Chapter 3
Chapter Three
ZACK
I shifted in my seat again, itching for something to do.
It had been a week since the volleyball game, and without something to plan and focus on—a project to get my hands on—the boredom of everyday life was driving me crazy.
I’d rather be busy doing anything but sitting and waiting for the next event, the next call, the next practical joke…
But I’d learned by now that the rest of the crew didn’t feel that way. They didn’t mind the downtime.
I smirked, knowing I was about to rile everyone up. “Quiet, huh?”
A chorus of groans echoed through the room.
“Jesus,” Seth spat out, slamming his phone down on the table. “Why do you do that?”
I shrugged, still smirking. “I like to tempt fate.”
“If we get a bunch of shit calls today, you’re cleaning the bathroom for the next month.” Jay pushed his chair back in annoyance and stood, leaning his hands on the table. The glare he aimed at me said he was serious.
I cringed. Damn.
But it might be worth it to not have to sit here doing nothing any longer.
My phone chimed and I picked it up, clicking on the notification. It took me to the fire department Facebook page that I managed.
I scanned the post that the page was tagged in.
Oh fuck. This wasn’t good.
“Everything okay?” Adam asked, studying me.
I shook my head and slid my phone across the table. “The town’s retired know-it-all has struck again.”
Barry always had something to say about everything. All the time.
Adam’s facial expression morphed from annoyed to furious. “What the hell is wrong with this guy?” He hissed. “Does he really think it’s one of us?”
Jay stopped halfway to the kitchen, spinning back toward us. “What are you talking about?” He cocked a brow, glancing from Adam to me.
“Listen to this shit,” Adam said, anger lacing each word. “‘It’s obvious that the arsonist is a firefighter.’” He read out loud. “‘How else would he be able to get away with this for a year? The police department knows exactly who it is, and they don’t care.’”
Adam went on to read more. As he did, the rest of the guys huddled around us, looks of pure murder on their faces.
We wanted the serial arsonist referenced in the post caught and put away just as much as the police department did.
Regardless of who it was. Dude had been setting fires around our small town since January of last year, and everyone’s patience and nerves were wearing thin.
Barry—the retiree whose rant we were all fuming over—had moved to our town a few years ago and obviously had nothing better to do than hang around on social media all day acting like he was some sort of detective. Maybe he was the arsonist. Could I post that as a comment?
I smirked.
The chief would have my ass if I did. Might be worth it though.
But the keyboard warrior wasn’t wrong about it being a firefighter. The police department finally had a substantial lead after finding a fire department button at the arsonist’s hideout in the woods.
The prints on the button led them back to a retired firefighter they had already considered as a suspect at one point.
Originally, his godson had been considered after a matchbook at one of the scenes had led the police to his family.
The kid’s father had been pulled from a fire seven years ago and died a year later from damage to his lungs due to a smoking habit.
The smoke inhalation he experienced possibly exacerbated the issue, and there was speculation his son felt we didn’t get his father out quick enough.
The police suspected it gave the kid a possible motive of seeking vengeance against the Half Moon Lake Fire Department.
But they hadn’t been able to prove the kid was involved in any of the actual arsons.
Until now, they didn’t have any solid evidence to arrest either suspect.
Unfortunately, the godfather lawyered up as soon as the police questioned him about the button.
To make matters worse, he left town immediately after.
The only silver lining to his fleeing was the arsons had stopped.
The last one was two months ago at the beginning of December.
The same fire where Adam had been shot after chasing the arsonist through the woods.
That chase ultimately led police to his hideout.
Still pissed at my best friend for taking a bullet like that, but at least it had a silver lining.
The lights above us flashed, and everyone turned to glare at me knowing the alarms were about to blare and a call was going to come in. I secretly cheered, trying not to show too much excitement as we all headed toward the stairs that led down to the bay.
“You better hope this isn’t a waste of our time, Stoer,” Jay snapped, turning to look back at me over his shoulder.
The radio crackled to life alerting us that truck seven and ambulance twenty-one were being dispatched to a distress call involving a teenage boy who had fallen through ice.
Adam and Lyla loaded into the ambo and the rest of us grabbed our gear and piled in the truck.
Except for Owen, who jumped in the small utility vehicle, heading out first and alerting dispatch we were enroute.
Mia’s voice came through the radio, and I tried to ignore the way my blood pounded through my body.
It had taken me months to realize the dispatcher’s voice that I found calming and smooth, almost in a sensual way, belonged to Lyla’s best friend, Mia.
The same girl I had dubbed an ice queen the first time I met her.
Beautiful, no doubt, but cold and aloof.
Then one night when we all hung out at the local bar together, she intrigued me as a myriad of emotions flashed in her eyes, showing depth and layers I wanted to pull back. She had a tough-girl armor firmly in place, but underneath I would bet was a woman who just wanted to be loved and protected.
We all knew where we were going before Mia even relayed the address.
We’d just had a month of the coldest temperatures in years, and the large pond on the other side of town had a layer of ice across it.
This was our third call in the last thirty days at the same location.
Kids here had no idea how dangerous it was.
Even though the town roped it off, they were still curious and seemed to have no clue that it wasn’t frozen solid enough to walk on.
The edges where it was more shallow and solid gave them a false sense of security, not realizing that the further out they went the more treacherous it got.
On top of that, it also made it harder for us to get to them.
So far we hadn’t lost a kid, and I prayed that wasn’t the case today.
Jay, Adam, and I had just attended an ice water rescue training with the local search and rescue division.
Logan and Seth had already done a similar training earlier in their careers.
After the last close call with the half-frozen pond, I’d looked into it and asked Owen and the chief to sign us up.
Because there was no way I was losing someone due to insufficient training.
We arrived on scene and suited up as Owen assessed the situation, asking dispatch to update us.
There was a young girl, possibly about twelve years old, lying flat on her stomach in the middle of the pond, army crawling toward shore.
She was the only one we could see. My stomach knotted at what that meant.
The radio crackled, and this time a male dispatcher came through the line instead of Mia. “Someone’s on the line with the female, coaxing her to stay calm and move toward shore slowly. Her brother is in the water. Submerged. Has not resurfaced.”
Fuck. A scream pierced the air followed by the eerie laser beam like sounds of ice shifting and cracking.
“We need to get out there,” Owen yelled. “Get your asses into gear.”
We had a plan for this, taken directly from our recent training.
Two parallel lines. Jay and I would be tethered while Logan and Seth would be the belayers.
We got set up and I took the lead, crawling out onto the ice with Jay following parallel a few feet behind.
When I got to a section that felt thinner, I lay flat, shimmying forward, and Jay followed my lead.
As I got closer, I could make out what the girl was saying to the dispatcher.
“I can’t. I’m scared.” She stared at me with wide eyes, fear swimming in her irises.
“They have to save him. They have to save my brother.” Lines in the ice shot out from every direction underneath her.
I could tell it was thin, but I didn’t think thin enough to break.
“Don’t hang up. Please.” The phone sat in front of her on the ice and Mia’s voice came through the line.
“I’m not.” Mia’s voice was steady and calm. “Are they close?”
“Yes.” She shimmied forward, letting out another scream as the ice whistled below her.
“It’s okay, Tara,” Mia soothed. “Remember how I told you frozen ponds and lakes make all those weird sounds? Just stay calm.”
The girl nodded with a sob. “I’m trying.”
“I know you are. You’re doing great.”
“Contact,” I called out as I reached her, letting the crew know I had a grip on her. If needed they could pull us both to safety.
“My brother. He went through the ice. You have to save him,” she sobbed again.
I nodded. The first five minutes were crucial, and I knew we were well past that. Jay appeared next to me.
“I can start the search for the boy,” I offered.
“I got her.” He looped his rescue ring over her head, positioning it under her arms, and gave me a nod as he turned, making his way back to shore with the help of Seth pulling.
I continued past them to the hole in the ice.
As I got closer, it cracked more. I turned, letting myself slide feet first into the frigid water.
I moved around, breaking the ice in each direction, feeling around with my arms and swiping my feet along the bottom.
Jay was halfway back to me when my right foot hit something.
I lowered into the water, grabbing onto the boy and bringing him to the surface.
“Contact,” I called out again, sliding the rescue ring over his head.
Jay helped me hoist him up onto the ice, and once I was in position, he hollered back to Logan to start pulling.
The minute it took to get back to the shoreline felt like an eternity, and even though I knew the priority was getting safely off the half frozen pond, I wanted to stop and start CPR on the boy.
Adam and Lyla met us on the shore and began CPR as soon as we had the boy on solid ground. The young girl we rescued from the ice wandered closer, a thick blanket wrapped around her and tears streaming down her face.
I shifted over to where Owen stood. “Has she tried contacting her parents yet?”
“The dad didn’t pick up.” Owen glanced over, a grim look on his face. “Doesn’t sound like a good home life. No mom. The girl said dad drinks a lot.”
I doubted there was much child protective services could do.
It wasn’t like it was neglect to leave preteens and teenagers unsupervised.
I wasn’t naive. I understood not everyone could have doting, attentive parents like mine were, or have a phalanx of nannies that followed me around everywhere.
But come on, man, answer your damn phone when your daughter calls.
My parents were always busy running the lodge, but if I needed something, they took the time to be there.
Joining the guys over by the truck, we shed our dry suits and packed our equipment back up.
There wasn’t anything else we could do at the moment.
By the time we had everything stored away, Adam had made the call to transport the boy to the hospital.
He was still unresponsive. They would continue CPR on the way and the hospital would take over if needed.
As soon as we got back to the station, I would make another Facebook post encouraging parents to talk to their kids about the dangers of frozen bodies of water. While the ice was pretty, the temperatures we had here weren’t consistently cold enough for water to freeze enough to walk or skate on.
I could also address the issue at the assemblies I had planned in the next two weeks at the local schools.
Just basic ‘what to do in certain emergencies’ presentations, geared appropriately for each age group.
We usually only did them during October for fire safety month, but lately we’d seen an uptick in young kids and teenagers either needing to call for help or ignoring situations when they should have called.
“Zack,” Adam hollered over. He continued to move the stretcher toward the ambulance while Lyla moved alongside it, using the ambu bag to provide respiratory support. “Can you get Tara secured in one of the bench seats?”
“Yup.” I moved toward the young girl and placed my hand on her back. “Come on, let’s get you situated.”
She looked up at me, her eyes red and glassy. “Is he going to be okay?”
I wouldn’t lie to her. “I’m not sure. But they’ll do their best.”
After helping her up into the ambulance, I got her seated and helped secure the harness over her.
She grabbed my arm before I could move away. “Can you tell the lady on the phone that I said thank you.”
I smiled. “Of course.”
It was mind boggling to me that I was excited for any excuse to talk to Mia. Especially since it was obvious she found me irritating. Although I was sure she found lots of things irritating.
We loaded up and had just pulled out on the main road when another call came in. I clocked the annoyance aimed at me from everyone in the truck.
Mia’s voice came through the radio, and as usual, I was locked in, hanging on her every word. It wasn’t just the sound of her voice, but the confidence in it. The way she provided detailed information with a level of directness I appreciated.
Another teenager in trouble. This time a suspected overdose. Jesus. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut earlier, because the calls involving kids were the worst.