Page 115 of Protecting What's Mine

The fire trucks roared in and made a show of setting hose lines and climbing ladders.

But Mack’s team beat them all.

It was her first time back in the air since the walking boot, and it felt like coming home.

The helicopter skimmed over the treetops, nose tilted. It swooped dramatically low when the field opened up beneath them, and Mack watched the kids waving excitedly, saw the teachers and staff wrangling everyone well away from the landing zone.

RS did a tight, showy three-sixty before setting down dead center on the school’s soccer field.

“Way to stick the landing,” Bubba said.

RS gave the all-clear, and Mack and Bubba unhooked the radio lines and stepped out of the helicopter.

“I feel like we’re slow-motion hero walking,” Bubba whispered as they strolled—and limped—toward the crowd of elementary schoolers.

“We should take our helmets off and give them a hair toss,” Mack suggested.

A familiar voice carried to them courtesy of a bullhorn. “Dr. Mack, you’re stepping on my entrance,” Linc teased from his department’s command vehicle.

The kids had the chance to tour all of the vehicles, igniting dozens of career ideas in bright, young minds. They tried on helmets and stretched out fire hoses. They sat in the pilot’s seat of the helicopter and the driver’s seat of a squad car. They played victim and EMT.

Ava Garrison charged up and gave Mack a hug before running back to her little cluster of friends. A few of her other patients called greetings. “Hi, Dr. Mack!”

A long-legged girl with a cute gap between her teeth and braids popped up next to her. “Hi. I’m Samantha. We met before in my uncle’s backyard.”

“Right. You’re Chief Reed’s niece,” Mack said, recalling the water battle and ensuing death scene.

“And you’re his girlfriend,” Samantha stated.

“Uh. Well, we haven’t really discussed labels, and—”

“Don’t freak out.” The girl blew out a puff of breath that lifted her bangs off her forehead. “I’m not here about that. I have other business.”

“Okay. Why don’t we step into my office?” Mack said, gesturing to the helicopter.

They climbed inside. “So I thought I wanted to be a coroner or a mortician,” Samantha said, swinging her legs from her perch on the stretcher.

Kids.

“Uh-huh.”

Samantha gave her a cool look. “I know it seems weird. But everyone dies. It’s job security.”

Mack blinked and wasn’t sure if it was weirder that an eleven-year-old would consider being a mortician or that the deciding factor was job security.

“That’s true.”

“But everyone also gets sick or hurt,” Samantha said.

“Also true.”

“So maybe I want to be a doctor and work with live people. I mean, flying around in a helicopter is pretty cool, and you get to save lives and stuff like Uncle Chief Linc.”

“You have time to decide,” Mack pointed out.

“Not much. If I want to be a doctor, that means a good pre-med program and already knowing what med school I want before I graduate high school. And let’s face it, dissecting amphibians in biology or learning about hand-washing in health class isn’t preparation.”

The kid had done her research. Mack made a mental note to talk to Linc about talking to his sister about parental controls on internet searches.