From Ashes to Honor

by Loree Lough

  Mercy grinned as a big oaf of a dog trotted up beside her.

  “That’s Odlaw,” Tommy said. “Y’know, the bad guy from the ‘Where’s Waldo’ books?”

  She ruffled his shaggy fur. “Aw, one look at that face and anybody could see he isn’t a bad guy.”

  “Easy for you to say. You weren’t here when he was a puppy, eating everything in sight and tearing up the place.” His smiled dimmed when he asked, “Say, would you know how I could get in touch with those paramedics who took me to the hospital? My mom said it looked to her like you were pretty good friends with the tall one.”

  She could only imagine the rumors that would fly once school started if she confirmed a relationship with the goodlooking EMT.

  Tommy shrugged. “I guess you think it’s kinda weird, huh, that I want to thank them?”

  “Absolutely not!” What’s weird, she thought, is the fact that the mention of his name conjured a distinct memory of their almost-kiss. “I think it’d be a very thoughtful thing to do.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll bet they get stuff like that every day. He’ll probably think I’m from the planet Bizarro or something.”

  Mercy remembered two of the firefighters she’d counseled after 9/11, who’d been completely bowled over by the cards and gifts from the families of those they’d helped that day.“Actually, I think the opposite is true. People probably have good intentions of calling or writing a note to say thank you, but then they get back to the business of living their lives, and before they know it, too much time has passed, and they tell themselves ‘What’s the point?’”

  “That’s sorta what I was thinking,” Tommy said. He rooted through a stack of magazines and puzzle books until he found a square blue envelope. “It’s all filled out, so if you’ll be seeing them, could you deliver it for me?”

  Mercy’s hand went out automatically to accept it. Only when he let go did she acknowledge what the gesture meant: She did have a personal relationship with Austin Finley.

  “I know it seems lame, maybe even a little bit sissy, but I was really scared that day.” Tommy frowned. “Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t tell them what hurt and what didn’t, couldn’t even cry about it! I thought I was a goner, for real.” He brightened slightly to add, “And then those guys showed up, and the way the tall one said I was gonna be all right, well, I believed it.” He concluded with a grin and a shrug. “That’s when I relaxed and took a breath. Dad called it melodramatic when I said the dude saved my life. But I know better.”

  “Austin,” she said quietly. “His name is Austin, Austin Finley, and his partner’s name is Lyle McElroy.”

  Nodding, Tommy unearthed a pen and took back the card, then scribbled both names on the envelope. “There,” he said, beaming. “Even if they get stuff like this a hundred times a day, I’ll feel a lot better, thanking them for what they did. I’m sure Dad would say this is melodramatic, too, but I think those two guys are real heroes.”

  An odd sensation washed over her, and Mercy couldn’t help smiling, because it felt good having a hero for a friend.

  But was Austin a friend, or something more? That moment on her sofa, when his face hovered so near her own—why, if she’d leaned forward just half an inch, he—

  “So what’s in the shiny red bag?” Tommy asked.

  As she handed it to him, Mercy said, “I didn’t know if you’d like a CD or a DVD, so I got one of each.” She hoped as he tossed aside the tissue paper that the kid who’d helped her in the discount store had the same taste as Tommy.

  His eyes lit up as he looked at each brightly colored plastic square. “Whoa, I’ve been saving up for this album, and the guys were talking about this movie in the locker room the other day.” He met her eyes. “Thanks, Dr. Samara. You’re the best!”

  “I’m glad you like them,” she said, standing. “Well, I’d better get going. Is there anything I can get for you before I leave? Ice for your drink? A snack?”

  “Nope. I’m good. But thanks. And thanks for the presents, and the visit. And for delivering the card for me. You really are cool.”

  “Tell your mom and dad I’m sorry I missed them.” She grabbed her purse and slung it over one shoulder. “You take care, OK, and follow doctor’s orders, so you really can get back onto the field in a few weeks.”

  Odlaw walked her to the entry, and wagged his shaggy tail as Mercy gave him a final pat. “Go on into the family room, y’big oaf, and keep Tommy company,” she said, pulling the door shut behind her.

  What a great kid, she thought, sliding behind the steering wheel. Thoughtful and considerate, honest and kind-hearted.If she was ever lucky enough to have a son, she hoped he’d be just like Tommy. Why, she wouldn’t be at all surprised if, when school officially started in a few weeks, he made an appointment with her, for the sole purpose of discussing which classes would best prepare him to become an EMT. Not at all unusual for a boy who’d just experienced a life-changing event. In fact, because of his youthful enthusiasm, he could just as easily change his career track, along with the courses he’d chosen to earn credits for graduation.

  She glanced at the blue envelope poking out of her purse, and tried to remember what inspired Austin to become a cop. None of the other family members he’d told her about during their sessions had chosen careers in law enforcement.Stumbling onto a bit of information she hadn’t uncovered in New York produced a smile. How refreshing to have something to bring up—a bona fide question—when she saw him again. If she saw him again.

  Traffic on I-95 came to a grinding halt, and she craned her neck to see what had caused the jam up ahead. Dozens of drivers had already exited their vehicles, and milled about between the lanes. Mercy stepped onto the pavement, too, and leaned an arm on the open car door. “What’s the holdup?” she asked the man parked beside her.

  “Ah, some fool bonehead doing ninety miles an hour on his Harley plowed into the rear of an eighteen wheeler. They’ll hafta scrape him offa the bumper, for sure.”

  A tiny gasp slipped past her lips as fire engines, police cars, and rescue vehicles sped toward the scene.

  “That idiot better hope he doesn’t survive,” the man growled.

  And before she could protest, he added, “Must be a dozen or more cars involved in that pileup, and at least three fatalities that I could see—but I couldn’t see much.” He shook his head.“I know I wouldn’t want to live, only to find out that my selfcentered stupidity killed so many innocent people.”

  His agitation reminded her of the day her father decided to join New York’s auxiliary police force. Gritting her teeth, she forced it from her mind, and aimed her fury at the fellow’s hardhearted comment. She supposed anger and annoyance was perfectly normal under the circumstances, but in Mercy’s opinion, verbalizing such a thought—to a stranger, no less—was not. And she would have said exactly that if the wind hadn’t delivered a whiff of burning fuel, and thick black smoke overhead that pointed, like an accusing finger, to the source of the chaos.

  Just then, an ambulance screamed past, lights flashing and horn blaring. If she’d blinked as it went by, she wouldn’t have seen Austin behind the wheel. Rushing Tommy to the hospital after an accident on the football field couldn’t compare to the events taking place a quarter mile up the road. What if, as he worked to extract an injured person from one of the burning vehicles, he became a victim, too!

  Mercy slammed her car door and ran toward the eighteen wheeler, dodging curious bystanders who stood grumbling about the heat and humidity, arriving late for back yard barbeques and weddings, missing the opening credits of the movie they’d been on the way to see. “I’ll run out of gas before they clean up this mess,” complained a goateed boy. “I can top that,” said one of his friends, “I’ll run out of cigarettes!” All three laughed when a third teen added, “At least we have plenty of beer.”

  Under different circumstances, she might have stopped and given them a piece of her mind, about the hazards of smoking and the dan
gers of drinking and driving. Might have scolded them for their insensitive remarks, too. Instead, Mercy kept moving, intent on finding Austin, because she needed to see with her own eyes that he was all right.

  She passed a young mother, pacing as she jiggled her crying baby. In the SUV ahead of hers, an elderly man tapped the gauges on his wife’s oxygen tank. Two kids bickered in the back seat of a minivan while their distraught father threatened to disconnect the cable TV if they didn’t knock it off. How strange, Mercy thought, elbowing her way through the whimpering, whining crowd, that they’d focused on their own ordinary, petty concerns, while up ahead, people just like them lay dead or dying.

  The breath caught in her throat when she spotted Austin, barking orders to the inquisitive onlookers who’d pressed close, hoping to steal a look at the misery. “Get back!” he bellowed, stabbing the air with a beefy forefinger. “You want to end up like these poor folks?”

  Mercy’s gaze went automatically to the mangled black Harley, now fused to the semi’s right mud flap. A total of eleven vehicles—counting the bike and the truck—seemed welded together, like a deformed and derailed passenger train.The pitiful cries of the injured mingled, making it impossible to tell man from woman, adult from child.

  “Get back,” Austin repeated, “or I’ll flag one of those squad cars up ahead and have the cops haul you off to the can. We need to make room for the copter to set down and—”

  That threat did the trick, and the droning throng dissipated.She remembered how Tommy had called Austin a hero.Seeing him in action for the second time in a week gave her no choice but to agree. Everything about him screamed “Hero!” from his authoritative stance to the commanding tone of his voice. How handsome and gallant he looked, branding each stubborn straggler with a get-a-move-on-or-else glare!

  She wanted to call out his name, tell him to please be careful, but Mercy wouldn’t risk distracting him and possibly putting him in harm’s way. She decided to concentrate on the fact that some of the first responders had already left the scene as others prepared to follow. He’d leave soon, too—long before the snarl of cars even began to untangle—and she’d gratefully endure exhaust fumes and the angry shouts of frustrated drivers without complaint, because at least Austin was safe.

  Suddenly, she remembered Tommy’s card, there on the passenger seat, tucked under her purse. With the windows down, anyone passing by could see it. What if some greedy kid thought it contained a cash gift, reached into the car and grabbed it!

  Mercy dashed back to her sedan, hoping with every slap of her flip-flops that she’d find the card untouched, right where she’d left it. When she saw the tiny triangle of blue peeking out from beneath her purse, she leaned against the driver’s door and gasped with relief. Why would a simple thank you card, penned by a grateful boy, mean more than her credit cards and driver’s license? Why did it seem more valuable than the GPS and digital camera in her glove box, or the laptop on the floor beneath the dash?

  In a flash, the answer came to her.

  Yes, she’d agreed to deliver it for Tommy, but more significant than that, it provided a legitimate excuse to see him again, in case his promise to call had been nothing more than a polite way of saying “Thanks, but I don’t think I’m interested.”

  He didn’t seem the type to give his word and then break it, but she’d been wrong about people’s motives before—men in particular—on both personal and professional levels. Mercy learned the hard way that dwelling on thoughts like that would inadvertently led directly to the dark and heartbreaking memories of her father’s murder. Closing her eyes, she willed herself to think of something—anything—that would take her mind off the grisly images of the moment he died in her arms.

  The steady whap-whap-whap of the chopper’s blades churned the air above them, kicking up a cloud of dust and road grit.Mesmerized spectators instinctively shielded their eyes with hands and crooked elbows and tight-squinted eyes. Next, a mini-parade of fire engines and ambulances raced by on the shoulder, kicking up more dirt and tiny stones that splattered across all four lanes of traffic. It had been years since Mercy believed in the power of prayer, so it surprised her when she asked God to comfort the families of those killed or injured, and deliver those who’d died to a better place than this brutal world.

  “You all right, miss?”

  She recognized that voice. What cruel thing would he say this time? That he’d said a prayer, too, asking God to let the man on the motorcycle die a slow agonizing death? “I’m fine,” she snapped. Go away, she wanted to shout. Find another callous cad like yourself, and the pair of you can curse the poor biker to your heart’s content. Funny, but when she met his sparsely lashed pale eyes, he didn’t look nearly as much like an ogre as she’d first thought. He looked weary, like everybody else caught up in the tragedy. The oppressing heat that rippled from the blacktop dampened his graying hair. A sheen of perspiration coated his face, and beads of sweat peppered the bridge of his nose. Evidently, Mercy and the Tin Man shared some critical DNA, because if she had a heart, would she consistently jump to the conclusion that every human being had devious and ulterior motives?

  Well, not everyone. Austin had not inspired a single negative thought.

  What could it hurt to give this guy the benefit of doubt? “You look a little flushed,” she said, reaching into her back seat, and handing him a bottle of vitamin water, Mercy added “It isn’t cold, but it’ll replace your electrolytes and hydrate you.”

  A thin smile slanted his thinly mustachioed mouth. “Gee,” he said, unscrewing the cap, “thanks.”

  He leaned close to look over her shoulder, and those old suspicions rose right up again. She flattened against the car and opened her mouth to ask what in the world he thought he was doing when he said, “Just lookin’ for angel wings. These days, it’s rare to meet a good and decent person, especially in the middle of a mess like this.” He toasted her with the bottle.“Thanks.”

  You must have me confused with someone nice, she wanted to say. But “You’re welcome,” is what she said, instead.

  A pair of uniformed officers approached, alternately shouting over the clatter of TV news helicopters. “Get back into your vehicles,” said the youngest one, “we’re about to move y’all into the left lane and get you on your merry way.”

  “That’s right, folks,” said his partner. His right hand mirrored the left as he pointed toward the median. “C’mon, now.That’s the way. Let’s go.”

  “We’d like nothin’ better than to go,” muttered the grayhaired man. Fortunately, neither officer seemed to hear it when half a dozen of his fellow motorists agreed.

  “I wonder where they’ve taken the people who were hurt,” Mercy wondered aloud.

  Someone said, “Hopkins, I reckon.”

  “Nah,” a second voice said. “A mess like that? I’d bet my next paycheck they’re at Shock Trauma.”

  “Why?” the man with the water asked her. “You planning to check up on ‘em?”

  His question made her face burn with a blush. “N-no, of course not. I was just hoping the emergency rooms were equipped to handle so many—”

  “You’ve restored my faith in humanity, young lady,” he said.“I’ll bet most of these yokels haven’t even given the accident victims a thought, except to carp about being held up by the accident. I’m guilty of that, myself. If I could get my foot up that high, I’d kick myself in the bee-hind.”

  She smiled, even as guilt intensified the flush in her cheeks, because she hadn’t asked the question out of concern for the accident victims. She’d asked because of her concern for Austin.

  Mercy knew she’d better get busy—and stay that way—if she hoped to find the strength of will to keep from calling his cell phone the minute she got home.

  12

  He almost wished he hadn’t called Cora. Who are you kidding? he thought, because there was no “almost” about it.

  On the heels of a day like this, he wanted nothing more than to
head straight for the tug, stand under a hot and steady spray of water, and hope all the bad would spiral down the drain with the dirt and grit and blood. Instead, he’d showered at the station and changed into clean jeans and an Orioles T-shirt, and asked for permission to endure another two hours of misery.

  Construction on I-70 slowed the drive to Cora’s. And a brand-spanking new cashier at McDonald’s fumbled so many orders, the manager had to take over and start everybody’s order from scratch, so the trip that should have taken thirty minutes took nearly an hour. He could hope Eddy’s widow would be in an upbeat mood for a change. He had a better chance of growing wings and flying the rest of the way to Ellicott City. On days like this, he wished she hadn’t taken his advice about moving, so she and the boys would be closer to her parents—and their Uncle Austin.

  Then the twins met him on the walk, and he knew nothing could be further from the truth. They greeted him with riotous enthusiasm, squealing and giggling and wrapping their arms around him as if they were still a couple of diapered toddlers instead of eleven-going-on-twelve.

  They babbled nonstop, all the way to the covered front porch, where Cora met him with her usual dour expression.

  “Hey,” she droned, bussing Austin’s cheek. “So good of you to stop by. The boys have missed you. They’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

  “Good to see you, too,” he said, forcing a smile that he didn’t feel.

  Cora relieved him of the food sacks, and he braced for a lecture about healthy meals versus junk food. She surprised him by saying, “Hard day?”

  “Nah. Just your routine—”

  “Don’t give me that,” she interrupted. “I know that look.” That part of the scolding, he could handle. In fact, he might consider it a caring gesture from a good friend—if he didn’t know better. It didn’t surprise him when she added “That’s the look I see every time I look in the mirror.”

  Austin could count a thousand reasons why he missed his old partner, and the care and nurturing of his widow had always kept Cora and the boys at the top—or close to it—of his priorities list. The ebb and flow of Cora’s mercurial mood swings had never seemed like a challenge for Eddy, and often Austin found himself wishing the man had left detailed directives, so he’d know how to sidetrack her when self-pity got hold of her head and heart. Unfortunately, Cora didn’t come with a “Care and Maintenance of a Grieving Widow” instruction manual.