Chapter 5 #3
Jacob lifted a brow at that, and Gibson knew that he'd admitted more than he'd intended to.
"Well that makes this more interesting. Has she told you anything about her neighbors?"
Gibson paused and thought over Jacob's words and the tone of his voice. "I've met Mister Langston next door that way." Gibson gestured at the far side of the driveway. "He's a good guy. He keeps an eye on Kay and her house."
Jacob nodded. "Yeah. He's the one who reported the break in. He went out to water his flower in the back yard and saw the broken glass in one of the windowpanes."
Gibson nodded. "I'm sure Kay's going to thank him for calling you."
Jacob's expression darkened. "He was beside himself when he realized he didn't see the guy breaking in. I offered to call EMS to check up on him. To give him some sedatives."
Gibson winced at his words. "How did Mister Langston react to that?"
Jacob lifted a knowing brow. "Looks and sounds like you know before I say anything."
Nodding, Gibson blew out a breath. "I doubt he took the sedative."
"That's a nice way of putting it. The man looked at me as if I'd suggested putting a .44 in his brain."
"He's probably taking it hard that he didn’t see the guy or stop it from happening."
"How do you know he didn't see the guy?"
Gibson shook his head. "If he had, he'd be shouting down the heavens to arrest the guy or searching for him up and down the streets."
"Sounds like you do know him."
Gibson gestured toward the house. "I'm going to go back there and see what I'll need to board it up."
Jacob turned and looked at the house, his displeasure written plainly on his face. "Sad to see it happen. Kay sounded pretty torn up about it. It'll do her good to have the windows boarded up before she comes home."
Gibson stared at the back of Jacob's head, trying to evaluate his words. It was a look he hadn't put away when Jacob turned back around.
"What?"
"Kay? I didn't know that you knew her."
Jacob folded his arms across his chest and Gibson felt his back teeth grinding together at the sight of his arms. Very muscular arms.
"You know," he shrugged, "in this part of Center City, all the first responders in the community know each other.
Joe laughed, a short cough of sound that she tried to hide from them, failing miserably.
"Okay, I better get to work." Gibson knew that it didn't really matter how Kay and Jacob knew each other. It's not like they were dating.
Were they?
He reached into the back of his truck bed, lifting the top of a storage container and pulling out his tool belt."
"Thanks again for the call, Jake."
Joe called after him. "Let me know when you're done securing the window, Lieutenant. I'm scheduled to be here until they're boarded over."
As he walked around the side of the house, he heard Jacob talking to Joe.
"You call him Lieutenant, why don't you call me Detective?"
"Don't you have a job to do, Detective Rafferty?"
"There," Jacob was smiling, Gibson could hear it in his voice, "that's better."
Later, as he was putting up the final board over the back window, Gibson felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket.
He froze for a moment and listened. It buzzed again and he felt it vibrate against his ass.
It wasn't Kay. He'd given her a different vibration from the generic one.
He had a special one for people who worked in Firehouse Twenty-Nine.
Another one for family and the first responders he rented to, and a third special pattern for Kay.
Maybe he was jumping the gun on that, but his gut told him he wasn't.
He looked up at the half size piece of particle board that he was fixing into place and shook his head. He hadn't covered the whole window sash because the last thing he wanted was for Kay to feel like she'd been locked in the dark.
Working odd shifts like he did, she needed to find sleep when she could, so he did his best to make sure she could have sun when she needed it.
"Fuck whoever did this."
Kay worked so hard for everyone else.
How could anyone take her security from her?
Fuckers.
Gibson wasn't a man who liked to swear much. There were colorful ways to speak and so many ways to let off steam. Power tools worked well. He might’ve used his table saw with a sort of grim satisfaction when he was cutting down the particle boards for her windows. Okay, more than a little.
Once he had the last board fixed to the outside of the house, he climbed down off the ladder and laid his nail gun on the crate he'd left on the ground to use as a table.
He took out his phone and read the text message on the screen.
Before he could start to type back, his phone rang, and Gibson was left staring at the screen shaking his head until he swiped his finger across the screen and tapped the SPEAKER icon.
"Really, Taylor?"
He looked up into the sky as Taylor laughed.
"Do you have a satellite or something pointed at me, so you know I have time to take a call?"
"Who? Me?" The snort of laughter Gibson heard wasn't exactly a denial and his childhood friend's family was loaded with money. "Well, maybe I'm just lucky."
"Right." Gibson felt like he should just put Taylor out of his misery. "Look, Taylor-"
"Nope. Please don't say no. I know it'll be tough for you to come. And it's going to be tight on your schedule, but I-"
Gibson heard the huff in Taylor's voice and didn't know what to make of it.
"This is going to sound really crazy, okay? But I think you're supposed to be there. Every time I think about having the wedding and you're not on the chart, I get his stomach thing."
"Taylor-"
"Look. You're a firefighter. You go walking into burning buildings without breaking a sweat, right?"
Gibson shook his head even though Taylor couldn't see it. "Hey, don't make me out to be some kind of superhero. I sweat. I sweat a lot."
"Yeah, well you look cool doing it, sweat or not.
" He sighed and when he spoke again, Gibson heard all of the joking drop out of his friend's voice.
"It's a gut feeling, okay? I feel like I need you there.
So if I have to pay someone off at CCFD, I'll do it.
Just tell me that you're willing to come. "
Gibson didn't know what to do or say at the moment.
Then he went with his own gut feeling.
"Yeah."
"Yeah?" Taylor laughed out loud. "Wait... Yeah, you're coming? Or Yeah, you're not coming?"
"I'm willing to come, I just have to find someone to take my shift this weekend because there's no way I'm going to go to the wedding and back on shift less than twenty-four hours later."
"Okay."
He heard Taylor's voice relax.
"That's great, man. Thank you. Thanks."
Gibson had to admit that once he'd agreed to go, he felt better.
Happier.
Yeah, maybe he had a feeling he had to be there, too.