Page 32 of Fire Fight

“Hey, this is Sheriff Lawless calling.” He paused. “Yeah, I’m good. How are you? The kids?” Another beat. “Great. Hey, look. I’m calling because I’m hoping you could get me the building schematic of Mack’s old auto shop.” Lane quieted and rolled his eyes. “Yes, that one. Yeah, what happened to that girl was awful. But she’s alive, and we’re going to find who did this to her. Yes. Yes, I promise. Now how about that schematic?” More silence from Lane, and then his face broke into a grin. “Great. I’ll be by to get it in about ten minutes. No, thank you. Yep. Bye.”

“Carmon?” I asked with a brow raised.

Lane chuckled and shook his head. “Naturally.”

Carmon was the county clerk, and while she was a nice woman and great at her job, she was also a terrible gossip. Therewasn’t a thing that happened in this town that she didn’t immediately know about—which meant everyone else knew about it not long after.

“Alright, you go get that schematic and we’ll meet back at the fire house.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than my radio crackled to life.

“Truck twenty-seven. Multiple vehicle accident on Highway 22. Requesting fire and rescue.”

The moment the dispatcher’s voice died in my radio, that same scratchy voice relayed the same information through Lane’s.

We looked at each other and shrugged, breaking apart and racing for our respective vehicles.

Duty called.

ten

. . .

CREW

Three hours later,after extracting multiple injured persons from a pretty gnarly crash out on the highway—no one died, thankfully, but they were all pretty banged up—and clearing debris from the scene, we finally made it back to the firehouse.

After rinsing the grime from my body and putting on clean clothes, I headed into the meeting room to find Chief Madden standing at a table, head bent over the drawing spread across it, Lane at his side.

“About time,” my brother grumbled.

I rolled my eyes. “Either you complain about me showering, or you complain about me not. I couldn’t win, so I went with the option I preferred.”

Chief chuckled and glanced at Lane. “You should be glad he rinsed off, Sheriff. That gear makes us sweat something fierce, and it’s a smell unlike any other when it comes off.”

I waved them both off as I approached the table, pushing a hand through my wet hair, attempting to brush that one stubborn lock off my forehead.

“I’m going to have Crew take over,” Chief said, backing away. “Fight nice, boys.”

Lane snorted but wisely silenced any retort.

“Alright, walk me through it.”

I tapped my finger at the side entrance. “This is where we breached. Davis from engine knocked down the flames in the doorway to get us through. We noticed the diesel smell when we got into the hall.” Moving my finger along the map, I indicated another point. “Tuck and I parted here. I sent him through the back before going inside to clear the main area and the offices.”

“Wait, back up. Why did you and Tuck separate?”

“Burns and Childers were breaching the back, so I wanted them and Tuck to clear the bays. There was more space to cover out here”—I swept my hand over the swath of open space on the schematic—“than the offices, which I knew I could handle myself. When they were done, I told Tuck to send Burns and Childers around the front again and come back for me.”

“Always gotta be the hero,” he mumbled.

Said the cop to the firefighter.

“I was doing my job, Lane. If someone is going to get pinned down in a sticky situation, I’d rather it be me than any of my men. As Captain, it’s my job to allocate resources, and I needed the bulk of thoseresourcesclearing the bays. I got out alive.”

Barely, I thought wryly, but he didn’t need to know that. He hadn’t been on duty that night, so he’d arrived at the scene after the roof had collapsed.

My brother merely grunted in response. “And which one did you find Miss McKay in?”