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“Of course I came.” His fault that Malik was here—an accident, but one that should not have happened. Malik wouldn’t have been hurt if Rafe had been focused on the training exercise they were doing instead of the news that his younger sister Lisa was separating from her husband.
His dark eyes gleaming, Malik craned his head as Rafe came farther into the room. “If you don’t have a big vanilla malt hidden behind your back, you can leave right now.”
Rafe clicked his tongue. “That concussion must not be too bad since you’re cranky.” He pulled his hand from behind his back and set the tall paper cup containing his friend’s favorite dessert on the table pulled next to the bed.
Malik grinned, pressing the volume control to turn the television down. “Figured I should play on your sympathy—”
“Which won’t last long if you keep this up.” Rafe shrugged out of his leather bomber jacket, which he set on the chair in the corner.
“That’s you, all right. All bark. No bite.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.” Since Rafe was the foreman for a Type 1 hotshot crew of forest-fire fighters, part of the territory was making sure he came across as a major tough guy. Since Malik was both his roommate and his friend, just now he seemed more like a kid brother than simply one of the guys on the crew. Not that many years separated them, but a lifetime of experience did. Malik worked full-time during the summer, then went to school and skied in the winter while continuing to work part-time for the Forest Service. “I thought I’d been properly sympathetic—”
“If you don’t count yelling.”
Inwardly, Rafe winced. He had yelled. At the time he had been furious, a hundred percent of it directed at himself for not seeing the accident coming.
At his discomfiture, Malik grinned. “Speaking of biting and the screams of pain that come after…” He waited a beat while Rafe raised an eyebrow. “I bet you didn’t know they don’t sound alarms in hospitals. They want things to be calm,” he added, raising his hands to punctuate quotation marks around the last word. “About an hour ago, I’m lying here talking to a real pretty nurse, and there was this page for Dr. Firestone. She tore out of here like she was on her way to a fire.” He tore the paper off the straw and plunged it through the plastic top of the cup, then took a long sip of the malt. “About a half hour later she came back—I’m irresistible, you know—and told me that ‘Dr. Firestone’ is the code for a fire. She said they’ve had about a dozen false alarms over the last couple of days.”
“That’s got to be annoying.”
“That’s what she said. She told me that ‘Dr. Quick’ is for combative patients and ‘Dr. Avery’ is for a bomb threat.” Malik grinned. “And I’ve been thinking—”
“Always a bad sign.”
“I need something to get that nurse back in here to see me.”
“A page from Dr. Valentine?”
Malik laughed. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Sounds to me like you’re going to live,” Rafe said.
“The doc told me I can go home in the morning. They just want to keep an eye on me overnight.” Another of his easy grins came, his teeth flashing white against his African-American complexion. “If you ask me, I think it’s because a certain nurse thinks I’m—”
“A klutz,” Rafe filled in.
“Man, don’t insult me like that.” Malik took another sip of the malt. “That’s real good. Thanks.”
“Least I can do.”
Malik grinned again. “You mean, since you tried to kill me.”
“Anything to get rid of a pest,” Rafe said deadpan.
“This mean you won’t be giving me a ride home? That’d actually be okay because that good-looking nurse—”
“Like she’d give you the time of day.”
“Like,” Malik returned in their good-natured banter.
Rafe studied his friend. Clearly, the obvious question didn’t have to be asked if the guy was going to be okay. Since he was thinking about girls and malts, he’d undoubtedly be his old self in a day or two. Rafe, though, was feeling old. As he had driven to the hospital, he had counted the fires he had fought since he was eighteen years old. One hundred and twelve, and he felt every single one. Those fires had taken him from the Everglades to inside the Arctic Circle in Alaska.
The nomadic life was the one he had wanted…once…which brought him full circle back to his sister. Her husband was walking away from everything Rafe had recently decided his life was missing. A woman to come home to. A child barely two years old. Now that Rafe was nearly finished with his master’s degree in fire science, he had choices. He could settle down and work on finding the right woman.
“You get much more quiet and I’m going to think I’m sitting here alone,” Malik said.
“Then turn up the TV.”
“You’re not thinking stupid things like blaming yourself for what happened to me, are you?”
Rafe met his friend’s gaze. “You know the drill about accountability.”
“Yeah, I do. It’s what makes you the best.”
There was nothing Rafe could say about that, so he remained quiet, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wide ledge in front of the window. At his back, the glass felt cold. “Think it will snow?”
Malik laughed. “Hope so. Since I have a few days off, maybe I’ll head up to Breckenridge or Keystone for a little skiing—”
“Not the best plan for a man with a concussion.” If Rafe had the time, he’d head for Wolf Creek, which boasted the deepest snow in the state. The only drawback was the six-and-a-half-hour drive to get there.
Malik took another sip of his malt. “You’re sounding more like my grandpa every day.”
“Now who’s being insulting?”
Just then, the lights flickered, and the television went off.
“It’s definitely going to snow,” Malik announced, clicking on the remote for the television, which remained off. “You’d think a brand-new hospital would have built-in surge protectors.”
“You’d think,” Rafe agreed, glancing toward the hallway as the lights flickered again. The TV suddenly blared, and Malik turned it down.
The hospital had undergone extensive renovations over the last couple of years, the most recent being the addition of a new pediatric wing. According to a recent article in the Colorado Springs Sentinel, it had attracted the necessary grants and research money to become the premier orthopedic center for children in the western United States. The part of the article Rafe remembered best was a picture of a chapel at the end of the wing, which boasted a great view of Pikes Peak. That was something to check out before he left. He didn’t like hospitals much, but he always made a point to visit the chapels.
Once again, his thoughts returned to his sister and her little girl. He wished they lived closer, wished he could ease their heartache. He needed to do something more for them than simply including them in his daily prayers.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
“Fine.” Malik leaned his head against the pillow. “Might as well take a little snooze, especially since you’re so talkative.”
“Then I’ll head out.” Rafe grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and headed toward the door.
“Hey.”
He turned around.
Malik grinned. “If you see that pretty nurse—the petite one with black hair all done up in a bun on the top of her head—send her in to see me.” He clapped a hand over his heart. “I think I’m in pain.”
Rafe shook his head and waved at his friend. “There’s a difference between being in pain and being a pain, you know.”
“Get out of here. Send back a real friend.”
He waved again and headed down the hall, where it widened into a big rotunda and a set of wide stairs that led to the main lobby of the hospital. From the balcony, he looked down to the first floor, where the gift shop and information desk flanked the exterior door. Directly opposite from where he stood was the entrance to the new pediatric wing. Rafe headed in that direction, drawn by the cheerful pale-yellow walls that had flying birds painted on them as if leading the way into the area. He stopped in front of a big marble plaque and read the dedication of the wing, which had a list of major donors. The familiar names of Colorado Springs society were there, topped by the Montgomery and Vance families.
Everything about the addition seemed to be of the highest quality, Rafe thought as he wandered farther into the wing. The smoke doors that would close during an emergency were painted to look like arched gates entering a brilliantly colored park.
Wondering where the chapel was, Rafe followed a set of animal tracks painted on the floor, which took him past the X-ray lab. A quick peek through the door showed an X-ray machine painted to look like an elephant. He didn’t see many people, and even here, where he expected the noise level would be higher because of the children, there was instead the overall hush that seemed to permeate hospitals.
Ahead he saw the sign for the chapel, and when he peeked through the window in the door he saw that it too was designed with children in mind. Instead of formal pews, there were a couple of comfortable-looking sofas and several beanbag chairs covered in plush fabric. A couple of children were sitting together on one of the giant beanbags.
Rafe watched them a moment, knowing too well how they felt if they were waiting for news of a sick family member. Not wanting to intrude, he made his way to the end of the hallway, where a large window looked down on a park. In the distance, he could see the spire of the Good Shepherd Church.
Hands in the pockets of his jacket, Rafe made his way back down the hallway, which continued to be mostly deserted, a thought that made him smile since the parking lot had been packed when he arrived. About halfway back to the chapel door, he suddenly smelled smoke.
Between the chapel and the nurse’s station he saw a door discreetly labeled Janitor’s Closet. From beneath the door, smoke curled across the spotless tiled floor. He ran those last few feet to the door.
He pressed a hand against the door, which felt warm. Too warm.
His thoughts raced as he hurried on to the nurse’s station. Was this the reason the lights had flickered a few minutes ago? How could the door be that warm? And in a brand-new facility, why hadn’t the sprinklers come on? Why hadn’t some computer-generated warning notified someone?
Only one nurse was at the station. She raised her head when she saw him coming, gave him an automatic smile, then bent her head down once again.
“Miss,” Rafe said, “there’s smoke coming from under a door down the hall.”
She gave him another smile, the sort that indicated he was about to be dismissed even before she spoke. “I’ll check on that in just a minute. Thanks for letting me know.”
“I’m not just letting you know,” Rafe said, coming around the tall counter and reaching for the phone. “I’m calling for help.”
“Sir, you can’t be back here.”
Rafe thrust the receiver into her hand. “You have a fire. Call 9–1-1.”
“Sir, if you’ll just calm down—”
“I’m calm.” He stepped back into the hallway and reached into the pocket of his jacket for his cell phone. “Take a look for yourself.”
“Your child couldn’t be safer here, even though we’ve had quite a few false alarms over the last few days,” she said, finally standing. “We have all the latest monitors.” She waved toward a computer monitor. “I’d know if there was a problem.” She came around the counter toward the hallway. “But I will look…” Her gaze lit on the smoke. “Oh, no!”
By then, Rafe had dialed 9–1-1, and the instant the dispatcher answered, he said, “There’s a fire in the children’s wing of Vance Memorial Hospital.” He looked up and down the hallway for the ever-present fire extinguisher that should have been somewhere close by.
The nurse was back inside the nurse’s station, finally calling for help.
Over the cell phone, the dispatcher said, “We should have received an automatic call if there was a problem—”
“The fire started in the janitor’s closet,” Rafe interrupted, running up the hallway, searching for an extinguisher. “The sprinklers haven’t come on and—”
“What’s your location, sir?”
Rafe relayed that information as best he could, noticing that the nurse had called whomever she needed to because he heard a summons over the intercom. “Dr. Firestone to the pediatric wing.”
Just then, he saw another nurse notice the smoke coming from beneath the door. She punched a code on the keypad next to the door.
Rafe raced back toward her. “Don’t open the door!”
But he was too late. The latch clicked and she pushed the door open. Acrid black smoke billowed out of the room, accompanied by the unmistakable whish of air being sucked into the room. Rafe pulled the nurse from her frozen position in front of the door. In the next instant, flames licked into the hallway, flicking like a snake’s tongue.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, urging her away from the open door.
Her eyes wide and frightened, she nodded, then ran toward the nurse’s station. Suddenly, there were people everywhere, while someone shouted orders.
Rafe ran back toward the entrance to the wing, wishing he remembered where he had seen the fire extinguisher. Finally, he found it near the entrance where the doors were now closed. He grabbed the canister and rushed back to the fire, where black smoke continued to pour out of the closet.
He lost track of time after that, something that always happened when he was fighting a fire. Prayer and intense concentration on the task at hand occupied his mind. The only things he knew for sure were that the sprinklers weren’t coming on and the canister didn’t contain nearly enough volume to put out the fire. The best he could hope for was to contain it until the fire department arrived.
Lucia Vance arrived at the hospital with her fellow firefighters a scant six minutes later. Since their station was the closest, they arrived before the four other engines that had also been called out, just as they had when they had responded to a false alarm an hour earlier. During her last shift, they had answered four false alarms here, and this was the second call today. Just as she had the previous times they had responded, she carried a roll of hose over one shoulder and an ax in her hand. She and the other four firefighters followed the incident commander, Neil O’Brien, into the building. Each time they had responded to a call, the alarm had come from somewhere in the remodeled section of the hospital. This time, the emergency panel indicated the fire was on the second floor of the brand-new pediatric wing. Each time, the panel had showed a suspected fire in different areas—no two calls had been the same.
“It’s gotta be another false alarm,” said Lucia’s partner, Luke Donovan. “No way would there be a fire there. Not with all the sprinklers and sensors.”
“You’re probably right,” O’Brien said, leading the way. “Meyers and Jackson, secure the elevators. The rest of you come with me.”
They entered the stairwell and made their way to the second floor. As soon as they came through the door, Lucia smelled smoke.
This was no false alarm.
The floor was bustling with activity, and a nurse rushed toward them, pointing toward one of the adjoining hallways. “Down there.”
“Vance and Donovan, make an assessment and report back,” O’Brien ordered.
Lucia followed her partner down the hall, the smell of smoke stronger with each step they took. They turned a corner, and the smoke hung from the ceiling like an ugly black blanket billowing in a breeze.
The silhouette of a man kneeling on one knee suddenly became visible. He was clearly a civilian since he wasn’t in turnout gear, but he expertly wielded the extinguisher.
He violently started when Lucia touched his back. “We’ve got it, sir,” she said through her mask. He looked up, his face streaked with smoke, his eyes the most vivid green she ever remembered seeing.
“The stairwell is that way,” she said when he stared blankly at her. “You can go.”
He nodded, his eyes somehow boring right through her, then handed her the canister, the athletic grace of his stride catching her attention while she and Luke briefly assessed the fire. All around them, hospital personnel were busy evacuating patients, but despite the fire, everything seemed calm. Eerily so, Lucia thought as the assistant fire chief joined them.
“At least it’s confined,” O’Brien said. “Donovan, they need extra help with a couple of critical patients that they have to get away from this smoke right now. Since you’ve got the back for the job, you’re the man.”
Luke shook his head. “Can’t leave my partner—”
“This isn’t a discussion. Get going. I’ll stay here with Vance.”
Lucia looked over her shoulder at O’Brien, who stood there with his radio to his mouth as he talked to one of the lieutenants on an engine that had just arrived. Since he had been gunning for her for months, she thought it odd that he had dismissed her partner. It would have made more sense if he’d had three other people around to do the job of putting out this confined fire.
“Be safe,” Donovan said as he headed back in the direction they had come.
“Get going, Vance,” O’Brien ordered.
