Consumed (Firefighters #1)(62)

And hey, at least his last act as a firefighter was going to be making someone’s day.

Danny pulled open the glass door and stepped into a waiting room as fancy as any you’d find in a lawyer’s office downtown: leather couches, coffee table, flat-screen TV, even a throw rug that picked up on the gray-and-blue color frickin’ scheme.

Nice to know that Ripkin’s people saw to everything. Not just the donation and the building, but the goddamn curtains and the furniture.

It even smelled nice.

Given how fancy everything was, he always expected some executive assistant to come out and demand his ID and fingerprints before he could get in to see the big man.

Nope. He just walked over to the fishbowl. The chief’s office was three sides of see-through, and the man was sitting at an old beat-up desk, paperwork everywhere, the phone in danger of falling off the far edge, a dead plant off to the side on shelves that were mostly empty.

Ashburn was like an isolated contaminant in all the otherwise perfectly orderly and new.

Tom looked up. “Come on in.”

Or something to that effect. The office was soundproof.

Danny walked around and pushed his way inside. “Morning.”

“Sit down.”

Why bother. He wasn’t going to be in here long. But Danny followed the order, parking it in a creaky wooden chair.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “So this was quick.”

Anne’s brother eased back and steepled his fingertips like he was a school principal with a delinquent. The man looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes adding age to his face, that salt-and-pepper hair pulling an assist on the almost-fifty vibe. The poor bastard was just in his mid-thirties, though.

“Dr. McAuliffe got back to me yesterday.”

“Where do I sign?”

“What?”

Danny sat forward and motioned over the paperwork. “On my release papers. I already know I wasn’t on service long enough to vest my pension, but I want my COBRA.”

The chief didn’t respond. Then again, no doubt this was like a good meal, something to be savored.

“I want you back on shift. But you’re on probation.”

Danny shook his head like he had to reset his ears. “What?”

“You heard me. Because of Emilio being out, I’ve shuffled the crew at four-nine-nine around, and you need to finish today’s shift out, off tomorrow and Sunday.”

The chief picked up a piece of paper, his eyes scanning back and forth. Then he looked up. “Why are you still in here? You’re late for roll call at the four-nine-nine.”

Danny was aware of a shaft of anxiety hitting him in the chest. “I don’t get it.”

“I think I’m being clear enough.”

“Why aren’t you firing me?”

“You really want to argue this point?”

Danny shook his head. “I’m confused.”

“That’s because you think it’s personal between you and me. It’s not. The therapist’s report stated that she felt you were suffering from severe trauma and undiagnosed depression. She’s advocating for a three-month suspension and mandatory follow-up. She also believes you have a problem with alcohol and is recommending that you address this.”

“So why are you putting me back on shift.”

“If I waited for a clean bill of mental health for all my firefighters, I’d have engines with no engineers, lines with no one to hold them, ladders with nobody to climb.”

Danny clasped his hands together because he had a case of the shakes he didn’t want to share. “Thank you.”

The chief’s eyes went back and forth on the paper, but in the same position as he read the same line over and over again. After a moment, he said gruffly, “Payback. We’re equal now.”

“I wasn’t aware we had a debt to discharge.” That was a lie. There was Anne. “A recent one, at any rate.”

“Chavez.” Tom glanced up. “If you hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have . . . anyway. Yeah.”

In the back of his mind, Danny did the math on switching one unstable man for another, but he was not going to argue. Something was finally breaking his way.

“There’s a condition.”

Here it comes. “Which is.”

“Not one violation of any procedure or policy. Everything will be by the book, and yes, I’m putting this in your personnel file. I am not fucking around. I will fire you and to hell with the personnel shortage.”

Hard to argue with that standard, Danny thought.

“So. Don’t miss roll call.” Tom got to his feet. “And shake my hand. So we both know we have an agreement.”

? ? ?

Boston traffic was a thing.

As Anne passed another marker on 93, she checked her clock on the dash of her municipal sedan. She’d called Ripkin’s office first thing and informed them she would be arriving at nine sharp. She wasn’t going to make it, but they’d said they didn’t expect the big man in until nine thirty.

New Brunswick had its share of big buildings, but it was JV next to the pros when it came to Beantown’s glass-and-steel forestland. The fact that Ripkin owned an entire building was testament to his wealth, and she was impressed.

She wasn’t ever going to know what that kind of money was like. Then again, she wasn’t going to be a ballet dancer, a mathematician, or, with her hardware, a world-class juggler. Golf was also out of the question.