Things You Save in a Fire - Katherine Center Page 0,67

sorted out. Nobody here is a stranger to hardship. We’ll handle it.”

“But who are you firing?” Tiny wanted to know.

“Normally, I’d just fire the newest guy, but these two”—he gestured between us—“started on the same day. The chief’s given me a few weeks to decide—and despite what you might be thinking, my mind is not yet made up. It’ll be a hell of a decision.”

For a second, I found myself wondering if the captain was the stalker, and he was just making this all up as a ruse to get rid of me, but then he showed us the letter from the chief laying the whole situation out. I had to admit it seemed pretty official.

The captain didn’t seem as mad at me lately, anyway. Despite the scene he’d made about the cyanide kits, in the end, he’d put one on each apparatus—the engine and the box. Other things had arrived, too—the gear dryer, three infrared cameras, a voucher for seven new mattresses at a local store—and he’d kept them all.

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,”