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Jeff Collins froze in his hiding place behind the large metal cabinet. He glanced at the opposite wall, noticing for the first time the large mirror that revealed his presence. He’d assumed Cal was too involved in his workout routine to notice anything.
Assuming what he hoped was a casual posture, he stepped out into the open. “No, not really.”
Cal shrugged and lifted the bar. Pushing up with fairly little exertion, he completed ten repetitions before replacing the bar. Cal glanced at his friend. “Hey, man, I know that the promotion thing—I mean, I don’t want there to be any hard feelings.”
Jeff stood over the bench. “No hard feelings.”
Cal glanced at him. Something in Jeff’s voice said otherwise.
“I’m just here to do a job.”
Cal sat up, and grabbing a towel off a nearby bench, he wiped his face. “Glad to hear that.” Cal still felt the need to give a warning. He slung the towel around his neck and stood. “After all, a firehouse is no place for a hot dog.”
“What are you trying to say to me, Cal?”
Cal shrugged. “Nothing a veteran like you doesn’t already know.” With that statement, he turned and walked out of the gym.
Jeff’s head swung around and his eyes followed Cal until he disappeared around the corner. Only then did he allow his face to relax. The ugly sneer that seemed to be a part of his permanent expression reappeared, along with the cool, dead look in his hard, dark eyes.
Cal walked along the hall toward his office, mentally replaying the conversation. There was something not quite right about Jeff Collins since he’d been promoted. It was obvious the man was feeling the sting of being overlooked for a promotion he thought was guaranteed.
It made no sense, considering Cal was the one to recommend him for the promotion. But ultimately, the decision had been in the hands of the council and they had chosen Cal. But there was something in Jeff’s eyes…the intense hatred he’d seen in the man’s eyes seemed excessive for such a minor offense. Maybe the guy had mental problems that were not listed in his departmental record.
Cal rubbed his chin thoughtfully—wouldn’t be the first time an unstable person had gotten by the shrink at the academy. But with something like that only time could tell. For now, Cal thought, he would just keep an eye on Jeff, just in case.
He was almost back to his office when he was approached by Noel, their district chief fire marshal. “Hey, Cal, got a minute?”
Cal opened the door and motioned his friend inside. “Sure, what’ cha need?”
Noel handed him a folder. “Need you to sign off on the Hadley building.”
As the fire team responding to the call, Cal was obligated to verify the information in the report for any potential lawsuits. “Did anything seem strange about that fire?” Cal asked Noel as he scribbled his name across the forms, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
“Do you mean about the fire or finding the kid inside?”
Cal frowned. “When I think about it, finding Marco there should not have been that much of a surprise. I’ve been aware for some time that kids like to hang out in there. Everyone from the little bitty ones to the teens seems to be able to find a use for that building. But, no, I was asking about the cause of the fire itself.”
“Completely accidental.” He motioned to the folder. “Read for yourself.”
“Yeah, I did. Just was wondering if there was anything outside of the report.”
Noel tilted his head to study his friend. “What’s this all about, Cal?”
Cal quickly shook his head trying to deflect his friend’s suspicions. He was hoping he would feel the man out subtly, but Noel was no fool. “Nothing, just wondering. Here you go.” He smiled and handed back the folder.
“Sure?”
Cal stood and patted him on the back. “You know how I am, man.”
Noel smiled. “I forgot how anal you get about stuff. But don’t worry, this was classic by-the-book accidental burning. It seemed to be started by some kind of small explosive, like a firecracker. Probably kids, but since I can’t prove it there is nothing that can be done about it.”
Cal saw his friend out before returning to the work on his desk, but unable to concentrate he soon found himself standing at the window looking out over the busy avenue below.
When the dizziness and nightmares had started Cal had brushed them off as being the aftereffects of the fire. But now, several weeks later, he was still experiencing all the same symptoms, but with even more frequency.
He’d hoped there would be some explanation for all of it when he saw Noel’s write-ups, but he’d known almost the instant he looked at it that it was just a standard investigation report.
No insidious chemicals were used, no mind-altering drugs were released in the atmosphere. And Cal was forced to accept that whatever was going on with him…was just him.
Chapter 5
Two hours after her massage, Andrea pulled into her parents’ driveway. She could feel the effects of Zack’s hard work beginning to wear off. The tension was already returning to her neck and shoulders.
She glanced at her watch to check the time, and nodded in satisfaction. Her father would not be home from work for another two hours. She planned to be long gone before then.
She grabbed the bag from the local pharmacy off the passenger seat, hopped out of her little Mercury Mariner and headed for the side door. She walked along the red brick path that led a windy trail through the beautifully manicured garden.
She looked over the fence that ran the length of the house at the neatly cut lawn and tried to ignore the empty doghouse that sat against the back gate. Her eyes flashed to it anyway. No dog had lived in it for almost twelve years, but Andrea knew her father left it there as a reminder to her, a silent warning not to interfere in his business.
When Andrea was preparing to leave home for college, she found her days and nights plagued with concern for her mother. Not that her presence in the house had ever hindered Andrew Chenault in any way, but she felt that she’d always served as some kind of buffer.
She kept having daydreams of coming home for a holiday break and discovering her mother’s lifeless body. A month before she was to leave for school, an idea came to her, and the fact that it was right before Mother’s Day made it perfect. Andrea had asked her father if it would be all right to give her mother a dog for Mother’s Day.
The fact that they both knew what an animal lover her mother was, her father had agreed. Andrea knew her father expected her to bring home a five-pound purse dog that would bounce and yelp and do little else. She would never forget the way his eyes narrowed on her face when she came through the door with a fully grown, two-hundred-pound female rottweiler.
Even though she had not openly defied him—after all, there had been no agreement on what type of dog she would buy—she knew he felt deceived. As far as Andrea could remember, that was the day he let down the pretense he’d maintained throughout her youth of being a loving father and husband. After that, they became unspoken adversaries.
Of course, the dog had taken to her gentle-natured mother right off, just as Andrea knew she would. Her mother had laughingly named her Buttercup. Andrea had few memories of her mother ever being happier than the day she received her. The dog followed Margaret everywhere, and although she never growled at him, Buttercup watched Andrew with an instinctive wariness.
That last month before she left for school, Andrea believed their home was the most at peace it had ever been and she left with a clear conscience. However, less than two weeks later, her distraught mother called her dormitory, and through the tears and slurred speech conveyed the tale that Buttercup had run away. Andrea never knew if the slurred speech was due to alcohol or a busted lip.
When she came home for the holidays five months later, the doghouse was still sitting against the fence in the backyard.
Andrea confronted her father as to why he hadn’t gotten rid of the painful reminder. He’d smiled and said, “Who knows, maybe one day Buttercup will come home.”
Despite all the things she’d seen her father do over the course of a lifetime, it wasn’t until that moment that she’d begun to hate him.
She knocked lightly on the side door to get her mother’s attention. Margaret, standing at the sink, looked up at the noise and smiled. She quickly wiped her hands on her apron and opened the screen door.
“Hi, sweetheart.” She swung the door open and stepped back out of the way. Andrea entered and hugged her mother. She handed off the bag, and began with her usual statement. “I can’t stay long.”
“I know,” Margaret muttered, “but hopefully long enough to share a cup of coffee.”
Andrea smiled. “Sure, why not?” She glanced at the table and saw brochures spread out and neatly arranged. “What’s this?”
Margaret smiled with a genuine twinkle in her brown eyes. “Your father’s taking me on vacation for our anniversary. He told me to pick any place in the world I want to go.” She gestured to the pamphlets. “There are so many wonderful places, I can’t decide.”
Andrea smiled and took an empty seat. Payoff time, she thought. Trying to wrap her mind around something she’d accepted years ago.
Her mother at fifty-two was still an incredibly beautiful woman, and always had been. She’d married her college sweetheart thirty years ago, and after two miscarriages, gave birth to their one and only surviving child, a healthy baby girl.
Andrew Chenault had been born into a savings and loan conglomerate, and at the tender age of twenty-five, he’d been given the reins of his family’s largest mortgage firm which he’d doubled in size over the past twenty years.
On paper, her parents had the ideal marriage. A beautiful home in an affluent neighborhood; Margaret was active in several different charitable causes, and Andrew was a doting husband in public. They took several vacations a year and their friends envied them.
But then again, Andrea thought, their friends did not live in the house with them. So many times, Andrea had tried to convince her mother to leave her father, but all she ever succeeded in doing was driving a wedge between herself and her mother.
So she stopped trying, and now they both pretended like theirs was a normal family. After being an E.R. nurse for ten years, Andrea had come to realize that in many respects they were a normal family. And crazy as it seemed, despite the occasional late-night trip to the emergency room, her mother seemed satisfied with her life.
“How about a cruise to the Bahamas?” Andrea asked, trying to be supportive.
Margaret laughed. “You do realize it’s hurricane season.” She shook her head. “No, I was thinking something more exotic.” She held up a leaflet with a picture of an ancient ruin on the cover, grinning with all the enthusiasm of a small child, and Andrea found herself unable to help smiling in return.
She took the brochure and read. “A Mayan village in South America?”
“Just think, a civilization older than most of the world, and parts of it are still standing.”
Andrea put down the pamphlet. “Whatever makes you happy.”
Margaret sat at the table and her eyes flashed slyly over Andrea’s face. “Speaking of what makes us happy, would you care to explain why Cal was answering your phone at two o’clock in the morning?”
Andrea quirked her mouth. “Are you looking for a reason other than the obvious?”
“Andrea, I’m surprised at you. I would’ve thought you’d save yourself for your wedding night.”
Andrea’s eyes widened at the genuine shock in her mother’s voice. You have got to be kidding me. “Uh, yeah, well, we decided we didn’t want to buy the car without giving it a little test drive.”
Margaret’s mouth fell open and Andrea couldn’t help laughing. It seems she’d offended her mother’s delicate senses. “Just how many men have…test driven you?”
“Mom! I’m not going to answer that! Geez, what a question!”
“I raised you to be a lady.”
“I am a lady!” A sexually satisfied lady. “Can we talk about something else?” Andrea could feel herself beginning to blush. She shook her head—thirty-four and still unable to discuss sex with her mother.
Margaret pursed her lips thoughtfully, and Andrea knew she wanted to continue the interrogation, but instead she hopped up from the table and went to prepare two cups of coffee. “Two sugars and three creams, right?” she called over her shoulder, and Andrea confirmed it.
“Andrea…” Margaret began hesitantly, still facing the coffeepot. “Do you feel…safe with Cal?”
Andrea had been looking through the brochures, but her head came up. “Yes, very safe.”
“Are you sure?”
Andrea studied her mother’s ramrod straight back and realized that in her entire life, she could not ever remember seeing her mother slouch. “Yes, Mom, I feel safe and protected with Cal.”
Andrea had never told her mother about her concerns regarding Cal’s line of work. Andrea loved her mother, but there was something in knowing that her mother wanted to stay with her father, despite what he did to her, that made it impossible to completely trust her.
Margaret nodded vigorously. “Good, good. It’s important to feel safe.”
And what about you, Mom? Who’s going to make you feel safe? In past conversations, this was where Andrea would’ve questioned her mother regarding her reasons for staying. This was where she would’ve begged and pleaded with her to leave. She’d stopped doing that a long time ago.
No more was said about feeling safe. And although Margaret tried to steer the conversation back that way more than once, Andrea kept the line of conversation away from her sex life. The ladies spent the next hour looking through brochures and laughing at the possibilities of visiting each locale.
She was so enjoying herself, Andrea lost track of the time and did not realize how late it was until she heard the sound of her father’s Cadillac pulling into the driveway.
She froze in place and gently set the brochure for Bora Bora back on the table. “I’d really better be going.” She stood and quickly placed her coffee cup in the sink, then checked the table to make sure she had put nothing else out of place and watched as her mother did the same. Her heart sank. A lifetime of conditioning, she thought.
She kissed her mother’s cheek, but before she could slip out the side door, her father appeared in the entryway to the kitchen.
He smiled, seeming genuinely pleased to see his daughter. “Well, if it isn’t the prodigal daughter.” He held his arms opened for a hug, and Andrea resisted, but in the end she went into them, knowing somewhere in the back of her brain, the little girl in her was still looking for the daddy who would push her swing all the way to the top. The daddy who would bring home gifts from every business trip. The daddy who gave the very best belly tickles. Some part of her would always remember him that way.
She hugged him briefly. “Hi, Daddy.”
Andrew Chenault took in the kitchen with one sweeping glance, and seemed satisfied with what he found. He glanced at the brochures neatly stacked on the table. “Your mother tell you about our vacation?”
Andrea nodded.
“You know you’re welcome to come along.”
Andrea forced a smile. “No, thanks, with the wedding less than four months away, I’ve got a lot of work to do.” Andrea knew she could’ve given a million excuses for not wanting to travel with them, but she always, always chose the one that involved Cal.
Shameful as it was, she knew she used her fiancé like a battle shield. The two men, Cal and her father, had only met once, and had almost come to blows. Andrea knew her father was intimidated by a man that towered over him. Some dark part of her reveled in it.
“I’ve got to be going.”
“Sure you can’t stay for dinner? I’ve missed you.” Andrew tilted his head to look at her where she was still cradled in his arm.
Andrea glanced at his face and was surprised to see sincerity in his eyes. “No, I’ve got to get going.” She broke free of his loose hold, hugged her mother, and headed out the back door.
She hurried down the path, hopped in her car and pulled out of the driveway as quickly as possible. Andrea quickly let down her car windows and took in a big gulp of fresh air as the suffocating feeling began to subside.
She picked up her cell phone, and pressed the speed dial button for Cal.
“Hey, baby,” Cal answered on the first ring.
“How much longer?” she asked, knowing that he was ending a rotation this evening. She was anxious to see him.
“Not long, just finishing up some paperwork.”
“What did you want to do tonight?” she asked, hoping he would not say crash at her place. Andrea was feeling the need to get out and do something.
As if sensing the need, he asked, “How do you feel about carnivals?”
“Carnivals?”
“Yeah, there is one down the street from the firehouse. Wanna go? Maybe I can win you one of those giant pink elephants.”
“Ooohh, a giant pink elephant,” Andrea purred. “You spoil me.”
“I know. Wanna go?”
“Sure, why not?” she said, while trying to stifle a yawn.
“See, that’s what I love about you, your enthusiasm.”
A few minutes later, when Andrea hung up the phone she was still smiling. In a matter of minutes, Cal had managed to lift the dark cloud that always followed her away from her childhood home.
Sometimes, Andrea felt as if she were a prisoner who’d been forced to spend an eternity in the darkness, never knowing what it felt like to have the sun on her face. Until Cal came into her life throwing open the shutters, and guiding her into the light of love and laughter. Despite whatever doubts she had about their relationship, Andrea knew that life with Cal meant never having to live in the darkness again.
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