Consumed (Firefighters #1)

by J. R. Ward

  Danny couldn’t hear shit. It was like he was underwater, everything muffled.

  “—come on now. I’m riding with you.”

  There was a pull on Danny’s arm, and he glanced down, seeing Moose’s hand grip his biceps and urge him toward the interior of the ambulance.

  “Play the game,” Moose said quietly. “You got too much to lose if you don’t. You don’t want to go out like this.”

  Chavez stepped up. “Come on, Dannyboy. The ER will fast-track you and then we’ll be at Timeout. Okay?”

  “Work with us,” Moose added. “As much as I’ve wanted to kick your ass since eight this morning, I don’t want you taking a shot at the chief. You can’t trust that voice in your head, Danny. I know that firsthand. The one that’s talking to you now always steers you wrong.”

  • • •

  Anne left work at five p.m., taking the stairs from the third floor down to the first. As she funneled across the lobby to the glass doors, she joined a cue of fellow municipal employees, everybody walking out into the late afternoon sunshine and finding their cars in the maze of the parking lot. On the way back to her house, she stopped at Papa Joe’s Pizza, a locally owned joint that she’d been going to since she’d moved into the neighborhood six years ago.

  With her pepperoni-and-onion in the passenger seat, she continued on to Mapleton Avenue and hung a left. Her house, a nine-hundred-square-foot Cape Cod, was halfway down the street. Her garage was detached, and she parked in front of its single closed door.

  Pizza in her good hand. Bag on her left shoulder. As she came up to her front door, she used the forefinger on her prosthesis to punch in a numerical code on the new lock she’d had installed a month after the fire.

  When you had only one functioning hand, keys were a thing.

  Inside, it smelled like home, a combination of Tide washing detergent, lemons, and something that was intrinsically 1404 Mapleton.

  Kicking the door closed, she was abruptly exhausted.

  The trip through the living space into the kitchen was a whopping twelve steps, and she ate the pizza standing up and next to the sink because she always washed her hand first and it seemed pretentious to set her Crate & Barrel table for one. She made it through half of the medium pie, put the rest away for tomorrow night’s reheat in the oven—never the microwave, because that made the crust spongy when it was hot and tough as nails when it was not—and then she just stood there.

  God, her place was quiet.

  And the only good news was that it wasn’t a Friday or a Saturday night. A random Monday was no big deal to be home alone with no other options than a CrossFit class, Big Bang Theory reruns, or cleaning a perfectly clean house. The weekends, on the other hand, were bad. All her buddies had been firefighters, but that was gone now—and it wasn’t that they didn’t liked her anymore, far from it. Even though she’d been the only woman in the boys’ club, they’d never treated her as anything other than equal.

  The trouble was, after things had changed for her, she’d become a reminder of the risk pool they lived in, a downer through no fault of her own. And besides, over at Timeout, the boys spent their time trading in-jokes, bad stories, and shit that had happened at work.

  She was out of the loop for the last one, and as for the bad stories? She was part of a big one that didn’t have a har-har at the end.

  Anne looked down at her prosthesis. When she’d had the mold taken of her remaining hand, she remembered the guy asking her if she wanted the nails painted any specific kind of color. She’d thought he’d been serious, but it was a joke—and not a mean one. He’d been a veteran who was missing both his legs and walking very naturally around on his artificial limbs.

  You can do this, he’d told her. I promise you.

  “I can do this,” she said to her empty house.

  The lack of an answer back seemed a commentary on her life, and that made her think of her mother’s latest bright idea. The woman was always offering to come over and “add a few touches” to Anne’s place. “Spruce things up.” “Make things more cozy.”

  So she wanted to bring over a ficus. And not a plastic one.

  Anne had sent her an email saying no because that was more efficient than a phone conversation that had a one-minute hello and a nineteen minute I’ve-got-to-go-now on her side. And as for the home stuff? The woman had never understood. These four walls and a roof were like the refrigerator of someone who ate out all the time. Back when she’d been at the fire station, she’d only come here to crash and recover enough to go back to work.

  Her home had been where her job was.

  Besides, she’d had enough Laura Ashley in the nineties to last her twelve lifetimes.

  When one of her ankles began to ache, she glanced across at the digital clock on the microwave. She’d been standing here for a good half hour.

  Motivating herself, she went across to the year-round porch that overlooked her small fenced-in backyard. She’d set up an office in the space as a way to ground herself in her new reality, thinking that she’d need a home base as an investigator. A trip to OfficeMax had yielded a laptop and a scanner/copier, as well as a low-end desk and a cheapie black chair with rollers under the base.

  As she parked it in front of the setup, she opened the laptop, but didn’t turn it on.

  She’d also bought herself some pens, document clips, a small pack of folders. Three legal pads and a ream of paper.

  Looking around at everything, she decided it had been a waste of $400, just the vocabulary of an office instead of—

  Anne frowned and focused on the laptop. Then she pushed herself back and regarded the desk. The scanner/copier.

  The laptop again.

  Office supplies. Bog-standard . . . office supplies. Like the ones that had been in her warehouse fire.

  With a burst of energy, she got to her feet, flashed into the kitchen, and grabbed her bag.

  She was in such a hurry to leave the house, she forgot to lock up.

  chapter

  13

  The Timeout Sports Bar & Grill was a venerable establishment, with a founding date of 1981. Back then, when everyone had been calling 867-5309 because some chick had Bette Davis eyes and every little thing she did was magic, it had been cutting-edge with its video games in one corner, the pool tables in the back, and the pictures of Larry Bird, Bobby Orr, and the “Miracle on Ice” team fresh and unfaded.

  Thirty-seven years later? The original posters were still up, but Nomar and Dustin, Tom Brady and Cam Neely were flashing smiles along with the old greats, and the video games had been replaced by a booth section and more flat-screen TVs than a Best Buy’s showroom. The pool tables were still there, however, and Carl’s old lady, Terri, who ran the place after his death, would let you light up in the back as long as you popped a window and ashed in your longneck, not on her floor.

  As with the evolving heroes in the frames, so, too, the clientele was a new generation of the same that had gone before. The firemen, cops, and detectives who were now sitting at the tables, playing pool, or hanging around the bar were the sons and nephews, the daughters and nieces, of the ones who had been there in the eighties, the nineties, the aughties.

  “I bring you another one.”

  Danny glanced up at the waitress as she put a fresh Bud down in front of him. Josefina had worked there for a year now, and with her long black hair and her deep brown eyes, she was something to look at, for sure.

  “You know me too well,” he said.

  “Sí, Dannyboy. I know you.”

  As the woman winked and headed back to the bar, Moose cursed. “Do you mind.”

  Danny took a pull and sat forward in his hard chair. “’Bout what.”

  “Why do you have to get every female in this place?”

  “I haven’t gone out with her.”

  “Yet.”

/>   “Nah.” He eyed the dark-haired woman as she took an order from another table. “Chavez would kill me. He’s in love with her.”

  “Reallllllly.” Moose sat forward, too, his bulk turning the sizable six-top into a Post-it note. “Amy wants her?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever.”

  “Come on, man. Tell me.”

  “I don’t know nothing.” Danny made a point of nodding toward the pool tables. “We’re up next on number three.”

  “Yeah, after those Brads. Did they buy everything at the Polo outlet before they came here?”

  Danny measured the loafers. The watches. Those haircuts. “Moose, buddy, those boys do not shop at outlets.”

  The set of four matching preppies, aged twenty-one to twenty-five, had sauntered into Timeout about twenty minutes before, and he was guessing they had boated to the New Brunswick Yacht Club under sail, parked in a private berth, and were slumming it here after having dined on lobster thermidor and baked Alaska with Mumsey and Dads. No doubt they were hoping for some hot, raw townie sex before they went back to their oceanfront mansions and their two-entry-only Daughters of the American Revolution fiancées.

  He’d seen the type before. And they’d come here again because these Brads were like the social equivalent of the rhinovirus. Bound to show up from time to time, but nothing that was terminal, and by reducing exposure, you had less a chance of catching one.

  So yeah, he was going to give ’em plenty of time at that pool table. Until they moved on on their own.

  “You drive me batshit.”

  He refocused on Moose. “Usually I just try to piss people off. I’m over-succeeding with you without meaning to.”

  “If you know something about Amy, why aren’t you tell me?”

  “Go talk to Chavez directly.”

  “He never goes into his personal life.”

  “So guess you’re screwed.”

  “Fucker—”

  A whistle broke through the argument, and both he and Moose looked toward the pool table.

  “More beers,” one of the frat boys said over the din. “Now, not later, chiquita.”

  Danny frowned and sized the kid up with the mouth up. He looked like law school material. Or med school—i.e., more forehead than jawline. With that gold watch and those Bermuda shorts, it was also an easy guess he had some roman numerals after his last name.

  Subtly turning his body in the direction of the pool game, Danny swallowed some beer and told himself not to get involved.

  Two minutes later, Josefina walked over to the quartet with, oh, of course, some craft bullshit on her round tray, and the James Spaderses, circa Pretty in Pink, stared at her in a way he was sure Chavez wouldn’t appreciate.

  “Get anything good at the hospital?” a male voice said.

  As Duff pulled a chair out, Danny nodded a greeting, and then realized the question was to him. “Nope. Just a co-pay I gotta get reimbursed by the department.”

  “You need any respiratory rehab?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where’s Chavez?”

  “He’s coming,” Moose said. “It’s early.”

  Over at the pool table, Danny refocused—and watched Josefina bend down and pick something off the floor. As she made her way back to the bar, she was frowning.

  “Oh, great, Rizzo’s in the house,” Moose muttered.

  Sure enough, Rizzo and some of the 617s were filing in, and as usual, they went in the opposite direction, to the booths by the front windows.

  “You want another one, Dannyboy?”

  Danny looked up at Josefina. “I didn’t know I was done. Yeah, I do.”

  The woman smiled. “When you want me to turn you off tonight?”

  “Not until I pass out.”

  “You make me sad, Danny.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “You are with your friends, though. They always take care of you—”

  “Hey! Chiquita! Where’s our shots.”

  Danny slowly pushed his chair back a little farther from the table—but as he did, Josefina shook her head. “Danny, it’s okay.” More loudly, she said, “Coming. I bring them right out—”

  “You better, or I’m calling INS—”

  Danny was up on his feet in a heartbeat. “What did you say.”

  Instantly, the other fifty people in the bar cut their chatter, nothing but the music filling the background. The yachtsman with the mouth didn’t seem to catch that drift, though. The Brad smiled, flashing a perfect set of bright, pearly whites.

  “I told her”—he emphasized each word—“to bring me our shots or I was going to get her deported.”

  A thick arm shot around Danny’s pecs, and Moose’s voice was low in his ear. “Sit down. We’ll wait until they leave and catch ’em in the alley. No witnesses that way.”

  “Danny, it’s okay,” Josefina said. “It’s not bothering me—”

  “Apologize to her.” Danny nodded at the door. “And then get the fuck out of here.”

  “Do you own this place?” The rich guy looked at his buddies. “Your father must be so proud. Then again, he was probably a lawn guy. Garbageman. Oh, wait—was he a mason? ’Cuz maybe you could get him to work on that wall we need in this country?”

  As the man nodded at Josefina, Danny lunged forward with such force, he snapped even Moose’s hold.

  The next thing he knew, he had the kid down on top of the pool table, his hands around that throat, his pumping arms driving the back of the asshole’s head into the hard felted surface over and over and over again.

  “You’re going to kill him!” someone was yelling.

  “Stop!”

  And then Moose’s more reasonable tone: “Christ, Danny, I told you—wait until we got them in the alley. It’s cleaner that way.”

  * * *

  Vic Rizzo hadn’t even ordered his beer before the fight broke out, and as he looked over, he was not surprised that Dannyboy Maguire had mounted some yacht club member’s son like the bastard was a sofa during Monday night football. And yeah, Danny was teaching the one-percenter about concussions firsthand.

  Meanwhile, Moose, that fat fucker, wasn’t doing a damn thing on the sidelines. Neither was the pretty boy Duff. Nope, those two geniuses were just going to let their buddy kill a guy in front of a bunch of cops—

  “Yo, Italian.”

  He glanced over. Speak of the devil. “How you, Greek?”

  Officer Peter Andropolis thumbed over his shoulder. “You going to let this go on over there?”

  “Why it is my problem?”

  “It’s your boy.”

  “These are my boys.” He nodded at the three from the 617 he’d come in with. “You know that’s four-nine-nine over there.”

  “Whatever, Rizzo. We’re going to have to arrest him if this isn’t taken care of. As a professional courtesy, we’re willing to let you handle it if you act now. Otherwise, we’re going to take him in. Gotta be like that.”

  Officer Mikey Lange came over. “Well? What’s it going to be, sparkers? And by the way, that’s my favorite pool table. He’s going to ruin the felt with the back of that asshole’s head if he hasn’t already.”

  As all eyes settled on him, Rizzo wondered why he was always the one who got called in when someone needed a babysitter. He despised children—especially the kind who had driver’s licenses and problems with impulse control and alcohol.

  “Goddamn it.”

  Rizzo slid out of the booth and plowed through the other patrons of the bar, all of whom were front and center with the fight. Given the money that was being exchanged, clearly there were bets being laid down, but not on whether sailor boy was going to make a comeback. Nah, more like whether or not there were going to be manslaughter charges or a simple felony assault with grievous bodily harm.

  As he passed Moose
, he glared at the diesel, who was planted in front of a trio of tight-asses in Polo merch. “You should be dealing with this.”

  “I am.”

  Yeah, by keeping those anemic reinforcements from helping their Walking Dead candidate buddy. Or from calling 9-1-1 was more like it.

  Rizzo didn’t waste time presenting the legal and rational arguments for Danny to release the hold. He just wrapped his arms around the man’s upper stomach, made a fist of his left hand, and wrapped that in the palm of his right.

  The Heimlich maneuver was the treatment of choice primarily in cases of stage IV steak- or pork-sphyxia. But it was handy in other situations.

  Rizzo contracted his biceps, that reinforced fist of his driving in and up under Dannyboy’s rib cage, expelling all breath, shocking the heart into a brief arrhythmia. The surprise of it made the lock on that throat ease up, and Rizzo step-two’d his evacuation plan with a backward yank that pissed off his bad shoulder.

  Danny came off yacht boy and the table like a barnacle pried from the hull of a trawler. Momentum being what it was, they both pinwheeled. Balance-to-booze ratio being what it was, Rizzo recovered his footing. Danny not so much. The 499’s firebrand landed on his ass.

  But sure as alchies rallied during a bender, he didn’t stay there. He was up like out of a toaster and he made as though he was just going to hop right back on his victim.

  Rizzo stepped in the way. “No.”

  “Get out of my—”

  “Time for an Uber, Maguire.”

  “Fuck you, Rizzo.”

  Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd that was when the next fight started.

  chapter

  14

  It was after ten p.m. when Anne’s cell phone rang. The old-fashioned ding-a-ling pulled her head up out of her laptop, but what she had been studying stayed with her both in her mind and on the screen as she answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Anne?”

  She frowned. “Yes? Wait, Moose?”