Page 18 of Christmas with Three Firemen

And we barely make it down there before a wall of flame threatens to engulf the mouth of the stairwell.

“Kowalski, your exit’s blocked down here,” I say into the radio as I rush toward the fire with my extinguisher aimed high.

“All good. I’ll take the window,” comes his reply.

It’s no time for laughing, but I let out an amused huff at the old man’s casual response to needing to clamber down the fire escape in his bulky gear. Unless he’s in the mood to walk through hell. Which, sometimes, you never know.

The first floor fire is flooded with crew members, a dozen of us beating back flames that didn’t exist a few minutes ago. I work with mindless determination between Cap and Wes, too focused on preventing damage to think about what could have possibly caused this.

And even though it looked intimidating at first glance, it only takes us about twenty minutes to turn a raging inferno into nothing but smoke, ashes, and melted wires protruding from a disturbing gape in the wall of the apartment where the fire originated.

“Contained,” Cap says into the radio.

With a grunt, I flip up the visor of my helmet. The linoleum tile underfoot is scorched and curled up at the edges from the heat, and half of the tiny living room has transformed into a gaping maw of exposed wiring and burnt-through flooring.

I glance over at Cap. His expression is thoughtful as he surveys the damage, smoke and flame-retardant residue still curling off every surface. There would be steam, too, if this wasn’t an electrical fire and we were able to use water.

On my way back outside, I spot her at the perimeter.

Noelle hasn’t moved from the tape line since we pulled up. She’s standing with her arms crossed, jaw set, watching the crew cycle in and out of the building. Not filming anything. Not on her phone. Just watching, with the kind of focused, cataloging attention that I’ve noticed she applies to everything.

I’ve never actually thought about what we look like from the outside. We’re just doing what we always do. But watching her watch us — Cap directing from the sidewalk, Wes coordinating with ConEd at the pole, Callum hauling equipment without being told, Danny reappearing from the fire escape without a scratch and without complaint — I try to see it the way she’s seeing it.

Twenty people. No wasted motion. No one asking what to do next.

I don’t know what she expected from a crew she obviously doesn’t trust. But I don’t think it was this.

Then she ducks under the tape.

She moves quickly and deliberately. She’s tracking something along the base of the exterior wall. She crouches near the edge of the first-floor apartment, pulls an evidence bag from inside her jacket, and gets to work.

I stop walking.

She brought her kit to a toy run.

I almost laugh. Almost.

Cap reaches her before I do. I can’t hear what he says from where I’m standing, but I can read his posture well enough: the set of his shoulders that means he’s furious and refusing to show it, because showing it would mean losing ground. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t look up from what she’s collecting. She just talks, low and even, and then holds something up for him to look at.

He goes still.

Not the kind of still he gets when he’s controlling his temper. Something different. Something that looks a lot like the floor just shifted under him and he hasn’t decided yet whether to say so.

He crouches down beside her. I get close enough to see what she’s pointing to along the base of the wall — the burn pattern, the accelerant residue sitting wrong against the concrete in a trail that doesn’t happen by accident.

Then she looks up at him and asks him something.

I’m close enough now to hear it.

“Have you seen a burn pattern like this before?”

Grant Hale has been a firefighter for over twenty years. He has seen things that would fold most people in half. He does not rattle.

He says nothing.

But the look on his face says everything.

Chapter four