Things You Save in a Fire(60)

As gruff as he was, I knew he liked his new mattress.

That might work in my favor.

The captain shifted his weight, looking not too happy about the situation.

“What happens to the one you let go?” Tiny asked.

“He or she,” the captain said carefully, “will have to find another position. You can bet I’ll write ’em one hell of a recommendation letter.”

The captain looked up and met my eyes for the first time, then Owen’s. “I hate to have to do it, but I’ve got no choice. I’m putting you two on notice. From now on, every choice you make, every patient you interact with—it’s all being monitored and evaluated. So bring your A-game. When the time comes, I’ll make the call. But I’ll tell you something straight. I wish like hell I didn’t have to.”



* * *



AS I WALKED out to my truck to head home after shift, I had the worst feeling about what was going to happen.

The captain was going to pick Owen. I tried to imagine being Captain Murphy and making his choice between Owen—a young, fit, friendly hard worker, son of a captain from Boston FD, sired from a long line of heroes, a local boy with the exact same Massachusetts accent as the captain himself—and me.

What did the captain see when he looked at me? A Texan, a foreigner, a newbie.

But mostly, a girl.

And we all knew how awful girls were.

I just knew. I was going to lose my job.

I’d been so stupid. This moment was just a crystallization of what I’d known all along. The rookie would be my downfall, one way or another.

For so many months it had been my job to train him, to break him in, to bring him up to speed. I’d been helping him. I’d let myself think of us as being on the same team. In theory, it only helped the crew for him to be stronger, and it helped the patients, too. He was a good guy. I wanted him to succeed.

But not in place of me.

That was the downside to helping him. My place here had never been safe, and that fact was just hitting me as I reached my truck and saw that the tires had been slashed.

All four of them.

There was a note under a windshield wiper in Sharpie with some simple advice: Just quit you bitch.

It was hard not to get judgy with the grammar, and the comma that should have been there. Not to mention the handwriting. It looked like a preschooler had written it. Once again, the T looked like an X: Just quix.

Still, I got the message.

I crumpled the note up in my hand and stared at the tires. Totally flat, all four. That would be a hundred dollars apiece, at least—money I did not have. But the immediate problem was how was I getting home.

Like with the locker, I had no intention of telling the crew about this. No way was I going to self-identify as the weakest of the herd—especially not now. Luckily, most of them had gone home already, and because Owen and I were the two newest members of the crew, we had the two farthest parking spaces.

Maybe no one had noticed.

I was counting that particular blessing when I heard footsteps behind me.

The rookie.

“What the hell happened?” he demanded, staring at the tires.

I had no idea what to say. I just shrugged.

“Somebody did this?”

It was a funny question. Of course somebody did it. “Looks like it,” I said.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Someone from the neighborhood, I bet,” he said. “Some dumb kid.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

He turned to me. “What do you mean?”

I gave him the crumpled note and watched him uncrumple it.

As soon as he read it, he looked up at me. “What the hell?” he demanded.

I shrugged.

“Who wrote this?”

I shrugged again. “I found it under my windshield wiper.”

He was so shocked, it made me wonder if he was faking. “Someone put this under your wiper?”

I nodded.

“You have to tell the captain.”

“I am not telling the captain. Ever. And neither are you.”

The rookie walked over to my truck, studying it for other clues and thinking. Then he came back to study my face. “This isn’t the first time.”

“For what?” I said, stalling, knowing full well.

“The first time someone’s messed with you like this.”

I shook my head.

“What else? What else has happened?”

I sighed. No sense hiding it now. “Somebody wrote the word ‘slut’ in my locker.”

Owen frowned and took a few steps closer. “When?”

“The first shift after your parents’ party.”

I watched that sink in. I saw him click the pieces into place. “That’s what happened. Somebody scared you.”

“Nobody scares me,” I said. “It was a good reminder, that’s all.”

“Of what?”

“That I’m here to work. Not to”—but then I couldn’t think of a good word. “Do whatever that was we were doing.”

“What we do or don’t do,” Owen said, holding up the note, “has nothing to do with this asshole.”

“I think the asshole sees it differently.”