Consumed (Firefighters #1)(102)

chapter




48



The three texts had come throughout the day to Anne’s phone. The first was a picture of her and Danny leaving her house in the morning with Soot—which as she looked at it again was the last thing she wanted to see. The second was three words: I see you. The third was a picture of her coming out of her brother’s stationhouse.

Sitting back in her office, she looked at the window. Darkness had fallen, and she didn’t want to go out into the parking lot to her car. Safelite had come and repaired the front windshield after she had driven over here this morning, and it was the height of gallows humor to reassure herself that they could come again.

If she got shot again.

But that wasn’t the only thing she was thinking about. And it was a sad testament to the magnitude of Danny’s snow job that even in a situation where her life could be in danger she was focused on him.

When her phone rang, she jumped, but then she saw who it was. “Jack. I was just going to call you.”

“Our good friend Ollie Popper killed himself in jail about an hour ago.”

Anne sat forward. “He’s dead?”

“They found him hanging in the shower from a loop made of bed sheet.”

“Shit.”

“Interestingly enough, the video monitoring camera had something put over it.”

“So it wasn’t suicide?”

“Hard to know if he obstructed the lens or someone else did. They’re going over the body with a fine-toothed comb, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they found nothing. Danny’s staying with you, right?”

“Ah, no. He’s not.”

“Oh, that’s right, he’s on shift.”

She let that stand. That last thing she needed was the SWAT team showing up as a character reference for a man they only knew in that macho brothers-in-arms way of first responders.

“You want me to come over with a couple of my boys?”

An image of large, muscled, tattooed men in tactical gear sleeping like lions in a zoo on the floor of her living room almost made her smile.

“Nah, I’m okay. I’m not afraid.”

“You get any more calls?”

“No.”

“And how many texts,” Jack said wryly.

The guy was like a bloodhound for voice inflection changes. “Three. One was a picture of me leaving my brother’s stationhouse.”

“I don’t like this, Anne.”

“I’m going home with a bunch of work and I’m staying indoors with the doors shut and the drapes drawn. I live in a neighborhood full of people.”

“That didn’t matter when they shot your window out.”

“They’re just trying to scare me.”

“Wonder if that’s what Ollie Popper thought as they hung him up by the throat from a pipe. In a prison. With a hundred guards around.”



* * *



So much for a slow day, Danny thought as he sat down with the crew for dinner. Four box alarms, two car crashes, a kid who got his head stuck between the iron bars of that fence over at the cemetery, and Moose losing his ever-living mind. The only good news was that at least for once Danny hadn’t been the one being a hothead and getting suspended.

It was early yet, though.

Taking out his phone, he checked to see if Anne had called him back. Texted him back. Anything, anything—nope.

Fuck.

Pushing his plate of reheated ribs and room-temperature slaw away, he sat back. Around the table, the other men were resolutely looking at their plates, the clinking of silverware the only sound in the room.

The last time they’d had a meal like this was after the Patriots lost to Eagles in the Super Bowl.

He got up and took his plate to the trash, scraping off the food and putting it into the dishwasher. Then he left out the back door, got a cigarette, and lit it. The night was cold and he was just in his NBFD T-shirt and work pants, but he didn’t feel a thing.

After trying Anne again, he decided, Fuck it.

Calling a number out of his contacts, he put the phone to his ear. “Jack. Wassup.”

“My man. I just talked to your girl.”

“Anne?” He frowned. “She answered her phone?”

“Yup. I had news to share. That suspect she questioned yesterday was found dead in the prison shower. I told her she needed to have you over at her house again tonight, but you’re on shift.”

“Yeah. On shift. Listen, could you do me a favor. Could you do some drive-bys of her house tonight?”

“I’m doing one better. Two of my boys who’re off duty volunteered to stake out her house. They’re each doing a four-hour shift, the first starting at ten.”

Danny exhaled. “Thank you. That’s awesome.”

“We take care of our own, Dannyboy. And I told her to call me if she needs anything. I guess that asshole with the unknown number is still texting her.”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause. “I don’t usually say this, Danny, but if there’s any way you could talk to her about backing off of Ripkin, it might be a good idea. This is not to say that she can’t handle herself or that justice doesn’t need to be served. But there are a lot of bodies around anything that threatens that asshole in his ivory tower in Boston. I don’t want her to be the next one floating in the ocean or buried in a landfill.”