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Prologue Orange County, California, 1994 Dust drifted across the road up ahead as Joe Romero sped down the nearly deserted Irvine Boulevard, bypassing the infamously jammed El Toro Y, the conflux of Interstates 5 and 405. Joe idly wondered if the Santa Ana winds were kicking up. But the eucalyptuses lining the road tucked between the foothills and the recently deserted El Toro Marine Corps Air Station weren’t swaying. Their leaves remained perfectly still. Eerily so. So where was the dust— It wasn’t dust. It was smoke. A car sprawled sideways in the intersection, shards of metal and glass scattered across the pavement. Skid marks across the intersection led to a second car impaled on a light pole, front end crumpled nearly to the windshield. Orange sparked around the edge of the smashed hood. One of those cellular phones would be handy about now. No pay phones were nearby. He pulled over and hopped out. A man slowly climbed out of the car in the intersection. “You okay?” The man nodded. Joe jogged past him. The flames were creeping around the hood. He reached the crushed car. The driver was a woman with the steering wheel nearly in her chest. Blood ran down her face from a gash in her forehead that corresponded to the spider web of broken glass in the windshield. The woman didn’t turn her head. “Please, can you get my baby out?” He looked in the back seat, the crying just now registering with him. A red-faced toddler screaming his—or her—lungs out. Joe glanced at the approaching flames. “Please, hurry!” The mom was in more danger from the flames but given how she was wedged in there, he didn’t think he’d be able to get her out. He looked around. A car slowed as it approached Sand Canyon, driving around the debris in the intersection. He tried to make eye contact with the driver but couldn’t. He hoped they’d call for help. Someone came up behind him. It was the man from the other car. He carried a fire extinguisher and was reading the instructions. Good, maybe he could get that fire out while Joe worked on the baby. It was the only thing he could do for the mom. The doors were crunched shut and the windows had popped out. Lifting the edge of his shirt, he wrapped it around his hand and cleared out the rest of the broken glass. He leaned through the window. “Hey there.” He turned to the mom. “What’s your baby’s name?” “Brandon.” The other driver must have figured out the fire extinguisher because with a hiss, white powder covered the hood of the car, repelling the flames. Joe studied the car seat buckles for a minute. “Hey, Brandon. I’ll get you right out of here. Okay? How do you work these things anyway, huh? I bet you can figure it out before me.” He finally found and pushed the release button, undid the chest strap, and slipped Brandon out of the harness. Making sure the baby didn’t graze any of the broken glass, Joe pulled him out of the window. “See, Mom? We’re safe.” Though he wasn’t too sure about her. The flames were growing again. The baby nearly threw himself out of Joe’s arms, trying to get to his mom. “Whoa, buddy. Hang on there. We’ll get your mom in a second.” What was he going to do with the baby? He needed to set him down somewhere to get to the woman. His car? It’d have to do. He grabbed a couple of the toys next to the car seat. “I’ll be right back.” Brandon grabbed the red furry one from him. With its googlie eyes and big orange nose Joe figured it to be some monster from Sesame Street. The mom didn’t say anything. She didn’t look too good. He put the baby in his car, giving him the toys. “Stay here, Brandon. I’ll be right back.” Brandon stuck a toy in his mouth and grabbed the steering wheel. This wasn’t a great solution but what choice did he have? He carefully shut the door and ran back to the car. The other guy was yanking on the door with no success. Joe went to the other side and leaned in the window. The dashboard was pushed back over the woman’s legs, pinning her to the seat. No way were they going to get her out. He eased out of the car. “Where’s the fire extinguisher?” “It’s empty.” He scanned the area. No sirens yet. Had anyone even called? The smoke traced across the sky, leaving a clear signal that some busybody should notice. “We need to stop this fire. We aren’t going to be able to get her out of here ourselves. Got a shovel?”
Joe strode around the car. Debris and trash littered the dirt on the side of the road. Maybe there was something here they could use. He grabbed a couple of discarded scraps of wood. “Here. Use this.” He handed one to the guy and then used his to start flinging dirt on the car. The grit pelting the hood of the car sounded like rain. He couldn’t tell if it was helping or not. Dust stung his eyes and filtered into his mouth. He heard something. Was the baby crying? He looked up. No, Brandon was chewing on the steering wheel. Sirens. Relief poured over him. He’d never been so glad to hear that. He tossed another load of dirt on the fire, then ran around to the driver’s window. He put his hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Did you hear that? The fire department’s on its way. You’ll be out of here before you know it. And don’t worry about Brandon. He’s having a good time. I think you’ve got a future race car driver on your hands, the way he’s going after my steering wheel.” That got a faint smile out of her. The noise was nearly deafening as an Orange County Sheriff’s unit drove up followed by the fire engine. Firefighters swarmed the car. Joe stayed next to her, explaining what was happening as they put out the fire and pried the front end of the car off of her. One of the firemen leaned over his shoulder. “This part is going to hurt her a bit. Think you can keep her distracted?” “I can try.” Joe could see Brandon, so he gave the mom a running commentary of Brandon’s fascination with the lights and activity. When they were ready to extract her, Joe got out of the way and sprung Brandon from his car. The sheriff’s deputy came over to get Joe’s statement about the accident and then took Brandon with him to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Relief, and something else, mixed in Joe’s bloodstream as the cop lifted Brandon from his arms. The fireman from earlier came over. “Good job there. Have any experience with this kind of thing?” He gave a short laugh. “No. Just a college student.” “Well if you’re interested, we’re hiring. There’s an information meeting Wednesday at seven at the high school. You should check it out.” “I might do that.” The fireman nodded and walked off. Joe climbed in his car, and sat there a moment before starting it. His steering wheel glistened and it took him a minute to realize what it was. Baby slobber. He grabbed a napkin and wiped it off. A fireman. Huh. He’d never thought of that. He’d be graduating in a couple of weeks with a business degree but no firm job prospects. Maybe he’d check it out. After all, it was just an info meeting. He turned the key in the ignition. Something red on the floor caught his eye. He reached down and picked it up. The furry Sesame Street monster. *** Orange County, California, 1982 Sarah scanned the parking lot as she walked out of the school building, clutching her books to her chest. Kids streamed past her, yelling, like every afternoon. It wasn’t in the parking lot. Maybe the street? She stood on the tiptoes of her loafers, peering over cars and around other kids. No. No Datsun Z28. Still searching, she made her way to the familiar concrete bench. Maybe she had missed it. She looked through the parking lot again, around kids running to the cars, moms chatting to each other, waving to their kids. She smoothed her skirt under her and sat down. She’d looked twice. Swallowing down disappointment, she scooted her books off her folder and flipped it open. She had a math worksheet and a vocabulary list to work on. She stared at one of the books she’d set on the bench next to her, touching the cover: The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. No, she’d do her homework first. She’d read the book probably five or six times already. It was always fun to read at the beach when the hot sand made a nice contrast. If she got her homework done before Mom got here, she could go in her room and read when she got home. Sarah’s pencil skidded across the sheet as someone bumped her arm. Without looking up she knew who it was. Kelly Aquinas. The biggest girl in school even though she was still in the fifth grade. “Thanks a lot, Kelly.” She flipped her pencil over and started erasing the stray line. “Doing your homework like a good little schoolgirl?” Sarah didn’t even look up. “Duh.” Maybe Kelly would just go away. For whatever reason, she hated Sarah and picked on her. Probably because she was the smallest person in class. There were third graders taller than Sarah. She looked around, pretending to look for her mom. No teachers in sight, though she could probably run to the office if she needed to. Kelly would beat her there, though. She had longer legs and was a fast runner. “You gonna cry because your mom’s late again?” She laughed. Risking a glance, Sarah found Kelly staring at her. She stared back. If Kelly started something, Sarah was going to make sure she got suspended for it. Kelly flipped up the edge of Sarah’s notebook but it didn’t go anywhere. “See you tomorrow, Schoolgirl.” She sauntered off then tossed back over her shoulder, “If you’re not still sitting here tomorrow morning.” Laughing, she ran to join a group of her friends. Sarah watched until Kelly disappeared behind the juniper bushes that marked the edge of the school property. Scanning the parking lot one last time, she went back to her homework. She worked through her sheets, glancing up every few minutes. The parking lot emptied, the noise of kids lessened. Soon, she had finished her homework, and only the kids staying after school for soccer practice were left. Her stomach growled. She wished she’d thought to save some of her lunch for a snack. She tucked her worksheets back in the folder, sliding her pencil back into its plastic zippered pocket. Shifting her weight, she re-crossed her legs. This bench was hard. Now she could get to her book. She picked it up, but didn’t open it to her bookmark yet. She’d count cars first. What would it be today? Ten? That should be enough. Mom would be here before the ten cars went by. This wasn’t a busy street. She counted twelve cars, just in case she’d gotten confused and lost count. When minutes passed without another car in sight, she opened her book and began reading about the blizzard that trapped Laura’s family and the town of DeSmet. A few minutes later the sound of a car door slamming caused her to look up. Good. Mom had finally remembered to come get her. She was so tired of being at school; she just wanted to go home.
No. It was just Mr. Simpson, the soccer coach, closing his trunk at the far end of the parking lot. No one else was left. She swallowed. Her parents would miss her at dinnertime for sure. They’d come for her then. Sarah nodded, hated the tears she felt stinging her eyes. “My mom.” She swung her legs under the bench. Back and forth. “Have you tried calling her?” She shook her head. He climbed out of the car, the official teacher’s keys on a big metal ring in his hand. She picked up her books and followed him into the school office. Reaching over the secretary’s desk, she picked up the pinkish-beige handset, punching line one, just like the secretary had showed her. She dialed her home number. It rang fifteen times. Mr. Simpson was looking at her so concerned. She hated it when people did that. They felt sorry for her, and it always made her start to cry. She bit her lip. “I’ll, uh, try my dad.” He hated it when she bugged him at the office, but she didn’t have much choice. It was getting dark outside and adults didn’t like to leave her alone. She asked for her dad when the secretary answered, but she said he’d already left for the day. She glanced up at the big clock. It was almost six. “Thank you.” Her voice broke on the last word and she hung up. She didn’t turn around. “Get a hold of anyone?” She shook her head. Too bad it was too far to walk. Every time Sarah just mentioned how she hated waiting for Mom to pick her up, Mom would start in on what a sacrifice it was to send her to this private school, and how she should be grateful. Next time Sarah would get up the courage to tell her she wanted to go to fifth grade with the other kids from the neighborhood. Then she could just walk home when they forgot about her. “I’ll take you home.” Chapter One They were called the devil winds. Firefighter Joe Romero thought that was an apt description of the dry winds that blew down from the desert, funneled through mountains that acted like a chimney, and pushed back the normal ocean breeze. More often than not, the Santa Anas brought out the arsonists. A trickle of sweat ran down his neck, adding to the wetness already sticking his shirt to his back under his turnout gear. He rolled his shoulders as best he could while holding the hose. They ached and he was tired. The smoke and embers blowing in his face didn’t help. He pulled his shroud up higher over his nose to block them. He adjusted the hose on his shoulder, yanking it across someone’s expensively landscaped yard. The wind swirled, lifting dust, ash and smoke in a vortex. Three weeks into the fire season and they already were facing a big brush fire, most likely intentionally set. The fire made its own weather, the heat sucking the flames skyward into a wall of red and black heat. A P-3 tanker roared overhead, slightly louder than the fire and the wind. Red slurry dropped from its belly, temporarily pushing back the wall of flames. They were making their stand at these houses. With tile roofs and a wide greenbelt, they were defensible. His captain, Dan Grady, put a hand on his shoulder and pointed. Joe braced himself and opened the nozzle. The stream of water knocked down the flames flaring up between the house and the line made by the tanker-dropped fire retardant. The heavy winter rains had made the foothills bloom and thickened the growth of chaparral that covered the hills like brown fuzz. With the Santa Ana winds rapidly sucking the moisture out of every living thing, it all was tinder ready to burn. Wind-driven embers immediately became spot fires the minute they landed. It was Joe’s job to make sure they didn’t get any bigger. Joe blinked his eyes repeatedly, trying to ease the grittiness caused not only by the smoke and heat, but lack of sleep. This was his second day on the fire and it didn’t look like he’d be going home anytime soon. A crashing noise followed by a metallic clang caught his attention. A rock had banged into the wrought iron fence. With all the noise from the fire, wind, and support aircraft, you couldn’t hear a rock coming until it was usually too late to get out of the way. And there were a lot of big rocks, boulders in these foothills that could easily work themselves loose as the fire burned away their support. More snapping brush. Joe looked for another rock, but a deer broke through the chaparral trying to escape the oncoming fire and ran into the fence. Snakes, rabbits and mice had been running across the lawn all day. It tried to scramble over the fence. Poor thing. It could see safety, but the fence was too high for it to get over. It just kept pawing at the metal bars, panicked. Over his radio, Joe heard the call that the air tanker would be making another pass, this one closer. Dan nodded toward the house. They needed to get away from the drop zone. Joe looked back at the deer. The force of the falling water could kill it. He dropped the hose and ran toward the deer, waving his arms. “Go on. Shoo!” If he could get the deer to follow the fence line around the corner, the deer could escape down the greenbelt. The deer flailed but didn’t move. Then he saw why. A hoof had gotten wedged in between the bars. He strode toward the deer, taking a quick glance at the sky. The deer struggled more, eyes wild. He didn’t want to scare it and make it hurt itself. “It’s okay. Just let me get you free and you can get out of here.” Gingerly reaching out his hand, he pushed against the hoof hoping the deer didn’t get another one caught in the struggle. Finally, it popped free and the deer bounded off, making its way toward the greenbelt just as the drone of the P-3 tanker announced its arrival. Joe ran back under the covering of the house’s wide patio as the heavy, red rain fell. He leaned against the wall next to Dan and unscrewed the lid on his canteen, taking a long drink of water nearly as hot as coffee. Dan lowered his own canteen. “You know whose house this is?” Joe glanced around. Should he? He couldn’t find anything particularly telling. The negative edge pool, the outdoor kitchen complete with top-of-the-line stainless steel Weber grill and a fireplace was pretty standard for this neighborhood. He shrugged. “Nope.” “Tony DiMarco, that big land developer.” “Really? How do you know?” “My wife dragged me to one of those charity home tours last Christmas. This was one of them.” Before Joe could answer something exploded off in the distance. The smoke obscured all but a slight brightening to the west. “Sounds like the fire just hit that grove of eucs.” Joe put his canteen back. “Who’s over there?” “Station 42.” The volatile oils in eucalyptus leaves and other desert-adapted plants made them particularly vulnerable to fire. They can explode, making them dangerous to anyone or anything around them. He started to follow Dan off the patio when movement under the patio table caught his eye. A dog cowered underneath. Joe shook his head. What was this? He half expected to see Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, come out of the brush. He squatted down and let the shepherd-collie mix sniff his hand. The dog licked it and Joe scratched its neck, the fur thick with ash. No collar. Why did people let their dogs out if they didn’t have a collar? At a time like this, they’d be lucky to see their dog again.
Joe gave the dog a final pat then straightened, joining Dan at the hose. They searched for hot spots and flare ups. *** Sarah sat in the warm sand, digging her toes deeper to find the coolness underneath. In another couple of weeks and the sand would still be burning hot at this time of day, too hot to walk on barefoot. She was still wearing a blouse and pants from work and wished she’d gone home to change first. But she’d needed to escape. The last rays of the day played across the water, turning the film of water left by a receding wave the color of champagne. It was beautiful, relaxing, perfect… yet she felt none of those things. Why did Ryan have to disturb her world? Why couldn’t he have given her some warning instead of making such a huge display, forcing all eyes on her while they awaited her answer. She couldn’t have said no. She needed to go home and work on her dream house plans. That would make her feel better since the beach wasn’t doing it. Today she’d run across a molding design that would be perfect for the built-in bookcases in the library, and— Her phone rang. Annoyed, she unclipped it from her belt. It was Ryan. She should have left it locked in her car. He’d called twice already. She should answer it, but he never took no for an answer, and she didn’t have the energy to spar with him. She’d call him later, but he probably wouldn’t be too thrilled. So be it. She silenced her phone. A few more minutes, a couple of deep breaths of the salt-crusted air, then she’d head home. “Sarah!” Her head snapped up at the familiar voice. Surely she was now hearing things. Apparently not, because there was Ryan. Striding down the bike path, headed her way. How’d he find her? She shoved her phone into her pants pocket. He gave her a big grin, like he just expected her to be thrilled at his presence. And she was, in a way. Her heart started beating faster, anyhow. She couldn’t help but smile back. With his movie-star good looks, who wouldn’t be flattered to be showered with his attention? Still, she wished she’d had time to come to some understanding of her own feelings. Why did Ryan always have to do everything on his terms? The desire to get back to her house plans increased. It was something she could control, a beauty she could create. Even though the odds of that house ever being anything more substantial than a sandcastle on the beach were pretty darn slim. Still, she could dream. Escape. Ryan stepped onto the sand, crossing over to her, his frankly appreciative gaze a little unnerving. They hadn’t even been on a date yet. “You’re not answering your phone.” He was grinning at her so he couldn’t be too upset. Did he suspect she was dodging him? “I turned it off. It’s been one of those days.” That wasn’t a complete lie. He eased down into the sand next to her, draping his arms over his knees. Even on the wide-open sand, Ryan seemed to take up more than his share of space. “I wanted to get your opinion on what song you wanted to sing this weekend. You took off too fast after the prayer team meeting.”
“I’m singing this weekend?” Maybe if they talked about music they wouldn’t talk about what happened this morning. |
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