Things You Save in a Fire - Katherine Center Page 0,76

did.

Six-Pack and Case lifted my arms around their shoulders and helped me limp back to the station. Tiny went off to find me a set of crutches.

Had I solved all my stalker problems?

Maybe not.

But I’d impressed the guys. I’d maimed myself to do it, but I’d impressed them.

And even better: Nobody had been willing to bet against me.

It felt pretty good to hear that.

“You wouldn’t really have resigned, would you?” Case called out.

“I would have,” I said, dead serious.

“I wouldn’t have accepted it,” the captain said.

“Maybe not this week,” I said, reminding him of the choice he still had to make.

Back inside, the guys were back to their rowdy selves, already retelling the tale, and imagining how it would have gone if Case had been my competition, hooting wildly at the idea of his round body trying to hoist its way over the hurdles.

Owen tended to my ankle.

As the guys got louder, my little corner with Owen seemed to get quieter.

I watched his hands wrapping cold packs around my ankle. They were pretty scraped up.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said. “You okay?”

“Totally fine,” I said.

The rookie smiled. “That was unbelievably amazing, by the way. How did you learn to do all that?”

I shrugged. “YouTube.”

As I watched him work, my brain kept circling back to one moment during the course. The moment when he’d fallen at the bottom of the rope. Something about the way he’d fallen seemed strange to me.

“Why did you fall at the bottom of the rope?” I asked then, quietly.

He kept his head down, wrapping my ankle with a bandage. “Just hit too hard, I guess.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” I asked.

He kept his head down but shook it. “Nah.”

“Weird,” I said.

“Lucky,” he said, still not looking up.

I was studying him. “If you hadn’t fallen right then, you would have won.”

“You don’t know that,” he said, head still down.

“Rookie,” I said then, lowering my voice. “Did you fall on purpose?”

He finished wrapping and taped it in place. Then he lifted his head and looked straight into my eyes—and I knew the answer.

“Rookie,” I said, gearing up to scold him.

But he leaned in. “There was no way in hell you were quitting the department today. Not if I had anything to say about it. You deserved to win, and you won. Now shut up.”

I could have kissed him.

I also could have argued. I could have insisted that he come clean to the guys. I could have demanded a do-over—at some future date when my ankle was healed.

I didn’t get a chance to do any of those things.

Before I had time to respond at all, my phone rang. It was in my bag across the room, but Six-Pack jogged it over to me.

It was Josie. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey. I’m sorry to call you at work.”

“It’s okay,” I said. Something was wrong.

“It’s about Diana,” Josie said. “She collapsed. Actually—that’s not right. She had a seizure.”

Twenty-two

SHE HAD A seizure.

Normally, a word like “seizure” would prompt my usual sense of calm-in-the-storm to kick in.

That’s not what happened this time.

I was always at my best in a crisis. But not today.

This time, kind of like when you see lightning flash, and then you hear a clap of thunder, panic flashed through my chest, and then I heard it in my voice. “What happened?”

“She was making breakfast, and the seizure hit. She fell to the floor, but she smacked her head on the counter as she went down.”

My brain was like a lightbulb with a short in it. “You called 911?”

“Yes. We’re already at the hospital. Rockport County.”

That counter was granite. “Does she have a concussion?”

“They’re assessing her now,” Josie said. “She has a bruise on her forehead the size of an apple.”

“Better to bruise on the outside than on the inside,” I said, to comfort her. And myself.

Josie was pretty flustered. “She was making French toast,” Josie said, her voice incredulous at the memory, “and then she froze for a second, and then she kind of snapped in half and dropped. It was so fast. And the sound of her head hitting that counter…” Josie made a sob-like noise. “I ran to her, but I didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen anything like it.”

“She’s lucky you were there,” I said. “How long did it last?”

“I don’t know,” Josie said. “Two minutes? Three? It felt like a thousand. Can you come?” she asked. “Right now?”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m on my way.”

Before I’d even pressed END, Owen was helping me to my feet.