Through The Fire

THREE

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rafe took a step toward the man. “She didn’t abandon her post.”

“No?” The battalion chief gave Rafe a scathing once-over. “Here’s some advice for you. Keep your nose out of things you don’t know a thing about.” He looked over at Lucia. “Get out there on the mop-up crew. Since you sat out the fire, it’s the least you can do.”

Obeying the order the way Rafe would have expected of his own people, she left without a word while he folded his arms over his chest. The difference was, he was reasonable. Lucia’s chief wasn’t. “That explosion threw her against the wall. She could have died out there if—”

“That would be just like her,” O’Brien said. “Find a pretty boy to tell pretty lies for her.”

Feeling his temper rise, Rafe pointed a finger at the man. “She was nothing but professional, which is more than I can say for you.” He headed for the door, then turned around. “Your name is O’Brien, right?”

The battalion chief nodded. “What’s it to you?”

Rafe shrugged. “Personally, I like to have my facts straight when I file a report.” He gave the other man a smile that was all teeth, adding, “Battalion Chief O’Brien.”

Rafe strode out of the chapel, then came to a dead stop in the hallway. Ceiling tiles were curled and melted, and the Sheetrock was charred. Here and there, the metal framing beneath the Sheetrock was visible, the metal studs twisted into grotesque shapes. Not just surface smoke damage, but real structural damage, Rafe thought. That said a lot about how hot the fire had been and how close it had been to getting out of control. He shuddered as he imagined what might have happened to Lucia if he hadn’t been there to pull her out of harm’s way. That thought brought him back to square one with Chief O’Brien. No wonder Lucia didn’t respect the man. In Rafe’s book the man was an idiot.

Lucia Vance, he thought. Vance. Vance, as in Mayor Vance, who had been shot several months ago and who was still in the hospital? Rafe figured he had to be right. How many other Vances were likely to be in this hospital in intensive care? What made no sense was why the daughter of a wealthy and powerful family was a firefighter.

He looked around, hoping for a glimpse of her. He’d have to ask her about that the next time he saw her. And he knew he would be seeing her. For the first time in his life, he had envisioned his children’s faces within a woman he was attracted to.

“Are you really okay?” Lucia’s mother asked a couple of hours later in the hallway outside the intensive-care room where her father was still in a coma.

“Fine.” Lucia didn’t dare hug her mother, much as she wanted to, since she was still in her filthy turnout gear and her mom was dressed in chic black linen pants and a turquoise jacket. “I can’t stay. We’re headed back to the station in a few minutes.” She looked toward the room where her father was. “No change today?”

“I think his color is better,” her mother said. She always had something positive to say about any sliver of improvement in his condition. Lucia studied her father through the window between the hallway and his room. He looked the same to Lucia, but she hoped the change her mother saw was indeed there. When her dad woke up, they had a lot to talk about. First on the list was the apology she owed him for an argument they’d had the day before he was shot.

“What’s with the coat?” Her mother pointed to the jacket in Lucia’s arms.

Lucia glanced down at the well-worn leather bomber jacket she had found in the chapel after she had checked on it the last time. Rafael Wright’s name was neatly printed on a label on the lining. She didn’t dare blurt out that the least she could do was return the man’s jacket since he had saved her life—at least not to her mother, who didn’t need to know how close a call it had been. “It belongs to a guy who rescued a couple of little kids in the chapel,” she said, striving for a nonchalant tone. “He was so kind that…”

“One of the staff can take care of getting it returned,” her mother filled in after Lucia’s voice trailed away.

“Yes, I’m sure they could.”

“But you’re taking it back to him.” A statement of fact.

Lucia nodded.

“He must have made an impression.”

He had and, though Lucia knew her mother would have figured that out anyway, she wasn’t ready to say so aloud. Her mother would say something to her brothers, and with their police and FBI connections, they’d probably run a criminal history on Rafe before allowing her to get close enough to return the man’s coat. It wasn’t like she was planning on marrying the man, or even dating him, for that matter. She just wanted to return his coat.

“Lucia?”

She jerked her gaze to her mother’s. “Don’t mind me. I’m just a little muddled, that’s all. Reverend Dawson has another prayer service scheduled for Dad tomorrow night.”

“I know.”

“Since I’ll be off work then, I’ll be there, too. And I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to spend a couple of hours with Dad. Emily said she’d come after me so you can have most of the day to yourself.”

Her mother glanced through the window to the bed where her father lay, and Lucia’s gaze followed. For all her life, her dad had been the strongest man she knew—invincible. Logically, she knew he was in a coma, but emotionally—where she still felt like a six-year-old where her father was concerned—she wanted to believe he was merely taking a nap. Each day he remained in the coma added to her worry that he might never recover.

These long months since he had been shot by an unknown would-be assassin had taken on a grotesque normalcy, where her mother kept a vigil while the rest of them took turns spelling her and pretended to live life as though it wasn’t in limbo. Lucia wondered if she would recognize normal if it ever came again. She could only hope.

The one thing that had remained constant through these months of waiting for her dad to wake up was their sustaining faith. As her mother had often said, whether her dad awoke or not, he was in God’s hands. Though Lucia knew that, she longed for her dad to simply open his eyes.

“You better get going,” her mother said, ignoring Lucia’s filthy gear and planting a kiss on her cheek. “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Once more, Lucia resisted the urge to sink into her mother’s arms and managed a smile that, she hoped, hid how needy she felt. She moved toward the stairwell. “Tomorrow.”

When she came out of the hospital toward the pumper, she’d hoped to make it back to her crew without any further comment from Battalion Chief O’Brien. No such luck, though. He watched her approach with narrowed eyes.

“Any time you’re ready to go, Vance.” He had taken off his turnout gear and his slacks and shirt were crisply pressed, as though he hadn’t just been through a fire.

Gideon Jackson mildly said to him, “We just got the hose rolled back up, Chief. She’s not late.”

“She wasn’t here, which is more to the point,” O’Brien said. “You want to go on report, Jackson?”

“If you think you’ve got something that should be brought to my attention,” Gideon replied in that same calm tone.

Without saying anything more, O’Brien got in his red SUV, the insignia on the door identifying his rank.

After he was gone, the rest of the crew took off their turnout gear and finished stowing the equipment. Once they were underway, Gideon Jackson said to Lucia, “Don’t let him get to you. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and the rest of us know it.”

Donovan grinned at her over his shoulder from the front seat. “That happens when you walk around with your foot in your mouth all the time.”

“Did you guys find those two little kids’ parents?” Lucia asked instead of telling the two she appreciated their support. Donovan wouldn’t respond to anything mushy, and Gideon would be embarrassed.

“Yep,” Gideon said. “It was a happy reunion all around. You never did say how you found them.”

“I didn’t,” Lucia said. “I didn’t have any idea anyone was in the chapel. The explosion threw me across the hall and I must have landed near the chapel door. Next thing I knew, this guy pulled me into the room, and there were the kids.”

“All I can say is it’s a good thing Wright was there,” Gideon said, “and a good thing the door to the chapel was steel with reinforced glass. We were afraid for a few minutes that fire was going to get away from us and take the entire floor.”

Lucia shuddered, remembering the burn marks on the ceiling and wall in the hallway. She didn’t know what had led Rafe to be on the floor, but she was thankful. If not for him, today’s call could have turned out very differently. It was definitely something to include in her evening prayers later.

The rest of the shift went without incident, and though she was able to sleep during part of the night that finished her twenty-four-hour shift, Lucia was exhausted when she got home the following morning. She knew her emotional upheaval was the cause, not the lack of sleep. As usual, her big orange tabby, Michelangelo—nicknamed Gelo—greeted her at the door.

“Hey, you.” She picked up the cat, enjoying their ritual of being mutually needed. Emotion clogged her throat, and she pressed her cheek against the cat’s soft fur, a purr rumbling against her face. Gelo kneaded her arm and continued to purr loudly as Lucia headed for the kitchen to brew a pot of green tea. “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”

The cat gave her a soft meow.

“Good.” She sniffed, then squared her shoulders, mentally going through the list of why she shouldn’t be so weepy. Setting Gelo on the floor, she brewed the pot of tea, choosing a favorite pot that she had purchased during a visit to Italy with her mother.

Lucia knew she was a good firefighter who had done her job well, no matter what Neil O’Brien thought. She hadn’t been seriously hurt. Her fellow firefighters had rallied around her. Compared to her father’s injuries and the worry that that was causing her mother, Lucia’s problems with Chief O’Brien were small potatoes.

The front doorbell rang, and the cat ran toward the door. Lucia followed, peeked through the security peephole, then held open the door for her good friend Colleen Montgomery. As the two youngest children of their respective large families and the only daughters as well, they had become allies early on.

Colleen breezed into the living room with her usual boundless energy. “I heard about the hospital fire. Just came by to make sure that you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“According to Gideon Jackson—who would cut off an arm before lying, I might add—you were trapped in the chapel on the pediatric wing and had been hurt—” She took a breath to give Lucia the once-over. “You don’t look hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“And you rescued a good-looking guy and his two kids.”

“I didn’t rescue him. And they weren’t his kids.” Lucia headed toward the kitchen, where she pulled a couple of mugs out of the cupboard.

Colleen grinned. “And he’s not ugly.”

Feeling her cheeks heat, Lucia shook her head. “No, he’s not ugly.”

“That, my friend, is a topic we’re going to pursue later.” Colleen raised her eyebrows while patting the outside pocket of her purse, which was large enough to hold a notebook and other things she needed as an investigative reporter for the Colorado Springs Sentinel.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“The lady doth protest too much.” She handed Lucia a clipping she had pulled from her purse. “This was in yesterday’s paper.”

Lucia read the large print of text put into a black-framed, two-column-wide box like an ad. “‘Let fire come down from heaven and consume you, for our God is a consuming fire.’”

“Pretty strange, don’t you think?” Colleen lifted the lid of the teapot to peek at the brew. “I checked, and nobody knows who paid for this. But I think this is related to the fire at the hospital.” She raised a hand. “And I knew this was a Bible verse, even though I couldn’t figure out which one, so I called Pastor Dawson and he says it’s actually two verses, one from Kings and one from Hebrews.” Pointing at the clipping, she added, “So whoever bought the ad was sending someone a message, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.” Lucia handed back the clipping, then poured tea into the two mugs. “But if you think so, then you should turn this over to my brother Sam.” Since he was a detective on the Colorado Springs police force, he’d know how to track things down if this was as suspicious as Colleen thought. “Or maybe you should talk to Brendan.” He was Colleen’s cousin and a special agent with the FBI.

Colleen smiled brilliantly. “Now that I know you don’t think I’m crazy, I will.” She took a sip of tea, then added, “Too creepy and too much of a coincidence not to be related.”

Lucia hoped Colleen was wrong.

“Nice jacket,” Colleen said, fingering the collar of Rafe’s leather jacket, which Lucia had brought into the house and hung across the back of a kitchen chair. “Doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen your brothers wearing, though.”

“It’s not,” Lucia admitted, remembering that she had caressed the soft leather in the same way her friend was doing now. “It belongs to Rafe—Rafael—Wright.” When her friend raised her eyebrows in question, she tacked on, “The guy from the hospital.”

“Ah…the one you didn’t rescue. The one who’s not ugly.” Sipping her tea, Colleen gazed at Lucia over the top of her mug. “You’re finally ready to move on?”

“Maybe,” Lucia admitted.

The expression in Colleen’s eyes softened. “Not every guy is the kind of lowlife Stan was.” Then she smiled. “This Rafe…Rafael guy…he might be the answer to my prayers for you. Tall, dark, handsome, gainfully employed.” She paused a beat while she took another sip of tea, smile lines crinkling at her eyes. “And somebody who wants you just as you are.”

Lucia grinned at her friend. “Sounds like the guy you should be praying for—not for me, but for yourself.”

“Hey. Maybe your guy has a brother.”

“Two sisters,” Lucia said.

“I’m going to be good and not even say a word that you would know about the man’s family.”

They talked a while longer, their comfortable conversation turning to family matters, the plans Lucia had for her day off before going back to work for another twenty-four-hour shift and the research Colleen was doing for a new story—a series of articles about how drug traffic had changed in Colorado Springs since the demise of the drug cartel taken down the previous year. Since both of them had brothers who had been very involved in the case, the story was personal for Colleen.

After she left, Lucia worked around her house for a while, starting a load of laundry and taking care of other chores before heading for the hospital, where she would spend a few hours so her mother could get a break. That was a routine she would be happy to give up, Lucia thought as she drove to the hospital, her automatic prayer for her father’s quick recovery at her lips. Quick, though, hadn’t happened.

“Whatever Your greater plan, Lord,” she quietly prayed, “help us to understand.” Though she believed the potential for good flowed from every situation, she was hard-pressed to imagine what greater good was to come from her dad’s lingering coma.

She arrived a half hour early as she had planned so she could check on Ramón and Teresa, or at least their sister. With that in mind, she made her way to the makeshift children’s ward. She found the children with their parents, who spoke no more English than the children did. Immediately frustrated with the limited communication available with her own poor Spanish and vague hand gestures, Lucia cut her visit short, wishing she spoke the language well enough to communicate and wishing Rafe had been with her to translate.

Leaving the ward, she went through the main rotunda of the hospital and was drawn to the security tape that cordoned off the damaged pediatric wing. The fire doors at the entrance to the wing were closed. They didn’t keep the pungent scent of smoke, water and charred debris inside, however, the odors oozing into the rotunda.

“It sure smells awful, doesn’t it?” came a voice from the other side of the rotunda.

Lucia turned around to see Chloe Tanner, an intensive-care nurse who had thwarted a second attempt on her father’s life, coming toward her. That alone would have made her an honorary family member. She had also been a great nurse, taking good care of Lucia’s dad during those first harrowing days after he was shot.

That had been the beginning of a romance between Chloe and Colleen’s cousin Brendan, and they had recently announced their engagement.

Smiling, Lucia said, “It does, but it’s about the usual.”

“I saw the trucks for your station here.”

Lucia nodded. “We were the first to arrive.”

“I just don’t understand how a fire of that magnitude happened,” Chloe said. “After all those false alarms kept happening, one of the chiefs was out here several times doing inspections. You would have thought he might have noticed the problem with the sprinklers.”

“Do you remember which one?” Lucia asked.

Chloe grinned. “I won’t be forgetting about a man who talked to me like I had the IQ of a gnat. Battalion Chief Neil O’Brien. He’s in charge of your station house, isn’t he?”

Again Lucia nodded, knowing just how Chloe felt. “A gnat, huh?”

Chloe’s smile widened. “We might be insulting gnats.”

Lucia laughed, reminded of how much she had appreciated Chloe’s wry humor during those first tense days her dad was in intensive care. “I just had to come see—even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to get in. It was a strange fire.” That was an understatement. From the explosion to the two kids in the chapel to Rafael Wright, there wasn’t a single ordinary thing about it.

“I’m so thankful no one was seriously injured,” Chloe said. “Only some smoke inhalation, though that can be very serious, too.” She walked with Lucia toward the wide staircase that led to the first floor.

“Let’s keep an eye on the weather,” Lucia said as they parted ways. “I’d be more than happy to take your kids skiing some weekend.”

Chloe laughed. “My kids, but not me.”

“You, too.” Lucia grinned at her. “I suppose I could even put up with Brendan, too, if he can get away.”

“He’d like that.” Chloe waved goodbye.

With that, Lucia headed for the intensive-care wing where her father was. Though at least one FBI agent was always in the hallway outside her dad’s room, Lucia still wasn’t used to their presence. The man on duty today said hello as she walked past him and headed for her mother, who was sitting next to the bed.

“Hi, Mom,” Lucia said from the doorway.

“You’re early,” her mother said.

“Not that much.” Lucia moved into the room, taking off her coat. “I’ve been reading to him, and to be honest, now I’m wanting to know how the story turns out.”

They talked a few minutes longer, and after her mother left, Lucia sat down next to the bed and began reading to her dad, a novel from his collection of Zane Grey Westerns. He loved those stories, and she understood why. In the end, justice prevailed and evil was vanquished. That thought took root, along with the newspaper ad that Colleen had shown her.

What if Colleen was right and it was a message? Lucia looked up from the book to her father’s sleeping face. She thought about that some more, trying to analyze the problem the way her brother Sam would. As a detective, he was good at sifting through the puzzle pieces and putting the right ones together.

If the message was a warning, she wondered if it was somehow connected to her dad’s shooting. Or was she simply giving too much importance to her own family? And if the ad was connected to her father somehow, surely one of the FBI agents who had been assigned to the case would see how everything fit together. Deciding others were far better equipped to figure out the puzzle, if there even was one, Lucia returned to reading to her father.

She spent the rest of the afternoon with her dad, not leaving until one of her sisters-in-law arrived, a continuation of the family agreement that Mayor Vance would always have a family member by his side.

Lucia left the hospital, her attention drawn to the leather jacket on the front seat of her car. Since she had looked up Rafe’s address before she left home and discovered he lived only a couple of miles from the hospital, returning his jacket seemed the neighborly thing to do. Except that she hadn’t called, mostly because she hadn’t been able to figure out what she would say after the initial hello. Her internal argument continued while she drove. Since it wasn’t yet five o’clock, maybe he wouldn’t even be home. So she’d be off the hook, a thought that brought a pang of disappointment.

Her stomach clenched with unaccustomed butterflies as she pulled into the parking lot. The apartment complex where he lived was large, but she easily found his building. The jacket firmly wrapped in her arms, she climbed the two flights of exterior stairs to his floor, found the apartment number and knocked on the door.

She could hear music from inside, so clearly someone was home.

A second later, the door opened and a tall, good-looking man with coffee-colored skin and dark eyes smiled at her.

“I was looking for Rafe,” she said.

His smile widened. “I wish I could say that you found him.”

“Is this the right apartment?”

He nodded. “Right apartment, wrong guy.” He extended his hand. “I’m his roommate, Malik Williams. And you are?”

“Lucia Vance,” Rafe said, appearing behind Malik.

The butterflies in her stomach fluttered at the sound of Rafe’s deep voice. Her gaze latched on to his, and she lost herself within his green eyes that were so at odds with his dark brown hair and olive skin. The outside of the iris was a pure, dark jade. As she realized he was studying her just as intently, her own gaze shifted to Malik’s openly curious and teasing one. She noticed a bandage above one eyebrow.