Things You Save in a Fire - Katherine Center Page 0,110
“You’ve got your job back, if you want it.”
That didn’t feel like a question I could answer just yet. I looked around at the guys. They’d all stopped working, and they were watching us.
The captain continued. “I also apologize for doubting you when you were telling the truth.”
I stared at him. How did he know I was telling the truth?
“The rookie confirmed every detail of your story,” the captain said. “Every detail he was conscious for, anyway. But then, on top of it, I got a phone call from DeStasio last night. From rehab.”
DeStasio had called the captain from rehab? Were phone calls even allowed?
“He confessed everything. The false report. The locker, the tires, the brick. His OD, and the painkillers. He’s been stealing painkillers from our supplies for months.”
“Wow,” I said. “He did confess everything.”
“He also told me that you saved his life.”
That was unexpected. “Twice,” I confirmed. If you counted not letting him roast alone inside a burning grocery store.
The captain went on. “He’s withdrawn his initial report about what happened at the fire and will submit a new one.”
I lifted my eyebrows.
He nodded. “It will corroborate yours and make it clear that you put your own safety at risk for others that day, acting with extreme courage and pretty much saving his life and the rookie’s.”
“Why would he give all that up? He was getting away with it.”
“He said he owed you big-time,” the captain said. Then he added, “He said he didn’t want to be a villain.”
I didn’t quite know how to feel.
“I was a stupid idiot,” the captain said then. “We were all idiots. We underestimated you and didn’t trust you. And now we’re going to put things right.”
I wasn’t sure things could ever be put right. It made me feel worse, almost, to hear him admit it. But only almost. “How exactly are you going to do that?” I asked.
“I’m not entirely sure,” the captain said. “But I know we’re going to start by driving you down to Boston. With lights and sirens.”
* * *
ON THE ROAD, we hashed it all out. We all piled into the captain’s Suburban—the captain and Tiny up front, and me squeezed between Six-Pack and Case in the back. I talked them through exactly how I’d figured out what was going on with DeStasio, describing all the clues and how they all just fell into place.
“He would have died if you hadn’t showed up,” the captain said.
“Probably.”
“He would have died if he’d gone into that building alone,” Six-Pack said.
“Definitely.”
On the drive down, the guys acted like things were totally normal—like I’d never been under suspicion, never been shunned or doubted. In fact, things were better than normal. Something about the whole ordeal seemed to have broken some final, unseen barrier that I hadn’t even realized was there. The guys joked around, and teased me, and thanked me, and apologized, and called themselves idiots over and over.
They mostly teased me about the rookie.
Yeah, no way was I getting out of that one unteased.
“We need to combine your names,” Six-Pack said.
“‘Cassie’ plus ‘rookie,’” Case said. “‘Cookie.’”
“I called it from the beginning,” Six-Pack said.
“You never saw it coming,” Case said, reaching around me to punch him.
“Shut your yaps,” Tiny said. “It was an epic secret love. Nobody called it.”
“Mentally,” Case said. “To myself. I said, ‘Those two will be in the sack before you know it.’”
“Nobody’s in the sack,” I said, my ears getting a little hot.
“Not at the moment, anyway,” Six-Pack said.
“Not for a couple of weeks,” the captain advised from the front seat. “Give the poor guy a little time to recover.”
“Poor Loverboy,” the guys all chimed in.
“Oh God. Please tell me you’re not going to start calling him Loverboy.”
“Too late,” the guys said, and roughed each other up some more.
* * *
OWEN’S SMALL HOSPITAL room was so full—his parents, his sisters, their husbands, at least a few cousins, and a handful of retired firefighters—it was like stepping into a crowded elevator.
Captain Murphy and the guys hustled me in. “We brought you a present,” the captain said, as the guys from my crew cheered, and the crowd parted, and I found myself standing beside Owen’s bed.