20. Play That Game
PLAY THAT GAME
The next night, the alarms went off just after ten. It’d felt as if he’d only been asleep for a minute, if that.
He barely had time to register the sound before his body reacted. Reaction snapped him upright, his heart already pounding. It’d been a long day of bullshit calls. False alarms. Fender benders. Smoke scares that went nowhere.
Not that he ever had a problem with a day like that.
But it never stayed that way. There was always one that made up for all the rest.
“Here we go again,” Bruce muttered as they moved.
The bunks emptied. Gear was yanked on. Boots hit floor hard as they sprinted for the bay. The truck roared to life just as the call came across the radio.
“Structure fire.”
His jaw tightened. “Sounds like the real thing.”
More chatter followed. Police units now, voices sharp and urgent.
Not the false alarm he might have been hoping for. Not when it sounded as if an officer had driven past and spotted flames.
That sent a cold thread straight down his spine.
The engine tore through town, sirens screaming, lights painting the buildings red in the cold darkness. He braced himself as they took turns too fast, just like he always did, his adrenaline sharpening everything.
They skidded to a stop in front of an abandoned building.
And then his stomach dropped.
A big one. Old. Run-down. Boarded windows, graffiti crawling up the brick. Another empty structure sat right beside it too close for comfort.
“Shit,” someone breathed.
Everyone knew this place.
The homeless used it to get out of the cold. Dealers worked the shadows. Who the hell knew what was inside? Propane tanks, trash fires, makeshift wiring, chemicals that could turn bad fast.
Or people.
“Move!” his captain barked.
The hoses hit pavement and hydrants spun open just like they were trained. Just like a dance they did every time they pulled up to something like this.
Ash took his position, planted his feet, and opened the line wide. Water slammed into the flames licking out of the building’s side, steam exploding back at him in angry white clouds.
Other men on his crew disappeared inside, dragging lines through smoke and debris, trying to cut it off from the interior before it ran the entire structure.
The fire didn’t fight like an accident.
It pulsed. Crawled. Found new air.
He tracked the flames along the wall, his eyes flicking to the second building. Too close, too vulnerable. If this jumped, they’d lose both.
The call for volunteer engines went out just like he knew it would. Even if they got it under control, which he hoped they would, there was no saying what they could find inside.
Other engines came in to help, but after an hour they had most of it contained to one side only, the other buildings not touched.
His arms burned as he shifted. His shoulders screamed and prayed for some relief.
And when it came, when he was told to shut it off, he felt his body slump to the ground.
Sweat was pouring down his back, drenching his T-shirt and pants under his gear.
He’d need a shower before he could climb back into his bunk, but he knew once his head hit the pillow, he’d be out and be silently chanting for this to be the last call of his shift.
He pushed himself up from the pavement and rolled the hose back in place as the men from inside came out stretching their arms and backs and shaking their heads.
“That was nasty,” Bruce said. “What a mess inside.”
“A lot of shit to catch?” he asked.
“Not as much as it could have been. Who knows how many people have been living there?”
He looked around at the crowd and could guess a lot. Especially those talking to the police and asking if they could get back in.
Nope. Not happening.
Most likely not ever once the place was boarded up again.
“I’m sure their stuff is gone or ruined now,” he said.
“On that side of the building it is. There were two separate fires. One in the back and one in the front. Not sure if two caught or what.”
“As long as there were no bodies,” he said, “I’ll consider it a good night.”
“None that I saw or anyone else did.”
“Which means we are going in for a closer look now?” he asked.
He looked over and saw his captain calling in ranks and that was exactly what they were going to do.
They had flashlights out and were in and moving around as carefully as they could, calling out on the radio their locations while another engine watched the outside of the building for any other emerging flames.
He was kicking shit aside. Old tents, clothing, empty boxes and bags.
There were needles everywhere, dirty mattresses, ratty clothing.
He was on the side of the building that stayed calm and clean.
If this was considered clean.
“Clear,” he said into the radio. “Heading back out.”
He caught up with Mike coming down the stairs, then met up with Bruce and his captain by the door.
“Do you think it was accidental?” Mike asked Captain Richards.
“With this mess,” Christian Richards said, “most likely, but we’ll look around and find out more. Just seems strange there were two fires going on at once, but the police are questioning those out there now.”
He lifted the shield on his helmet, then looked around at the crowd.
It always drove him nuts that people gathered to watch as if it was their form of entertainment.
But part of the job was looking for anything suspicious.
There wasn’t anything suspicious but rather frustrating when he saw the woman he had been naked with two days ago standing close to her brother Tate and listening in.
He ground his teeth and marched over, but caught sight of Alan. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“I was up with a cranky kid. It was a good excuse to get out and see what was going on and keep an eye on things in the crowd.”
“See or hear anything?” he asked.
“Not much more than complaints. You know how it is. They want to get their shit inside. I’m sure there are drugs floating around there somewhere.”
He snorted. “I doubt that. I’m willing to bet they grabbed that first before they got out.”
Christian moved toward the crowd, then one of the officers, and Skye followed his captain’s movements getting close to get her story.
Always had to get her fucking story and he wasn’t sure why it was bothering him so much.
Other than she should be home in bed, tucked in nice and warm and dreaming about the next time they could be together rather than standing out here in the cold past midnight surrounded by drug users and homeless people.
“I hope you gave your sister hell just now,” he said.
Tate turned. “It falls on deaf ears. I don’t know what is wrong with her. Let someone else do the damn job.”
“Did you say that to her?”
“Yep, and the look she sent me warmed me up some with the fire shooting out her eyes,” Tate said. “Maybe that is why I did it. You think you’re going to have more luck?”
“What makes you think I’m going to give her hell over it?”
Tate fixed him with a glare. “Really? We’re going to play that game?”
There was no reason to argue at this point.
He wasn’t sure what Skye had said to her siblings other than Brenna.
Even then, it’s not like they talked yesterday.
He’d been working at the mill with Clay, got the text from Skye that her sister had not only figured it out but called her out on it.
Last night when he wanted to talk to her, she said she was finishing up work and then had to get on another project right away.
Since he knew he had pulled her away from her job on Monday, he couldn’t really argue about it much.
The men were securing the building now, the inspector already there and ready to look around. Something like this, there was no waiting until morning. Not when there was a risk of so many trying to get back in.
As Ash headed back to his truck, Skye waved him over.
He looked around and jogged closer.
“You’re brave wanting to talk to me. I’m not happy right now.”
“So I can tell,” she said. “Get over it.”
He held his growl back. Barely.
“Why are you here? It’s not a car fire.”
“I know,” she said, her head dipping. “But you’re working and it sounded bad.”
He waited a second, searched her eyes, saw the concern and took a guess. “You were worried about me?”
“I’m not a horrible person, am I? Last I looked I wasn’t that selfish.”
“No,” he said. “You’re not.” He wanted to reach for her hand. To touch her for a second.
But people were looking on.
He was going to be questioned, he knew.
“I wanted to make sure you were all right more than anything. Then since I was here, I thought I’d get some information. I’ll write it up and send it on, but I’m sure it was a fire that got out of hand by those trying to keep warm inside.”
“Most likely,” he said. “That’s for the inspector to figure out.”
“I know you’re going to need to sleep tomorrow and I’m working, but maybe we can get together for dinner?”
“I’d like that. We should probably compare notes. Tate was playing coy.”
“Yeah, I know. I told him to cut the shit.”
“Ash, let’s go!”
After a glance at his team members, he turned back to her and said, “I’ll talk to you later. Go home and get some sleep.”
“You try to rest too,” she said.
He jogged back to the truck. “Who is that?” Bruce asked.
He didn’t hesitate to say, “My girlfriend. Though I wish she’d kept her butt home tonight.”
“Never wish that,” Bruce said. “It’s nice to see a comforting face when our asses are whipped. Though like you, I like when Trish keeps her ass home.”
“Now that was something,” he murmured, rubbing his hands together. Couldn’t be too loud. Couldn’t get too excited and alert everyone else who was sleeping in the house.
It was over too quickly though. Gone before he could savor it, but it was a beginning. A shift. Something different from the rest.
Something more exciting than a small car fire.
Slipping in through the back had been right. Setting the fire there should have given it time to grow, to breathe, to run freely through the building with what he’d set near enough to catch.
But as he ran off the property on the outskirts in the darkness, he saw flames already licking out the front. For a moment he wondered if someone else had shared the same impulse.
No.
Carelessness inside was more like it. It had to be.
And he hadn’t caught it himself before he got to work.
The scanner had crackled almost immediately, confirmation arriving faster than he’d hoped. What rotten luck a patrol car was rolling by at just the wrong moment spotting the glow. That was the whole point of starting it in the back... where no one noticed until it was bigger, harder, hotter.
He filed the mistake away. He’d learn from it.
And before the sun set tomorrow, he had one more move to make. One last step to remind everyone that he knew exactly what he was doing.