America's Bravest (56 page)

They took off their turnout clothes slowly,
not like they’d donned them. His face covered with dirt, sweat
soaked through his T-shirt, Malvaso called for their attention. “I
know we stink and can taste the dirt. I’m ordering you all to do a
quick wash-up and then go into the kitchen to eat before you try to
shower. We still have an hour left on our shift and you need to
fortify.”

No grumbles. No humor. Literally, they
dragged themselves into the kitchen. Where every one of them perked
up. Because around the table sat five fresh-as-daisies
firefighters; they had to be the night shift for Rescue 7, which
wasn’t due to start till five.

A man stood. Malvaso went right to him.
“What’s going on, cuz?”

Cuz? Ah, this was the luminous Mitch Malvaso,
rumored to be the most beloved firefighter in the district. Tall
and dark haired like his cousin, they bore a remarkable
resemblance.

Mitch head-locked his relative. “My crew
heard the calls on the scanner. You’re officially off duty. Every
single one of us is here to take over and I’m on for Cal.”

Parker took in a breath. Wow! Talk about
loyalty. These people seemed to care about each other’s welfare.
Oh, sure, she’d heard that about the firefighter brotherhood, but
she’d also seen TV shows like
Rescue Me
where the guys
weren’t always nice to each other.

One Malvaso man hugged the other, and each of
Gabe’s crew did the same for his or her replacement. “Yuck, don’t
touch me,” and “Boy do you stink,” came from the recipients, but
she noticed they didn’t back away from the embraces. Instead, the
new group got out food and served the others.

Sure enough, as soon as everybody sat down,
the PA blared again. The night squad bounded into action. Felicia
took several bites of her sandwich, which had been stored by
somebody after they left, then arched a smug brow at Parker. “Ever
seen anything like that, Allen?”

She could pretend to misunderstand. But she
didn’t. “No, actually, I haven’t. Selflessness is in short supply
these days.”

“Not around here,” Ramirez added with a
smile.

A phone rang and Malvaso took out his cell as
he chewed the food in his mouth, then answered. “Hey, sweetheart.
No, we didn’t have to go again. Yeah, the night guys came in.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, I’ll ask them. Hold on.”

The crew members looked up from their
sandwiches. “Rachel’s off today. We bought half a cow. She’s
inviting all of you and your significant others to come over for
steaks at eight. Sophia’s already on board with food for kids.
Who’s game?”

They all were, with caveats to check with
their families. But Parker guessed every single one of them would
show up.

As she watched them make calls, speak
intimately, smile, she got a hollow feeling in her stomach. It took
a while to recognize the emotion—jealousy.

oOo

Cal drove out to Rachel’s feeling good about
the day. He’d been worried they’d have one of those tours when
everything went wrong, but instead, he couldn’t have orchestrated
the situation better himself, right up to their replacements coming
in early. They did favors for each other a lot, but he’d bet his
badge all the members of Group Two had made an extra effort to come
in today because they knew Parker Allen was visiting.

He had to smile. She’d looked like a whipped
puppy, not that his crew was any better. But they were trained and
in shape for this kind of rigorous shift. Still, she’d kept up the
brutal pace pretty good.

She’s in shape, too.

Damn, where had that thought come from? But
he knew. He’d watched her face animate with each of the rescues
that occurred today. She’d pulled all that hair off her face as she
observed and…wondered, he bet. She’d told him as much when he
invited her into the office at day’s end.…

“So, what do you think?” he asked from behind
his desk, trying not to notice how her blouse was damp and clung to
her.

“I’m impressed. Who wouldn’t be?”

“You kidding?” he responded honestly.

“No, I am.”

“What impressed you the most?”

“How they did all that work on empty
stomachs. I thought
I
might faint and I was a
bystander.”

“And you weren’t carrying sixty pounds of
gear and lifting the deadweight of passed-out bodies.”

She’d crossed her legs, her hands clasping a
knee. He noticed her nails were clipped and unpainted. “I said I
was impressed, Chief.”

“What will you write for tomorrow’s
blog?”

“The truth.”

“Good stuff, for a change.”

She’d inched forward and held his gaze. Her
violet eyes had black rims around them. “Absolutely. But know this.
When I come here and things go badly, I’ll report that as
honestly.”

“I’ll take what I can get, Ms. Allen.”

She stood then and said, “Have a nice time
tonight.”

Cal had noticed how her voice had caught.
Recognizing the emotion in it as longing—something he often felt
about his son—he had the absurd urge to invite her to the dinner.
Which he wisely resisted.…

Parking in the visitor lot at Rachel and
Gabe’s condo on the lake, Cal hefted the case of beer he’d brought
along out of his trunk. Carrying it on his shoulder, he made his
way around back and found them all there, families, too. Man, he
loved this job.

“Ah, here he is.” Gabe came to him and
relieved him of his burden. “We’re waiting with bated breath for a
report on Allen’s take of the day.”

“It was good, very good. We dodged a bullet
today.”

“Only eleven more to go.”

“What, Licia?”

“Only eleven more bullets to go. That’s how
many visits she has left.”

O’Malley handed Cal a beer and lifted his
own. “To dodging bullets.”

“To dodging bullets,” his brother the cop
reiterated.

Everyone joined in on the toast.

oOo

At day’s end, Parker practically crawled into
her house on the east end of the lake. She’d inherited the place
from her mother’s parents—who’d helped raise her when her father
had gone to jail. The only child of
their
only child,
Parker was a rich woman now. In money, anyway.

Damn it, where had that come from? But she
knew. She was thinking about the group of firefighters partying
across the lake at the condo Rachel Wellington Malvaso owned. She
remembered the woman—tall, beautiful, fit. Rachel had written
Parker a scathing email after she read the blog’s account of her
relationship with her captain and what led up to it. But the story
lost its punch when they married suddenly.

Stripping out of her soiled clothes in the
laundry room on the lower level, she climbed the stairs to the
living area, where she headed right to the shower. Her skin
prickled at the sting of the air-conditioning but the coolness felt
good after a day in the oppressive heat. So did the cleansing
shower, and the feel of silk on her skin as she dressed in pajamas.
It was only six o’clock.

Why not get ready for bed? She had nowhere to
go, she again thought as she pictured the firefighters celebrating
together. Parker had never in her life experienced that kind of
camaraderie. After her father died and one disastrous relationship
that changed her life, she’d chosen to be alone. Even when she was
asked to be in Emma Walsh’s sorority, she stayed on the periphery.
Oh, she dated, casually, but nothing stuck, because she wouldn’t
let it. She cringed when she thought about she flirted with men
outrageously to cover her innocence, and almost got it on with
Brody O’Malley once when she was drunk, but that wasn’t the real
her. It was just another façade.

Grabbing a glass of Pinot Grigio from the
subzero fridge she padded out to the deck—with her tape recorder in
her hand. Before she replayed the day’s events, she had to think
about them. Parker planned out her blogs in her head and then they
simply flowed into the computer.

The sun was still bright, but her lot was
treed, so she sat in the shade and closed her eyes. Images
bombarded her. Of yellow-helmeted, heavily coated men and women
running into burning buildings. Of a woman firefighter, she
couldn’t tell which one, carrying a heavy man and stumbling with
his weight. Of the incredible lines of exhaustion on their faces,
which then split with smiles when they had what they call a
save.
Several were made today. How normal was that? She’d
have to ask the chief.

Her thoughts drifted to him. She’d seen
another side of him today. A commander. Excellent at his job.
Enthusiastic about it. And—who would have guessed?—fun, as he joked
with the others.

He isn’t bad on the eyes, either.
Funny thing about that. Parker hadn’t seen him as attractive before
today. But in his office at the end of the shift, she found herself
noticing the dimple in his cheek when he smiled, the curve of his
lips when he talked, the powerful shoulders and biceps peeking out
from his smudged officer’s shirt.

“Arrgh.” Too much good stuff. She needed to
dilute it before she wrote the blog or she’d be salivating over
them.

So Parker rose, went in through the open
French doors to the great room, unlocked the teak armoire and
pulled out an album. This was going to hurt, but she’d do it
anyway. Then she’d be sober enough to write sanely.

She expected the surge of pain when she
opened to the first picture of her father but still it made her
stomach clench. His photo was on the front page of the suburban
Chicago newspaper,
The Sudbury Sentinel
, being taken away
in handcuffs. His tall, always stalwart frame hunched over. Though
she didn’t notice it then, his hair had gotten grayer in the year
he’d been a suspect in an arson case that had ruined all their
lives. She stared hard at the picture and made herself remember the
day they’d come for him. Her mother was still keeping up pretenses
of support for her dad, so she and Parker were at home.

As a fifteen-year-old, Parker was on the
brink of womanhood and had all the insecurities that came with
being a teenage girl. But it was her father who shepherded her
through that time and not her mother. Patrice Allen was a cold
woman, even then, and had barely been able to give her the physical
facts of life. Her dad had given her the important ones.…

They were sitting on the patio, under an
umbrella table next to their pool. “I’m sorry if my situation is
hurting you,” her dad said. “I’ve done everything I can to prove my
innocence. I didn’t set those fires.”

She’d taken his hand. “I know you didn’t,
Daddy.”

He studied her face, which she knew was taut
with worry. “Are you getting grief at school?”

Parker lied. “No, kids are
understanding.”

Her dad stared at the pool then said, “I
haven’t seen that boy around lately. Mitchell?”

“We, um, broke up. I’m too young to get
serious anyway, Dad.”

“I know you are. But listen to this, sweetie.
Any man or boy who doesn’t stick by you in a crisis isn’t worth
your time.”

That was only one of the many male/female
gems of wisdom he’d given her. They were discussing what makes a
good man when the doorbell rang. Every time they had a visitor, she
and her dad tensed up. Her mother seemed resigned.

But that had been
the
day. She
followed her father—against his wishes—to the front door. On the
stoop stood a man she hated more than anybody in the world. He was
big and ugly with beefy hands and a body like a tree trunk.

“Well, well, well,” the arson investigator in
Sudbury said silkily. “Nice family time, eh?”

“What do you want, Felk?”

Jonathan Felk gave him an oily smile. “You
know that arson investigators are officers of the law, right,
Larson?”

Her dad turned to Parker. “Go back inside,
Princess. You don’t need to see this.”

“Maybe she does.” Felk stepped aside. “Cuff
him,” he barked to the officer and followed up with, “You have the
right to remain silent…”

“Parker, please, leave.” Her dad’s craggy
face was tortured. “Go get your mother.”

Instead, Parker stood back, her hands over
her mouth watching the police and fire department manhandle her
gentle, loving father. Tears coursed down her cheeks. Felk grabbed
her dad’s shirt and turned him around. “See what you’ve done to
your little girl, you scum? Look at her. It’s not half as bad as
what you did to the families of the people you killed when you
decided to torch your warehouses.”

“Parker, I love you,” her father said. “And I
didn’t do this. Now please go in the house.…”

Her mother had finally come into the living
room. She’d dragged Parker away but it was too late. She’d never
forgotten the images of that night and the fire department’s
cruelty to her family…

She forced herself to read each and every
page of the scrapbook. His indictment, the awful trial her mother
had forbade her to attend. How evidence had piled up. And how he’d
been wrongly convicted.

Once she’d turned eighteen, she tried to
visit him in jail, but he refused to see her. She’d written him
letters, telling him how much she missed him, how she believed in
him. Her mother had insisted she change her name and had thrown a
fit when Parker balked. Eventually, she gave in and took her mom’s
maiden name, but that almost killed her.

Finally, when she was twenty-five, Nigel
Larson was exonerated, but the damage had been done.

She turned to the last page. A small article
in the
Sentinel
was the last entry. The headline read,
“Wrongly Convicted Man Found Dead in Apartment Ten Days After his
Release from Prison.”

Parker hadn’t even seen him before he took
his own life.

Standing, sober enough now, she replaced the
awful book and headed to her computer. Finally, she was able to be
objective about the fire department.