Page 20 of Rescued Dreams (Last Chance Fire and Rescue #8)

TWENTY

R idge showed up early for his reckoning with Amelia. He knew she would be here well before their shift started, and not just because he’d had Kane text when she left the house. She’d been here at least an hour, and he’d forced himself not to jump on the time.

Turned out to be a good thing, given the activity over at the training house.

A light drizzle dampened everything. Not even enough rain to run the wipers in his truck, but enough to put him in a bad mood.

She had responded to him yesterday. She hadn’t completely ghosted him, but she’d also told him she was too busy studying for the lieutenant’s test to get together on their day off.

The first chance at a date in years—not officially, since they weren’t supposed to—and she’d turned him down.

Ridge slammed the truck door.

Della looked over from her white compact. “Uh-oh.”

He slung his duffel over his shoulder and strode toward her. “Don’t worry about it. How are you?”

Della shot him an inquisitive look before rounding her car to the sidewalk.

Part of him wanted to sit on the three-foot-tall brick wall at the edge of the firehouse property and not even go in or face Amelia. “No, I’m serious. How are you?”

Della said, “O-kay, assuming you’re not having some kind of medical emergency that’s making you want to get personal…I’m fine, thank you, how are you?”

Ridge squeezed the bridge of his nose. “We’re not the personal types.

I know. But it’s just small talk.” He was going to have to start somewhere if he wanted to be a better leader and a better teammate.

That meant letting in more than just Amelia.

“For example, I tried that new chicken place at lunch. The spicy chicken bacon sandwich was really good, but the fries were only mediocre.”

Zoe walked over with her backpack on both shoulders and her hair in two braids that started at the top of her head. “What are we talking about?”

Della said, “Lunch.”

Zoe frowned. “What?”

“We’re trying small talk.” Ridge tried not to act like this was completely awkward, but of course it was.

Della frowned. “Fine. My grandmother was making aloo gobi because I’m going to be gone, and I don’t like it.

She’ll probably eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while I’m on shift.

And she thinks I’ll never keep a man unless I learn how to make saag paneer better than I do right now.

” She lifted her chin. “Is that good enough?”

“It’s not about good enough ,” Ridge said. “It’s about getting to know each other.”

“We need to get inside.” Della wandered off toward the door.

“Can we do this in the kitchen, not in the rain? My hair is gonna frizz.” Zoe followed Della, jogging to catch up so the two women could walk together.

Ridge heard Bryce shout something, so he headed for the training house to the side of the main firehouse building. They still had fifteen minutes before the briefing started. When Bryce ran over to Izan, his body language signaled that there was a problem.

Ridge jogged over. “What’s going on?”

Izan set his phone down, a game open on the screen. He motioned to the screens in front of him. “There’s nothing wrong. She’s right there.” He pointed, but Ridge couldn’t see the monitor.

“She hasn’t come out yet.” Bryce sounded worried. “She should be done by now.”

“So she met up with one of our surprises, that’s all.” Izan shrugged. “It’s Amelia in there, not a rookie.”

Bryce turned to Ridge.

“She asked you guys for help with lieutenant training?” Ridge didn’t know what to think about that. She hadn’t asked him for help, and why not?

“We need to make sure there’s nothing wrong in the training house.” Bryce grabbed his radio on the strap across his body and squeezed the sides. “Patterson, do you copy?”

No answer.

“Patterson, report in.”

Ridge dropped his duffel under the table to keep it out of the rain coming under the pop-up awning. “How long has she been in there?”

Izan lifted his phone to look at the screen. “Nine minutes.”

Ridge started off walking but quickly broke into a jog over to the exit door of the training house. In there for that long, she had to have made progress through the course. That meant she’d be closer to the end than the beginning.

Right?

He hoped so.

Ridge pounded up the stairs on the far side of the squat two-story structure. Underneath was mostly storage, but the upper level was a fabricated residence they used to put rookies through their paces. He was three steps from the top when the door swung out and Amelia fell through the opening.

She stumbled against the rail, tipped over, and fell to the ground level.

“Amelia!” Ridge jumped back down the stairs and rounded the bottom, moving to where she lay on the asphalt in her gear.

Face flushed. No mask or helmet. She still had her air tank on. Her radio was missing, her turnout coat open at the front.

“Amelia.” He landed on the ground on his knees, ignoring how much that hurt.

Ridge turned his head, about to yell for help, when he saw Bryce race over, followed by Izan.

“She needs medical attention.” He took Amelia’s head in his hands and lifted her eyelids.

Her pupils were dilated and didn’t react—maybe that was due to the dim light outside.

The clouds were blocking sunlight. He checked her pulse even though he didn’t want to.

Thank You, Lord.

“She’s breathing.”

Bryce squeezed his shoulder, but the move did nothing to reassure Ridge.

He pulled the tabs on her coat, opening it so he could check for injuries. The red marks on her neck didn’t look good. “What…”

“She didn’t have those marks when she went inside.”

“They’re from someone’s hands.” A person in the training house, who had tried to strangle her to death while she was running the exercise. His gut burned. She could’ve died. “Who went in there?” Ridge held Amelia’s hand because he needed the warm reassurance to keep him from totally flipping out.

“No one,” Izan said, worry in his tone. “She was the only one in there. I was watching the monitors.”

“Go get the chief,” Bryce ordered. “Tell him I’m calling 911.” Bryce got up, his cell phone in his hand.

Kianna and Trace ran around the corner of the training house, carrying some of their gear. “What happened?”

Ridge sat back on his heels, still holding Amelia’s hand. “I have no idea.”

They crouched around her, listening to her breathing.

Talking to each other in phrases that meant something to them and should mean something to him, but right now he couldn’t process any of it.

His mind was a firestorm of fear he couldn’t control.

Like the second when lightning flashed across the sky and everything paused for a moment, as if the world held its breath.

A sound cut through the haze, and he realized the HVAC unit under the training house had kicked on to vent the smoke inside. Ridge wanted to get in there and look for whoever had attacked Amelia, but he also didn’t want to leave her side.

“I’ll bring the ambulance over.” Kianna touched his arm. “She’s going to the hospital.”

Amelia had an oxygen mask over her face now. Kianna jumped up and raced away.

“Is she going to be okay?” He glanced at Trace and knew he’d see how Ridge felt about Amelia. And not just because he hadn’t let go of her hand.

“She inhaled something nasty.” Trace looked up at the house. “Find out what it is and the doctors will be better able to treat her.”

“And the strangle marks on her neck?”

“They aren’t helping things,” Trace said. “Figure this out before it gets worse.”

Kianna drove the ambulance around the corner and parked it close. They loaded Amelia on a gurney, and as soon as the doors were shut, Ridge jogged back around the house. Izan and Bryce stood with Chief James and a few of the other firefighters.

Ridge said, “Truck 14 is out of service until you can get floaters to cover me and Amelia.” Now he was going to check that house. “Is it clear?” He pointed at the structure.

“It will be in a second.” Chief James lifted one brow. “I’ll call headquarters and put the request in to get your shift covered.”

A cop car pulled into the driveway and stopped over by the training house so they weren’t in the way of an engine going out in a hurry.

The setup with the monitors let out a long buzz.

“It’s clear.” Izan leaned down. “I backed up the footage, and she moves through rooms, but I don’t see anyone else. And she doesn’t look like she’s in trouble. Unless…”

“What?” Chief James rounded the table to stand beside Izan and look at the screens. Something similar had happened to the chief’s wife, Natalie, when she’d been getting to know the firefighters over a year ago. Was Macon reminded of that right now?

“I think this is footage from the first time she went through. It’s just been repeated so we had no idea what was happening.” Izan shook his head. “No wonder it seemed boring. I’d watched it once already.”

Ridge motioned to Bryce. “Let’s go.”

They moved to the stairs that led up to the entrance door. Bryce said, “You don’t think whoever attacked her is still in there, do you?”

“A little gun-shy since you tangled with a cartel and dirty politicians?”

“My fighting days are over. I’m getting married. There will be no more kidnapping, car chases, bad guys, or fighting for my life. Thank you very much.”

Ridge chuckled, but the humor didn’t last long. Officer Thomas hurried up the stairs behind them and said, “Want the guy with the gun to go first?”

Bryce shrugged. “I doubt there’s anyone in here.”

“Still.” Anthony eased by them and checked it out. He disappeared into another room in the house and called out, “There’s an open window over here.”

Ridge and Bryce found him.

“And a ladder.” Anthony stuck his upper body out the window. “Only goes down a few rungs, then they jumped. There are shoe prints in the dirt.”

“So we know someone was in here.” Ridge folded his arms. “We just have no idea who.”

Bryce said, “Maybe Patterson saw something.”

“Or someone across the street.” Anthony thumbed over his shoulder. “I’ll go knock on doors. Maybe someone has a camera that saw something.”

“I’m going to the hospital to check on Amelia.” Ridge clenched his jaw. “She could’ve died in here.”

Bryce didn’t look much happier than Ridge felt. “I’ll find out what was in the air. And how the computers were messed with. We’ll figure it out.”

Ridge nodded. They walked through the house but didn’t see anything else. He picked up Amelia’s helmet and mask and the broken radio. “What about pulling prints from this?”

Officer Thomas said, “Running prints takes weeks, and you just picked it up.”

Meaning he’d smudged any that had been there. “So we have no way to find this person unless Amelia saw them.”

“Detective Cartwright is working something right now. I’ll keep you posted if Jess manages to ID any of the guys you’ve all seen so far.”

“Great.” He tried to sound like he had confidence in them, but there was far too much at stake to sit back and do nothing.

Ridge was going to employ some investigators of his own. This situation was getting out of control. Someone was targeting Amelia, and aside from the mysterious hidden money, they had no idea who was behind it. Or how far they intended to go.

She needed someone to watch her back.