Consumed (Firefighters #1)(111)

“Me, too.” Nancy Janice took Anne’s hand. “Now, let’s focus on you.”

“Oh, God, this is a dumb idea.”

“No, it is not. And I’ll be with you the whole time. Come on, let’s do this.”

As they walked toward the hair salon together, Anne glanced over her shoulder. “And after we’re done, I want to go this other shop for a second. There’s something I want your opinion on.”



* * *



Danny could not frickin’ sit down. On that note, he wished the waiting room was twelve times the size it was.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and—

The door opened and Dr. McAuliffe smiled at him. “Well, hello.”

“Hi, Doc.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “How’re ya?”

“Good, very good. Come on back.”

As she held the way for him, he hesitated. But then he forced his feet to get moving.

“Thanks, Doc,” he muttered as went inside.

“Sit wherever you like. You remember the rules. There really aren’t any.”

He smiled because he felt like he had to, and chose the sofa. “Yeah.”

The doctor sat down, and he noted she was in another variation on what she’d had one the previous meeting, although this time, there was some purple thrown in with the brown.

“So I was surprised to hear from you.” She smiled gently. “But glad you called.”

“Thanks for fitting me in.”

“Of course.”

He looked around, seeing all the Purposely Calming details. Or maybe that was really her; maybe it wasn’t all a calculation, but rather an expression of a compassionate soul at peace in the world.

“I guess I should explain why I’m here,” he said.

“You can start, there. Sure.”

Clearing his throat, he rubbed his thighs. “I, ah, I’m in love.”

“Really! That’s wonderful.”

As he smiled, he ducked his eyes and blushed. Like an idiot. Like a schoolboy. Like someone confessing to his mother he was going out with a girl.

“She’s amazing.”

“I’ll bet.”

“She’s a firefighter, too. Or was. Until she . . . well, it’s Anne. You know, Anne Ashburn.”

“Really.” Dr. McAuliffe smiled. “That sounds like a beautiful relationship.”

“I want it to be. She means so much to me, and I would do anything to protect her and make her happy.” Abruptly, he focused directly on the doctor. “And that’s why I’m here. I don’t want me to be what fucks it up. ’Scuse my French.”

“No offense taken.”

“I thought maybe we could talk about things that are up here.” He tapped himself on the head. “Things that I can’t unsee, things I can’t undo, things I wish were different.”

Like Moose.

Like Emilio, who was back at work and looking like road kill.

Like Sol, who they shouldn’t have lost.

“I think that’s a really good idea, Danny. Where do you want to start?”

He thought about the old lady on that bed in that burning apartment. The axe going into the back of Moose’s head. Anne and her hand. Emilio in the hospital bed. Sol screaming, “Don’t leave me, don’t leave me,” right before he was crushed by debris.

He thought of himself regaining consciousness at the bottom of the collapsed warehouse wall, his mask cracked, his body crushed, his breathing bad.

And then he thought of John Thomas.

“I want to talk about my twin brother.”

“Okay. Tell me about him. Tell me all about him.”

Danny had to blink his eyes as they started to burn. But then he smiled. “Oh, Jesus, he was an annoying little shit when we were growing up. He used to wait for me to fall asleep at night and then . . .”





chapter




55



It seemed right that rain started to fall as Danny entered the cemetery. There was no gatehouse or visitor check-in because this was the budget burial place, not the fancy old one on the other side of the tracks with the monogrammed crypts and the statues of angels and saints. Hitting the brakes on the truck, he checked the Kleenex box he’d scribbled the directions on and then went left.

He’d been at Anne’s when he’d gotten the call back, and the gray and yellow tissue box had been the first writeable surface he’d grabbed.

As he wound around the clusters of the dead, there were all kinds of Irish Catholic names and Celtic cross markers, and he deliberately took the long way to the section he was looking for. John Thomas was buried in the northeast corner, along with their parents, and although he was turning over a new leaf with Dr. McAuliffe, he wasn’t ready to head over there quite yet. He did think he’d bring Anne some day.

Seemed right to introduce her to the family. His parents had died way before she’d come into his life, and John Thomas, per departmental policy, had been stationed at another firehouse so he hadn’t really known her.

They would have loved her. Who wouldn’t?

Rounding another corner, he eased off on the gas. Across a mowed lawn of browning grass, beneath a canopy of red and gold leaves, two groundskeepers were pulling a casket out of an unmarked van. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.