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“Again, I’ll leave being a sex symbol to the Kardashians,” she answered.

***

Eventually—mercifully—it ended. It was Chief Comstock who finally told the journalists that they were done for the day. He even mentioned that it was, technically, Becca’s day off and that she deserved to enjoy the rest of it in peace.

As they stood to leave the table, Becca met Krissy’s eyes from across the room and with a subtle tilt of her head, indicated that Krissy should follow them.

Hurrying through the group of reporters, Krissy managed to fall in step behind Becca and Chief Comstock as they made their exit from the briefing room through a side door.

In the hallway beyond, which was empty, Becca let out a huge sigh.

“Thank god!” she muttered.

The Chief turned to her, an avuncular smile on his face.

“You did really well,” he complimented.

“Thank you, sir,” Becca said. “Oh, Krissy, this is Chief Leland Comstock, fire chief of Carlsbad. Chief, this is Krissy Kincaid.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Krissy said, holding out her hand.

“The pleasure is mine,” Chief Comstock replied, shaking her hand. “You must be very proud of Becca.”

“I am,” Krissy said. “What she did was amazing! I still can’t believe it.”

The Chief smiled.

“I can,” he said. “In fact, all this Wonder Woman talk isn’t far off the mark when it comes to Becca.”

Becca knew her face must be beet-red.

“Listen, Miss Kincaid, do you mind if I steal your girlfriend for a few minutes?”

“Um…Chief…” Becca started, seeing Krissy barely hold in a laugh.

“Sure,” Krissy said, interrupting her. “Steal away.” She turned to Becca, the struggle of containing her mirth evident on her face. “I’ll wait by the car.” She paused for the length of a heartbeat. “Honey.”

Becca wanted to strangle her.

“I’ll be out there soon,” she said in her Krissy-I’m-going-to-strangle-you voice. “Honey.”

As Krissy started walking away, Chief Comstock said, “You two are a cute couple.”

“Um…Chief…” Becca tried again, but Chief Comstock ploughed on.

“There are a couple of things I want to discuss with you,” he began. “One: It hasn’t been announced yet but it looks like Friday’s fire might be arson.”

Becca felt her blood boil. Anything which started a fire was an awful thing, in her mind. However, a person deliberately starting a fire, especially one as devastating as Friday’s, went beyond awful. It was evil.

The Chief asked her to keep this under wraps for now, until the investigation was further along.

“Of course, sir,” Becca acknowledged.

“The other thing I want to talk to you about is this,” Chief Comstock said. “Butch O’Reilly is retiring in two months.”

Becca’s eyebrows shot up. Butch O’Reilly was the deputy fire chief of Carlsbad. Like Comstock, O’Reilly was another old-school firefighter. Unlike Comstock, however, O’Reilly wasn’t a huge fan of females in the department.

Nonetheless, Becca decided to give a politically correct response.