on, the eye drops will help.” He brushed back her hair and carefully opened her eyes to add the drops. He blotted her streaming eyes with sterile gauze. “Let them water and clear.”

A fit of coughing doubled her up.

It hurt to hear.

Jack had to get back to his men but he didn’t want to leave her side. He could only imagine how hard it had been to face a fire again.

A firm hand settled on his shoulder. Jack looked up to find his captain beside him, watching Cassie. “Company 26 is half a minute away,” Frank said. “We’re covered. Stay with her. Anything she needs, let me know. Anything.”

Jack nodded, grateful.

Neal nudged his arm and Jack looked over. Neal had uncurled Cassie’s fingers to slip off her watch. There were blisters on the fingers of her left hand and palm, some already open and raw. Jack recognized the pattern: She’d grasped a doorknob. His own hand spasmed in sympathy.

“Cassie, we’re going to get you to a hospital.” He stroked the inside of her right wrist, feeling her erratic pulse. “We’ll get someone to look at the blisters.”

Her eyes opened, and in an uncoordinated way she lifted her right hand to push aside the oxygen mask. “No. No hospital.”

There was fear in her eyes, but the hospital wasn’t a choice. She had to see a doctor, not just for her hands but her lungs. He didn’t need a fight with her, not over this. “Cole.” He appealed to the one person she would listen to.