Fireproof

CHAPTER 44

“That hot cop is your sister?”

“She’s not a cop. She’s an FBI agent.” Patrick hauled his equipment to the curb.

“Looks familiar. Hey, wait a minute. Last night on TV. Wasn’t she on Larry King Live?”

“Larry King’s not on anymore.”

“Really? What happened to him?”

Patrick wasn’t in the mood for this. It was bad enough to run into Maggie here. He didn’t need Wes Harper’s ridiculous chitchat.

“Is she married?”

“Divorced.”

“That’s even better. You know what they say about divorced women?”

Patrick didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

“What did you do to your hand?” he asked, changing the subject. He pointed at a fresh scar on the back of Harper’s right hand. It still looked a bit raw.

“Nothing.” But he pulled his glove up quickly. “So maybe you could introduce me to her.”

“Don’t you think we should get our equipment ready?”

“Hey, chill out, dude. You’re not the team leader on this one.”

Harper gave Maggie another look before he turned his back to get to work. “There’re three buildings in between the fire and our client’s building.” He kept his voice low. “Not like it’s urgent. Probably won’t even need to foam it if those guys take care of their business.”

By “those guys” Patrick knew he meant the real firefighters. He stopped to watch. They had a hell of a job on their hands. Hoses were still being attached to fire hydrants. A second engine screamed two blocks away. The siren faded, then stopped when it arrived at the other church. Two blazes spewing black clouds of smoke and yet Patrick and his partner weren’t here to help on either blaze.

For Patrick, this was much worse than being five miles away, like the last assignment, spraying down a house and watching from afar. To be here—right here—to feel the heat of the flames and fill his lungs with smoke and just stand back and watch. It was wrong. It went against his basic instinct.

Patrick twisted his gloves in his fists instead of putting them on. He felt helpless, shackled. He glanced at Harper, who had pulled out a computer tablet but was staring up at the flames.

“It’s actually pretty, isn’t it?” Harper said, and smiled at Patrick. “It takes on a whole life of its own, swallowing up everything into red and gold flashes of light.”

Patrick had always thought fire was fascinating, but he couldn’t say he’d use the word “pretty.”

“Sometimes,” Harper said in almost a quiet confession, “even when I’m not on duty I’ll go to fire sites just to watch.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Got my police scanner on to see if there’re any close by. I’ve always had a thing for fire. My nickname growing up was Matches.” He laughed, but Patrick didn’t join him. “My parents were very relieved when they heard I wanted to be a firefighter instead of a fire starter.”

Harper stared at the blazing steeple for a few more seconds, then, as if he’d flipped a switch, he went back to the computer and started tapping. He started to go through their checklist, completing the required form that their client—a group of law offices, three buildings down—would need to sign off on when they were finished.

Patrick glanced over to where Maggie stood with Detective Racine. Harper’s admission reminded him of Maggie’s Christmas dinner last year and how Racine had asked him why he wanted to be a hose monkey. He didn’t take offense at the term. He knew cops and firefighters had a love-hate relationship and that Racine didn’t mean anything by her comment.

Firefighters axed and stomped and crashed their way through a fire, their minds set on rescuing anyone inside. Get in quick. Find survivors and get them the hell out. Then put the fire out. It was messy. No doubt about it. But the cops, the detectives, the investigators, and the crime scene technicians hated that evidence got trampled, sometimes destroyed, and often washed away.

Patrick suspected that Maggie thought he wanted to be a firefighter only because their father had been one. He had to admit, when he found out his father had died saving others, he did think that was pretty cool. He never knew the man. Thomas O’Dell died before Patrick was born. He probably did have an inflated superhero image of the man. And so what if he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps? What was so wrong about that?

Patrick knew he had the raw instincts needed to be a good firefighter. It became obvious to him a year ago when he and some friends were at the Mall of America on the day after Thanksgiving. Three bombs blew up and ripped through a portion of the mall.

Patrick could have easily made it to safety, but without hesitation, without even thinking, he turned around and went back into the devastation. While other people’s instincts were to flee from danger, Patrick’s was to run toward it and see how he could help.

“I think it’s what I’m supposed to do,” he had told Racine.

“You mean like God told you?”

By then he had already been warned about Racine’s smart mouth. He remembered smiling politely and saying, “Exactly. Just like God told you to be a homicide detective.”

Suddenly the church’s stained-glass windows burst into a rain of colored glitter. Three firefighters were caught under the spray of shattered glass. They stopped to shield themselves, then immediately hurried into the building.

Patrick stood back and watched. He felt his gut twist and his fists continue to ball up around his gloves. He should be following them instead of sitting on the sidelines preparing to hose down a building that wasn’t even on fire.

A firefighter in front of him struggled to unwind more hose. Another shouted at the guy to hurry just before he disappeared inside the building. Patrick didn’t even look over at Harper. He secured the chin strap on his helmet and pulled on his gloves. Then he hurried over to help the firefighter with the hose, knowing full well he was probably walking away from the best job he’d ever get in a long time.