Line of Duty

  “Sounds barbaric,” the woman said.

  “So you never let your son spit his gum into your hand?”

  “No, I most certainly did not.”

  Ashley might have known.

  She navigated her way back to Jill’s street. When she missed a turn, Clara corrected her. “You can get there at the next left and then go around the corner, and you’ll be on Second Street.”

  “So you used to live there, huh?”

  “My husband and I built it. We left it to Dan when we moved away.”

  “It’s a really nice house,” Ashley said. “I was surprised when I saw it yesterday. Jill didn’t seem like the type who’d live in a place like that. But if it was free, I guess I understand.”

  “It wasn’t free, I assure you. Dan’s father and I paid dearly for it.”

  Ashley pulled her car up to the curb.

  “For heaven’s sake, don’t leave it here,” Clara said. “There’s a little drive in the back of the house. You can park it back there so no one will see it.”

  Ashley turned her dull gaze to her. “I’m not ashamed of my car.”

  “Well, I am. And I don’t think my son would appreciate having it parked out in front of his house.”

  “Really? Jill didn’t seem the type to marry a rich snob. I thought he was a fireman.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” The woman got out of the car and started up the sidewalk.

  “You going to get your suitcase?” Ashley called after her.

  “Bring it in for me, will you?” she said over her shoulder.

  “Does it roll?”

  “Of course it rolls.”

  “Well, can you pull?” Ashley asked.

  She grunted again and came back to the car. Ashley opened her trunk and pulled it out. Clara grabbed its handle and it toppled over. Stooping down, she managed to right it, then pulled out the handle and began pulling it behind her, her high heels tapping on the concrete.

  Ashley was up at the door before the woman could get there with the suitcase. She unlocked it and pushed the door open. The woman struggled to get her suitcase up the porch steps.

  As Clara came into the house, she caught her breath. “My word! Everything’s changed,” she said. “They’ve even changed the colors.”

  “Looks nice to me,” Ashley said.

  “It looks Bohemian. What were they thinking?”

  She pulled her suitcase down the hall and found the master bedroom. The bed was not made up and several pairs of Jill’s shoes lay cluttered around the floor.

  “My room!” Clara moaned. “What has that woman done to it?”

  “May have been your room once,” Ashley said. “But I think it’s hers now.” She was glad she hadn’t missed this.

  Clara harrumphed and pranced down the hall to the guest room Ashley had been given.

  “That’s where I slept last night,” Ashley said. “If you want it, you can have it. I can sleep in another room.”

  “No, thank you,” she said, as if the bed was probably infested with lice. She pranced to the next room and pulled her suitcase in. “This will be quite adequate.”

  “Okay then,” Ashley said. “Well, if you’re okay here, I’m gonna take off.”

  “Take off?” the woman asked her. “Where are you going?”

  Ashley shrugged. “I have stuff to do.”

  “Well, all right. I suppose you’ll be back later?”

  “Sometime tonight,” Ashley said.

  “All right then. I’ll just call for a rental car.”

  Ashley shuffled out the front door, glad to be rid of the woman. She hoped the rental car place took their time.

  Jill would need a few hours before she was ready to take Clara on again.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  They found the last of the Newpointe dead on Wednesday afternoon.

  Steve Winder and Karen Ensminger, the two missing paramedics, had apparently died instantly beneath a ton of rubble.

  Before pulling them out, they had summoned the Newpointe firefighters, cops, and paramedics still at the site. Mark, Ray, Nick, and the others pulled the bodies out in Stokes baskets and passed them down the line of their colleagues.

  When they took them into the temporary morgue tent, Issie collapsed.

  Mark watched, wishing for numbness, as the other medics rushed to her aid. Nick lifted her in his arms and carried her to one of the medical tents nearby.

  Mark knew the pain she felt. The ache inside of him felt as if it would somehow ignite and consume him from the inside out. His eyes burned and stung to the point that he could hardly open them, and every muscle in his body ached.

  He had gotten a couple hours’ sleep yesterday at the hospital, but he’d been back at the site by the afternoon and had worked here all night. Knowing some of his buddies were still missing motivated him to keep digging.

  But he had hoped they’d find them alive.

  He had begun to feel light-headed, so he trudged off of the mound. He stepped into the tent and saw that Nick had laid Issie down on a cot. He was giving her water and whispering softly.

  And all at once Mark realized he was sick of this place.

  He wanted to be anywhere but here.

  He could be at home with his wife and son, curled up on his bed. Or at the hospital, keeping vigil for his best friend. Or at work, with the other firefighters who grieved while they held down the fort.

  Oh, for the innocence of Monday morning.

  He suddenly started to weep.

  Ray came up behind him and pulled him into a fierce hug. “We’ve got all our people out now,” he said. “I’m telling all our folks to go home.”

  Mark just looked at him. “Are you sure?”

  Ray’s dark skin was streaked with white powder and tears. “We’ve all had enough,” he said. “They have people lined up waiting to get in on the rescue effort. We need to rest up, clear our heads. Some of us are coughing so bad we need medical attention ourselves. We’ve got funerals to plan, families to notify. And we have our own town to protect.”

  Mark nodded. There wasn’t much he could say, and as he drank down his water, he looked back up at the site where he knew dozens of bodies still lay undiscovered, but he doubted any were still alive. He felt as if he were leaving a job unfinished, as if someone were in jeopardy, waiting for him to help and he was turning his back.

  But he had no more energy to give. Muttering a silent prayer that God would continue the work through the people who were there and available, he waited for the others in his group to head out.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Why are there flowers at funerals? It doesn’t make sense, the glorious colors and fragrant scents, surrounding a box filled with death. Yet there they are, those flowers, crammed into the tiny viewing room, spilling out into the larger room beyond, where soft-spoken friends with teary eyes mill around waiting to talk to me.

  “It’s not her, just a shell of her,” someone says, but I feel that it’s not me, just a shell of me. I stand outside my own body, thinking how I want to crawl into that box with her and lie down and sleep, and not wake up until she wakes up too.

  And then I’m not in the visitation room, but floating above that thirty-story building, looming high above the other buildings on Canal Street, searching for her like an eagle stalking its prey.

  I float without wings above it all, and then I spin to my back and find that I’m not above it, but below it. It’s falling, falling, and the earth falls fast beneath me, and I still haven’t found her, don’t know where she is, alive or dead, safe outside or crushed beneath . . .

  “Let’s get that tube out.”

  A voice above him pulled Dan from that dreadful dream. He fought his way through networks of cobwebs, clinging to him and pulling him back.

  He tried to swing his arms, swim through the webs, but someone held him still.

  “There we go. Easy . . .”

  He struggled to move his eyelids. Someone had glued
them shut. It was hot, miserably hot, and his throat hurt like fire. He gagged and choked. . . .

  “Okay, it’s out. Respiration seems normal. . . .”

  Finally, his eyelids came unglued, and through the small slit, he saw light. A blur of figures moved above him, cold hands probing, poking, pulling his eyes open wider. . . .

  They came into focus. No one he knew. No one who would know.

  “Dan, nod if you hear me.”

  He managed to nod.

  “We just took you off the respirator. How do you feel?”

  He felt as if they’d poured acid down his throat. His chest hurt, as if some vital organ had been ripped out of him. “What . . . happened?”

  “You were in the Icon Building when it collapsed. Do you remember that, Dan?”

  Despair waged war inside him, and he recalled the dread that had flown him over that building in his dream. “Jill,” he managed to whisper. “Oh, God . . . tell me . . . she’s not dead.”

  Another blur, and the voices pulled out of his consciousness, nothing more than those of Charlie Brown’s teachers, making noises but lacking words.

  She was dead, and those were her flowers at her funeral, and it was her coffin lying there among the fragrant blooms. And he was the shell. . . .

  But then he heard a voice he knew.

  “Dan, honey, it’s me, Jill. Please, wake up, honey. Look at me, and tell me you’re all right.”

  He felt the warmth of tears falling on his face, and he struggled to open his eyes again. Jill? Had she said it was Jill? Could she be alive?

  His eyes came open, and he saw the blur of her face over him, and he stared up at her, trying to focus, trying to see.

  And then, there she was, more beautiful than he imagined. Not a shell, but a living light, shining his way out of the darkness.

  “Honey, I’ve been waiting so long to talk to you.” She sobbed with the words. “Dan, you’re gonna be okay. You’re breathing on your own.”

  His heart seemed to burst. He swallowed, the effort scraping his throat. “You got out?”

  “Yes, honey. I got out. You were buried, but they found you. Thank God, you’re alive.”

  His arms felt like lead pipes, but he managed to lift them and reach for her. She came into them, sobbing against his bare chest. He felt his own tears warming down his temples. “Were you hurt, baby?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m fine. I’m perfect. And you’re awake!” She touched his face. “Does anything hurt?”

  “Throat,” he said.

  “What about your legs?”

  He shook his head. “Legs feel fine. No problem.”

  She looked up at a man standing across the room. A doctor, he supposed.

  The man stepped close to the bed. “Dan, I’m touching your leg. Can you feel this?”

  He didn’t feel a thing, and a dull alarm went off in his head. “No.”

  “How about this?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  The doctor did a few more tests as Jill stood beside him, stroking his hair back from his face. “What is it?” he asked. “My legs . . . what’s wrong with them?”

  “Probably the drugs,” Jill whispered. “Just a little numbness.”

  He saw the look pass from Jill to the doctor. They were keeping something from him. But his mind was fading, and he couldn’t hold onto the fear or the thought. Jill was alive. His dream of a life with her was not dead.

  And he was so very tired. He could sleep for a week. He tried to tell her that, but the words wouldn’t come. He kept her hand in his, warm and comforting, as he began to float again, this time on a warm breeze over bright meadows.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  They were all there, sitting in the waiting room, some of them in prayer, others talking quietly among themselves, all keeping vigil for their friend whom they thought lay dying. Jill came in with tears on her face and looked around at Mark and Allie, Stan and Celia, Ray and Susan, Issie and Nick, Aunt Aggie, and several of the firefighters who worked at Midtown Station.

  Mark saw her face and came to his feet. “Jill, what is it?”

  Everyone got quiet and turned to look at her.

  “He’s breathing on his own!” she cried. “He spoke to me. He’s going to be okay!” She threw her arms around Mark, and Allie bounced with joy. The others came to Jill, laughing and thanking God, dancing her around and hugging her until she thought she would break.

  When she’d told them every detail of their conversation, she finally worked her way to a telephone and called his mother.

  The phone rang four times before it was answered.

  “Nichols residence.” It was Clara’s clipped voice, and Jill wiped her face.

  “Hi, Clara, it’s Jill.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Clara asked, “Has something happened?”

  Jill laughed. “Yes. Clara, he’s off the respirator, and he woke up and talked to me.”

  Again, a moment of silence, and she wondered if the woman was struggling with her own emotions or if she was simply thinking of something appropriate to say.

  “That’s wonderful,” she said finally, and her voice was quivery and broken. She cleared her throat. “What did they say about his legs?”

  Jill couldn’t deal with telling her that Dan hadn’t had any feeling. “They don’t know yet,” she said. “He wasn’t awake for long.”

  “I’m coming back to the hospital,” Clara said.

  “No,” Jill said quickly. “They won’t let you in tonight. They’re watching his breathing very carefully, and they don’t want him overstimulated. They asked me not to let anyone else come back.”

  “Even his mother?” Clara asked.

  “I’m sorry, Clara. Seeing you after all these years might confuse or disorient him. It’s better if you just wait until the morning.”

  Again Clara grew quiet, and finally Jill asked, “Can I speak to Ashley?”

  “She’s not here,” Clara said. “She went out.”

  “Went out where?”

  “I don’t know. She doesn’t report to me.”

  “Well, did she say she was going home?”

  “I told you, she didn’t say.”

  Jill wished her mother-in-law had asked. “Well, if she comes in, will you tell her the good news?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Jill could tell she was angry for not having the opportunity to see Dan tonight. But as Jill hung up, she knew she was doing the best thing for him. The last thing he needed was to deal with his mother right now. One thing at a time. There would be plenty of time for reconciliation tomorrow.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Ashley pulled into the parking lot at her mother’s church that afternoon and checked the men’s watch she wore on her wrist. Four o’clock. Maybe the pastor was still in.

  She got out of her car and buried her fists deep in the pockets of her denim jacket. She felt sick, as if there were an emptiness deep inside that couldn’t be filled by food or water. She pushed through the double doors into the church and stood in the hall looking both ways. It had been years since she’d been here. She’d been twelve when her mother had last been able to drag her to Sunday school.

  She walked through those halls, the rubber soles of her shoes quiet on the hard tile. She heard the sound of someone playing a piano in one of the rooms. Voices were exchanged somewhere else inside the building.

  She found the preacher’s office and stood outside the door for a moment, wishing with all her heart that she didn’t have to go in. But her mother deserved a pastor for her funeral, and this one was the only one she knew.

  She took a deep breath and stepped inside the office. The secretary looked up and instantly got that guarded look on her face that people sometimes got when they saw Ashley or her friends. That look screamed thugs, as if she expected Ashley to hit her over the head and steal the choir robes or something.

  “May I help you?”

  Ashley swallowed. “Yeah, I need
to see the pastor.”

  “And what is it in regard to?” the secretary asked.

  Ashley just looked at her. She knew the woman probably thought she was here for a handout and was trying to keep her away from the pastor who had important things to do, like writing sermons that his congregation would sleep through. “It’s about a funeral,” she said in a flat voice. “For Debbie Morris, my mom.”

  The woman’s face instantly changed, and she sprang to her feet. “Oh, you must be Ashley! Oh, honey.” She came around the desk and put her arms around her. “I’m so sorry about your mother. We’ve just been grieving here ever since we heard. Pastor Jack saw her name on the list, and we’ve been trying to contact you ever since.”

  Ashley shrugged and wished the woman would stop fawning. “Well, here I am.”

  “I’ll get him right away, dear,” she said, and rushed to the pastor’s door. She stuck her head inside.

  Ashley couldn’t hear what she said to him, but in seconds he was at the door, reaching out for her.

  She didn’t want anyone else hugging her, but he did anyway, and she stood there, rigid and cold, desperately trying not to fall apart in front of these people she hardly knew.

  “Ashley, come in here, sweetheart. Come sit down.”

  She followed him across the deep carpet of his office and took a chair across from his desk.

  “Where have you been staying, honey? We’ve been calling all over. We even got the name of the friends you’ve been living with, and they didn’t know where you were, either.”

  So they knew now, she thought.

  “I’ve been with a friend,” she said.

  “Are you all right? Is there anything we can do for you?” She shook her head and started to cough. The display of weakness made her angry. They’d probably slap her onto a gurney and rush her to the hospital.