Page 25 of Striking the Match (Redwood Bay Fire #3)

The team collectively blink and also look around. “Teddy?” Bell calls out.

“Is he sick?” Ortiz asks in concern.

I shake my head. “The captain would have told me if he’d heard that he was too ill to come in so we could try and organize cover.”

“Unless he’s that sick,” Quick points out. “There’s been a couple of nasty things going around my daughter’s school after everyone came back from summer vacation.”

Kwon shakes her head, though. “Nah, I don’t think so. He told me he was going on a hike in the wilderness park with a friend.”

She smirks as Bell’s eyebrows jump up. “Oooh—a friend friend?”

“I reckon so,” Nelson chimes in. “He told me that as well, and the text definitely had a ‘if my date goes bad you know where to look for the body’ type vibe to it.” He laughs at his own joke, but almost immediately stops as his face falls.

“Shit. Should we actually be looking for his body right now?”

I wave my hands and shake my head as people naturally gather around the dining table. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions just yet,” I warn them, although I’ve got a sense of uneasiness competing for space in my stomach with the eggs I just ate. “Has anyone tried reaching him?”

But even as I ask the question, I see that Kwon is already on her phone. She shakes her head and ends the call. “Straight to voicemail.”

“Right,” I say firmly, grabbing my tablet from my work bag. “Do you know whereabouts in the park he was headed?”

“He mentioned heading to one of the falls,” Nelson says as I pull up a map. Kwon jabs her finger at the screen.

“Yeah, around there,” she confirms. “Whether that’s where he went, though, who knows?”

“He could just be at home with a hottie, sleeping off a hangover,” Nelson crows.

Quick arches an eyebrow at him. “Not everyone is you, Sawyer. Besides, when have you ever known our probie to be anything less than punctual, respectful and eager to please?”

That makes Nelson hum in agreement.

I’ve already moved on to checking local reports, and my stomach drops. “Looks like there might have been some flooding around that area or…oh, no.”

“What is it?” Hendrix asks as he and the others crane their necks to look my tablet as well.

I scan the text as fast as I can. “It looks like there might have been a disturbance in that area yesterday evening.”

“Another earthquake?” Haskell asks with his brows furrowed. “We didn’t get any phone alerts.”

I shake my head, heaviness weighing on my chest. “No. It…it looks like a possible landslide. We should speak to Dispatch and see if they’ve had any distress calls.”

“Um, Lieutenant,” Kwon says with a wince. “If the signal is as bad out there as I suspect it is, nobody’s going to be calling anyone.”

“Should we alert the One-Two-Two?” Quick asks seriously. “That’s their district. I don’t want to send them on a wild goose chase, but maybe someone should inspect the area in person.”

“Hang on,” Nelson interjects, his eyes wide. “That’s our boy who’s possibly in trouble out there. If anyone’s going on a wild goose chase, it should be us. Because what if it’s not a false alarm? It’s raining again this morning. What if Teddy’s actually out there in a bad way?”

Ice slides down my spine. I can’t deny that Foster is so dedicated that it probably would take a natural disaster to stop him arriving for his shift on time.

He never thinks he can make any mistakes or show any weakness, like that might stop him from qualifying as a firefighter.

Even slicing open his hand didn’t slow him down.

So him being this late and unreachable is definitely a red flag. But…

“We have a duty to our community,” I point out.

Bell shakes his head. “We can inform Dispatch to put any calls on divert. San Clemente has several houses that can cover for us. But Sawyer’s right. Teddy’s not just some probie. He’s one of us and we never leave anyone behind, right?”

“Damn right,” the captain’s voice rings out behind me over the chorus of agreement. He approaches us, coffee mug in hand, and glances at my tablet. “You’re concerned about Foster, did I hear?”

I nod and bring the map up again. “He hasn’t shown up for work and his phone’s going straight to voicemail.

He told a couple of the guys he was going for a hike in this area yesterday, and there have since been reports of a landslide.

However,” I sigh, really hating to be the pragmatic one when all I want to do is gear up and charge out on a rescue mission.

“This is well off the beaten track. Even if we do get permission for a search and rescue mission, we’re never getting any of the rigs up there. Not even the ambulance.”

“Um,” Hendrix says, raising his hand like he’s at school. “You might not want to send the One-Two-Two up there in our place, but they might be able to do us a favor anyway. I know a guy from my time working with them. I think he could help.”

That’s all the encouragement I needed, and I look at Valentine. “What do you say, boss? Permission to go look for our missing man?”

“No,” Valentine says with a frown as he puts his mug on the table with a little more force than necessary. “Not without me, you’re not.”

“Yeehaw!” Kwon cries, punching the air and making Rocky bark in excitement.

Bell raises a finger and makes him calm down. “You’re not coming with us,” he tells the dog firmly.

Valentine hums. “He can’t, no. But let me see if Captain Padilla can’t spare someone from the K-9 unit. A sniffer dog might not be the worst idea if anyone’s trapped under the rubble, not just our man.”

“Do we have anything of Foster’s we can use for a scent?” I ask the group.

Nelson grins. “We will if you let me pick my way into his locker,” he says with far too much enthusiasm.

“I didn’t hear a thing,” I tell him, waving my hand by my ear.

“Say hi to the twenty-five Cassius Gardas he has in there,” Kwon calls out as Nelson rushes gleefully off. Quick only pauses a second before following him, presumably to make sure he doesn’t break into anyone else’s locker while he’s at it.

“To be fair,” Ortiz says thoughtfully, “Teddy probably only has like four pictures of Garda hanging up there.”

“Four too many for a grown man,” Haskell grumbles before frowning at me. “The kid’s probably fine, you know.”

I chuckle as I look our driver engineer up and down. “Can’t help but notice you’re the first one dressed and ready to go, though.”

He harrumphs and ambles off to sit behind the wheel of the rig.

“Okay,” Valentine announces as he puts his phone down. “Dispatch has been notified and so has the One-Two-Two. Apparently, there’s already a team combing the area, but they’ll appreciate whatever help we can give them. I’ll call Padilla on route and see if she can spare anyone to meet us there.”

“My guy’s on board!” Hendrix announces excitedly as everyone starts making their way to the truck to ride together.

I linger, giving Nancy a nod as she stays behind with Rocky. Our aloof station cat, Smokey, peers out with interest to see what all the fuss is about.

The One-Thirteen are rolling out on a different kind of call, that’s what the fuss is, kitty.

Because no matter how much I might feel apart from the group sometimes, when I jump on board and Haskell hits the siren and the gas, I know that every single one of these people would go to hell and back for anyone else on this team, including me.

If Teddy’s in trouble, we’ll find him.

Because that’s just what we do.