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“Very smart, Ms. Mitchell,” Eva said, taking the older woman’s elbow and moving her back toward the sprawling mimosa tree on the edge of the yard. Seemed like the only thing that grew on the hardscrabble lot. Glory shuffled back, but her eyes remained fixed on the apartment building.
Captain Sorrento released the valves, and water started pumping out of the blue hose strapped to the ladder and the red hose Jake had dragged in through the front door.
“Ms. Mitchell, do you have any idea what may have sparked this fire?” Eva asked, placing a gentle hand on Glory’s shoulder.
“I don’t rightly know. I was cooking breakfast, and Kiki was in the bathroom. You do somethin’, Kiki?”
The girl shook her head but her gaze slid away.
“Then I heard Kiki start screaming.”
“So you don’t know where the fire started?”
Glory shook her head.
“Uh, the bedroom. I think,” Kiki said. “I mean, there was this, uh, lighter sittin’ on the dresser.”
Glory stiffened. “What’s a lighter doin’ in you and your mama’s room?”
“Ms. Quita gave Mama a candle that smells like peaches. She been lighting it at night so our room don’t smell like feet,” Kiki said, her voice almost a whisper.
Glory grabbed Kiki’s shoulder, pulling her toward her. “Girl, did you start this? Did you?”
“No, Ma Glory,” Kiki said, whipping her head back and forth. “I didn’t do nothin’. Mama lit the candle last night but she blew it out. I think. I don’t know. I just saw that lighter. That’s all.”
“Don’t make no sense,” Glory said, anger crackling in her voice even as she released the girl. “A lighter don’t suddenly light itself.”
“I opened the window,” the girl said.
“Why you do that?”
Kiki swiped an arm across her nose and stuck out her chin. “I was hot. We ain’t had no air-conditioning in a long time and I don’t wanna go to school sweaty. That’s all I did. I only told this lady the lighter was there ’cause there’s fluid in it that catches fire, right?” The girl looked at Eva.
“That’s right,” Eva said, scanning the area. A few residents of Spring Street had gathered, all in various state of morning dress, some holding coffee cups. Nothing like a fire to bring out lookyloos.
Eva flinched when she saw a Magnolia Bend Police cruiser lurch to a stop behind the snorkel truck. Funny how every time she saw one of the town’s finest stepping from a police car, she tensed for a confrontation. Her break up with Officer Chase Grider was recent enough to still make her uncomfortable.
Thankfully, it wasn’t Chase but his brother Cole.
Eva excused herself, radioed the point of origin to the captain and went to Engine One to get the prefire plan binder so she could start the on-scene report. Hank was still busy running the fire, which looked to be knocked down, while Moon was at the back of the engine, pulling out the positive pressure fan to clear the smoke and blow some good air inside the still-smoking apartment.
Bobby John Crow, the department’s fire investigator, pulled in behind the police cruiser, meeting Cole, who held a coffee from the Short Stop. Bobby John’s motto was that every fire was potential arson. Eva had argued with him about it once, to which Bobby John had flipped a beer bottle cap and declared it was his job to prove it wasn’t.
Whatever. Wasn’t her job.
Jake came trudging out, still on his tank, tugging the red hose. Moon had already cut off the blue one. Acrid smoke hung in the air like a persistent salesman, and the apartment building looked forlorn and lost.
“Morning, fellas,” Bobby John said as he approached the engine. Eva grabbed the binder and stood, nearly bumping her head on the top of the engine. Bobby John made a face. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t see it was you.”
But he had known damn well it was Eva bent over in Engine One.
He was the only guy who took pleasure in needling Eva about being a female firefighter. Yeah, Jake teased, but he respected her. And Dutch was just old-school and found it hard to step outside the social mores he’d been raised with. But Bobby John outright didn’t like the fact Eva had been hired— period. She’d overheard him once tell Dutch she was a token, that women didn’t belong in the department. He also hadn’t let go of the fact that when he’d hit on her the first night she was in town, she’d shot him down.
Eva turned, shapeless beneath her gear, her dark wavy hair concealed under her helmet. “Easy mistake, since you don’t get to see the female form that often.”
“Ouch,” he said, the smile not quite reaching his cold blue eyes. “What’ve we got here?”
“I think you’ll find your origin in the back bedroom. Ten to one, the curtains blew into a lit candle, but the residents are over there.” She pointed toward Glory and Kiki, who were now talking to a few neighbors.
Bobby John’s gaze flitted over her face, lingering a bit too long on her lips. For the umpteenth time in her life, Eva wished she was plain.
Yeah. Most girls wanted to be dainty and pretty.
Not Eva. Because being small and attractive wasn’t a plus when a gal was fighting for equality in a nontraditional occupation for women. She figured if she’d been born country-strong with a blockier form and a jutting jawline, she’d probably have climbed the ladder of the firefighting profession more quickly. Only a handful of female firefighters had made captain or chief in other Louisiana municipalities.
Eva barely met the required weight for being a firefighter, and her upturned exotic eyes, long dark hair and breasts a bit too big for her body type didn’t help when it came to hefting hoses and swinging axes. So she used her smart-assed mouth and brains to gain respect.
It worked, for the most part.
Sometimes the guys even forgot she had boobs.
But most of the time they didn’t, cracking jokes about her orchid shampoo or blanching when they found a box of her tampons under the sink at the station.
In some ways it felt like the 1960s in Magnolia Bend.
She probably should have taken the job in Slidell, but the charm of Magnolia Bend and the fact that it was only a short drive to where her mother lived had swayed her.
And then there was Jake.
“Hey, Eva,” Jake called, jogging toward her, mask connector dangling, his jacket split open to reveal the softball T-shirt that clung just tight enough to show how trim his stomach was. “Want to work out later?”
“Sure. But I already told Clint I’d meet him there.” She worked out with Jake’s childhood friend several times a week. Though Clint was in a wheelchair, he was a gym rat.
“That’s cool. I can pick him up and head to Ray-Ray’s from there.”
She and Jake were on C shift and had been since she’d started three years ago. She’d transferred in from Baton Rouge FD with six years under her belt. Jake had the exact same number of years’ experience and an easy way about him. Captain Sorrento had put them on the same shift, and they’d pretty much stayed together unless someone was on vacation.
Jake was probably her absolute best friend.
And he had no idea she’d fallen head over heels for him the first time she laid eyes on him.
“Perfect,” she said, pulling his tag off the clip on the cone and handing it to him. “I’ll be glad to kick your ass again.”
“Pfft,” Jake scoffed, rolling those pretty eyes before tossing his bunker coat in the back and grabbing the nearest hose. “You kickbox like a girl.”
“Damn right.”
“Which means she fights dirty,” Moon snickered, lifting the ladder back into place.
Jake glanced up, cracking a smile, making Eva’s heart skip a beat. Why did the man have to be so gorgeous? Why did his T-shirt have to cling so spectacularly to his torso? Why did—
The radio crackled, distracting her, as Martin relayed that the apartment was clear. Time to clear the scene.
Eva tugged off her helmet and bunker coat and found a pen. Normally, she’d help stow the equipment, but since Hank had pulled her around front and several volunteer firemen had arrived to assist, she filled in the paperwork normally done by the driver. Might as well save Hank some time and earn her some brownie points. With Wendell contemplating retirement in order to run a yard service full-time, Eva wanted to make captain.
Only Jake stood in her way.
And that was a huge problem.
Not because she loved Jake, but because he deserved the promotion as much as she did.
And she might get it over him just because she didn’t have a penis—which didn’t sit well with her. Not the not having a penis part—she really didn’t want one—but that she’d get the job not based on merit but rather on her gender. The word token flitted through her mind again.
“Hey, miss.”
Eva ripped her gaze from the paperwork fluttering on the clipboard to find Kiki standing beside her. “Hey, Kiki. You need me?”
“I’m just worried about Zeke.”
Zeke? Who was that? A cat? Eva had forgotten to ask about pets. “Who’s Zeke?”
“He lives in 30A. He’s only eight.”
Eva grabbed her mic. “Did we clear 30A?”
“No occupants detected. All secure,” Hank responded.
Eva looked at Kiki. “We didn’t find anyone.”
“Well, he ain’t gonna answer. He ain’t supposed to be home. He said he was gonna stay home because Jarvis Bell said he was gonna whip his ass for telling Mrs. Haydell he cheated on his spelling test. His Big Mama will whoop him good if she knows he’s home.” Kiki looked at the closed door of the apartment housed next door to hers.
“Christ,” Eva breathed, grabbing her mask and attaching her accountability tag to the PVC pipe atop the cone. “Stay here, Kiki.”
Eva ran toward the closed apartment, calling into her mic. “FD2, reassessing apartment A. Resident indicates possible child on the premises.”
“Shit,” Hank shouted.
Eva pulled on her gloves and connected the mask to the tank, sucking in the cool oxygen. She hopped onto the porch stoop and tried the front door—it was locked. Behind her she saw Jake and Martin coming toward her with the battering ram in hand.
Eva eyed the flimsy doorknob.
Then she kicked in the door. The wood of the jamb splintered and the door flew back, slamming against the interior wall. The apartment revealed in the morning light showed a place that was definitely lived-in, with breakfast dishes piled in the dated kitchen sink and a tired tweed green couch covered in laundry.
No active smoke.
Eva pulled off her mask, sucking in the acrid smell. “Zeke?”
No answer.
“Jesus, Eva. We had the beast,” Jake said behind her. “But nice kick.”
She didn’t say anything. Just moved toward the dark yawn of the hallway.
“Zeke?” she shouted again.
The heat in the apartment wasn’t a result of the fire they’d extinguished next door. The combination of a humid August and the heavy bunker gear she wore made Eva feel as if she’d entered the mouth of hell. She flung open the first door she came to—an empty room with a floral bedspread and lace curtains.
She motioned Jake inside as she stepped toward the other bedroom.
The door stood open, a huge fathead of some basketball player dominating one wall. A small unmade twin bed sat in one corner; pajamas and tennis shoes littered the carpet.
“Zeke?” she called.
From the open closet a head emerged. Two big brown eyes, popped wide, met her gaze.
“Zeke?” she asked, softening her voice.
“Yeah?”
Eva released a pent-up breath of relief. “What are you still doing inside? Don’t you know there was a fire next door?”
He crawled out, a small Matchbox car rolling as he emerged from the depths. “I don’t wanna get in trouble.”
Zeke looked about eight years old with closely shorn hair, gorgeous chocolate skin and—Lord help her—the cutest dimples she may have ever seen. “Trouble smouble. No one stays in a burning house.”
“Y’all put it out,” he said, shuffling toward her. His feet were bare, and he wore only a pair of faded athletic shorts that clung to his small hips.
Jake appeared at her shoulder. “Jesus. He was in here the whole time?”
“Yeah.” Eva toed the tennis shoes toward Zeke, nodding her head for him to slip them on. “Chief is gonna freak. Who was supposed to clear?”
Martin appeared in the room, looking like a thundercloud. “I did. Front door was unlocked and I came in each room. Even opened the closets. Never saw him. Cleared it and locked the front door, you know, outta courtesy.” Martin glowered at the boy, who studied the shoelaces he’d just tied sloppily. “Young man, why didn’t you answer me when I called out?”
The little boy didn’t look up. “’Cause you’re a stranger, and I ain’t supposed to talk to strangers.”
Eva slid her gaze over to meet Jake’s laughing eyes. She tried not to smile, but her lips twitched in spite of herself.
Martin grumped. “So she’s not a stranger?”
“She knew my name,” Zeke said, shrugging thin shoulders. He looked up and tilted his head. “’Sides, I seen her on the field trip. She let us climb on the fire truck.”
“Pfft,” Martin said, turning around and trudging toward the front of the house, muttering under his breath things no eight-year-old needed to hear.
“Come on, Zeke. We need to call your grandmother,” Eva said.
“No. She’s gonna whoop me good. I ain’t supposed to be here. I faked getting on the bus.”
“You’ll have to deal with those repercussions. Even without a fire next door, you put yourself in danger. Small boys cannot stay home by themselves.” Eva placed a hand on his shoulder and steered him toward the front door.
