Line of Duty Page 5

  Jill’s face twisted in gratitude, and she touched the girl’s face. With a trembling hand, she took the small phone. “Bless you.”

  “Sure. I hope you can hear. It’s pretty noisy in here. You might want to step into the hall.”

  Jill went back out into the corridor and found a quiet place. She dialed Dan’s cell phone number. It rang once, and then a recording clicked on.

  “The customer you are calling is not available at this time.”

  Not available. What did that mean? Dead? Injured? Buried? The recording that had always played on his phone when he was out of range had a myriad of possible new meanings. She breathed out a sob, then hung up and dialed the Midtown station instead. Maybe someone there had heard from him. Maybe there was someone keeping a count of who had checked in. She prayed as it rang.

  “Midtown Station, Andy Sweeney.” Andy was the new kid on the block, the one just out of the firefighter’s academy, still on probation and probably holding down the fort since everyone else was here. She had represented him once on a DUI charge, when he was still in high school.

  “Andy, this is Jill Nichols,” she said. “Please, can you tell me if you’ve heard from Dan?”

  “Ma’am, I ain’t heard from anybody,” Andy said. “I’ve been sittin’ here waiting for somebody to call so I could find out if I could go help with the rescue effort, but I can’t get in touch with anybody.”

  She leaned her head against the wall and started to sob. “I have to know if he’s all right,” she said. “You must be able to radio somebody. Isn’t there anybody who’s answering their radio calls?”

  “Nobody, ma’am,” Andy said, “not since the building came down. I watched it on TV, hoping and praying that nobody we know is in there.”

  Jill swung her fist at the air. “They were in there,” she cried. “Don’t you understand? They were. Dan was in that building.”

  “Ma’am, Mark’s wife is here if you want to talk to her.”

  “Allie?” Jill wiped the tears off her face. “Yes, let me talk to Allie.”

  She heard voices, then, “Jill, thank God you’re all right!”

  Jill could tell that Allie was crying. She clutched the phone. “Allie, I can’t find Dan. Ray told me he was in the building when it collapsed—”

  “Jill, did you see Mark?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know where he was when the building came down. I saw Issie, and she said our guys had gone in.”

  There was a moment of silence, broken by strangled sobs on the other end. “Was she sure?” Allie’s voice quivered. “Maybe they got out.”

  Jill leaned her forehead against the wall. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  She heard low voices, then the phone changed hands. “Jill, this is Celia. Where are you?”

  “In the gym of some school on Canal Street,” she said. “It’s where all the victims are kind of coming to wait for word and to get help.”

  “Honey, can you get home?”

  “No. My car was in the parking garage, under the building. I’m sure it’s history. Besides, I don’t want to leave here. I want to stay close by.” She squeezed her eyes shut and banged her fist against the wall. “I just want to know that Dan’s okay. But they’ve blocked off the street and won’t let any civilians in there, only emergency workers.”

  “Jill, we’re coming down there, okay? We’ll find you and wait there with you. Is there anything you need?”

  “Yes,” Jill said, “a change of clothes. I’m filthy.”

  “I’ll go by your house,” Celia said. “Do you still keep a key under that pot by the back door?”

  “Yes.”

  “Honey, you sound awful. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Just a little smoke inhalation.”

  “Okay. Just wait there for us,” Celia said. “We’ll get there as fast as we can, probably less than an hour, okay?”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here.”

  “I love you, honey. It’s going to be all right. And would you do me a favor and call one of our cell phones if you find out any news about the guys?”

  “If I can get to a phone, I’ll do it,” she said. “I promise.”

  As Celia got off the phone, Allie fell into her arms. The television replayed the scenes of the building falling down and people fleeing as if they were in some kind of third-rate movie. But it was no movie. It was real.

  Where had Mark been when that building crashed? Did it make a difference what floor he’d been on? How close to an exit? She wanted to scream out, collapse in anguish, start lashing out at anyone near her. But she couldn’t. She had to get to New Orleans, fast.

  She heard voices in the truck bay and turned to see Celia’s eighty-three-year-old Aunt Aggie hurrying in, with teary-eyed Susan Ford, the chief’s wife, on her heels.

  “Where my boys at?” Aunt Aggie demanded as she trod in, wearing a pair of Nikes she had spray-painted gold, and a gold velvet wind suit.

  Susan went to Allie. “Where’s Ray? Has anybody heard from my Ray?”

  “Yes!” Allie said. “Jill said she saw him.”

  Susan cried out in exultation and hugged Aunt Aggie.

  “But I don’t know about Mark.”

  “I’ll go find ’em, sha!” Aunt Aggie declared, her Cajun form of chère meant to comfort. “I’ll go there myself and pull ever’ last one of my boys outta that mess!”

  No one was surprised by Aunt Aggie’s declaration. She, after all, was the one whose mission in life was to cook three meals a day for the firefighters of Midtown and care for them like a protective mother.

  But Celia intervened. “Aunt Aggie, what we really need from you right now is a baby-sitter. Would you keep little Aggie and Justin while I take Allie to New Orleans?”

  Susan grabbed her arm. “I’m coming, too.”

  Aunt Aggie didn’t like it. “Call that Jolene girl to baby-sit. I got to be there!”

  Allie pictured Aunt Aggie raising a ruckus at the bomb site, hindering the rescue effort and winding up in jail. It had happened before. “Aunt Aggie, please. I’d feel so much better if Justin was with you. It may take all night. He and little Aggie could sleep at your house. We can get Jolene to help, but she can’t do it alone.”

  Aunt Aggie’s face changed, and she reached out and took her great-niece from Celia. “Awright, I guess I can do that.”

  They piled into Celia’s minivan to take Aunt Aggie home and swing by Jill’s house.

  Allie leaned down to close Justin’s seat belt over him. “You’re going to Aunt Aggie’s, okay? Will you be a good boy?”

  He nodded and wiped her tears. “Don’t cry, Mommy.”

  She took his hand and kissed it. Still holding it, she looked out the window. Afternoon sun still shone, clear and bright for a December day. It seemed as if it should be the dead of night. “Please God,” she whispered, “let him be all right.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jill had never felt more alone. .

  The school gym where they’d congregated held a crush of people, all of whom had life-or-death issues in common. Some were survivors with soot-stained faces, coughing smoke out of their lungs and guzzling water. Others were volunteers who’d brought food, water, blankets, cots. Family members streamed in with haunted expressions, searching for their loved ones.

  She sat on the floor and leaned back against the wall, staring out into the noisy crowd. Each survivor had an escape story to tell, and everyone engaged in nervous chatter. Jill longed for silence so she could think.

  But thinking was probably not the best idea. Her mind was dragging her into a panicked, desperate state, and she had the sense that she would explode just like the building, leaving only a burning mound of unidentifiable rubble.

  She forced herself to concentrate on the door where Allie and Celia would come in.

  A cluster of new victims stumbled in, coughing and crying, and she wondered where they had been. Had they been wandering the stre
ets in a daze, or were they pulled from the rubble? If they had been, could Dan have been among them?

  She watched the faces that came in, one by one, and caught her breath when she saw the burgundy-haired teenager who had helped her with Gordon. Ashley looked like a war-waif, her eyes glazed in round, dull shock. Jill saw the same desperate panic on her face.

  As the girl’s bloodshot, swollen eyes darted quickly around the room, Jill knew that she was looking for her mother. She hoped to God that she found her here.

  She watched her go to the sign-in table and, bending over, search the list of those who’d come here.

  Clearly, her mother wasn’t listed, and the girl straightened and turned back to the crowd, her face twisting in a fresh wave of anguish.

  Sympathy pulsed through her, and Jill got up. “Ashley!” she called through the crowd. “Ashley, over here!”

  The girl heard her name and swung around, cruel hope on her face. Her eyes met Jill’s, and that hope crashed. She started to cry and backed against the wall.

  Jill crossed the room and pulled her into her arms. The girl coiled into herself as sobs racked her. “You didn’t find her?”

  “No!” Ashley cried. “Where is she?”

  “Come on,” Jill said. “I’ll walk around here with you. If she’s here, we’ll see her.”

  The girl looked so vulnerable, even with her tattoos and just-out-of-bed hairstyle, and the chain connecting her ear and nose rings. She was a child, Jill thought—a child who’d just been through a battle scene and may well have come out an orphan.

  When they’d covered one side of the building to no avail, Jill thought of something. “Stop,” she told Ashley, and the girl turned her wet face to her. Jill ran her fingers through the girl’s tousled hair, dusting out the ashes that were disguising the color. “Not everybody has hair this color,” she said. “If we can get these ashes out, maybe your mother will spot you.”

  The girl looked weak. “I don’t think she’s here.”

  “Maybe not yet. But she will be, eventually.”

  “I think she’s dead.” The words tumbled out of her. “She was with the bomb.”

  Jill stopped dusting her hair and looked into her face. “With the bomb? What do you mean?”

  Ashley wiped her face, smearing the soot. “I was up there to get some money from her, and she had to go to the stockroom. I went with her, begging for money like some kind of brat . . .”

  “Go on,” Jill said.

  “And we opened the stockroom, and there was the bomb. This big thing with wires and stuff, and all these water jugs around it . . .” She got the edge of her T-shirt and wiped her nose. “Mom made me leave while she called security. She promised she would come right behind me after she called, and I heard the fire alarm and people started filling the stairwell, and then . . .”

  Jill knew before she said it. “The explosion.”

  “I don’t think Mom got out.” The words squeaked out of her. “She couldn’t have. I would have seen her on the stairwell when I went back up.”

  Jill pulled the girl into her arms and held her as she wept. Her mother may well be dead, just as Dan could be. But they couldn’t give up. Neither of them could surrender to that fear.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s walk around some more. We’ll find her. I’ll bet she’s looking frantically for you.”

  Ashley acquiesced and let Jill pull her along. They pushed through clusters of people and stepped over those sitting on the floor. But Ashley’s mother wasn’t there.

  Finally, Jill found a place near a wall where they had a good view of the door. “Come on, let’s get you some water and just sit down and rest where we can watch the door. When she comes in, we’ll see her.”

  Ashley wearily slid down the wall and sat on the floor, her eyes glued to the front door.

  Please, God. Let her mother walk in.

  But all they saw were more victims, coming in one at a time, shock clearly showing on all their faces.

  Chapter Twelve

  The ride to New Orleans was quiet, except for the ongoing radio coverage of the mayhem around the wreckage. The buildings adjacent to Icon were burning now, and reporters speculated on when they would fall.

  Allie was glad that Celia had offered to drive. She didn’t think she could have managed to do it herself, with that mental footage of the falling building reeling over and over in her mind.

  Celia had finally heard from Stan, who hadn’t found any of the Newpointe guys yet. For all she knew, Mark could be dead.

  How absurd that this would happen today. It had started out so beautifully. Justin had gotten them up earlier than usual, and Mark had made pancakes. As Allie got ready to go to the flower shop, he had bathed the syrup off their son.

  She had heard them singing together, Justin giggling with delight, and she couldn’t resist sticking her head into the bathroom.

  Itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout . . .

  Mark knelt beside the tub, his arms and shirt soaked from bathwater, and he walked his fingers over his head with the zeal and animation of a preschooler. The three-year-old copied him, his eyes bright with glee.

  Like father, like son.

  She had wondered how they could possibly be more blessed.

  Who would have suspected that this beautiful, perfect day would become the worst day of their lives?

  It was supposed to be his day off. He probably still had yellow paint on his hands.

  Allie stared out Celia’s window and listened to the radio reporter’s account of the collapse again. To the media, it was a great news day. Careers would be made by the coverage today.

  Allie glanced out the back window. Susan had decided to bring her own car, in case they had to leave at different times. She drove with tears streaming down her dark face, and her mouth moved in vigilant prayer for the missing.

  Allie pulled her cell phone off of her belt and looked down to make sure she hadn’t missed a call. Sometimes the ringer wasn’t loud enough. She had set it to vibrate with every ring, so she would feel it if she didn’t hear it. But no calls had come.

  Mark, where are you?

  She should have reminded him to take the cell phone with him. He had rushed off before it had occurred to her.

  “I’m going to park here,” Celia said, pulling into a public parking lot a few blocks from Canal Street. “I don’t think we’ll get any closer. We can walk to the school.”

  Allie tried to see over the buildings to the place where Icon had stood. All she could see was thick smoke, still sweltering up from the rubble. How could anyone have survived that heat?

  She felt weak as she got out of the car, and the thick smog assaulted her.

  Susan pulled into the spot next to them and got out. “Honey, did you hear anything on the way?”

  “Nothing,” Allie said.

  “He’s all right, darlin’. Remember that Nine-Eleven video, where those filmmakers followed that fire department around? Every firefighter in that firehouse survived. It’s gonna happen to our men, honey.”

  That was easy for her to say, Allie thought. She already knew Ray was fine.

  She started up the block in the direction of the school, her eyes still fixed on that smoke cloud over the site. The roads surrounding the Icon block were closed off, and emergency vehicles glutted the street in haphazard configurations. There were no firefighters in sight. They were all there, right in the middle of things. . . .

  They reached the school, where several radio stations were broadcasting. One of the correspondents stuck a microphone in front of them. “Ladies, could you tell us why you’re here? Are you waiting for word about loved ones?”

  Allie waved them off, and Susan and Celia put their arms around her shoulders as they pushed through the door. They found the gym just near the front entrance and pushed inside. The noise level sounded like that at a basketball game, and Allie looked around and saw the fallout of the day. People with dried blood on their clothes and faces
, mingled with soot and despair, sat around the room with stunned looks on their faces. Others, like them, who had obviously not been in the building, watched the door as if hoping that someone they knew would walk through.

  “We’ll never find Jill,” Allie said. “So many people.”

  “She’ll find us,” Susan said.

  She was right. They hadn’t stood there longer than a minute before Allie heard her name called through the crowd. “Allie! Celia! Susan!”

  Allie saw Jill standing against the wall next to a rough-looking teenaged girl. She caught her breath at the bedraggled sight of her best friend and started to cry as she cut through the crowd.

  They grabbed each other in a desperate embrace.

  “Honey, are you all right?” Celia asked.

  “Fine,” Jill said.

  Allie wondered if Jill realized just how bad she looked. Besides the soot that covered her, she had bloody scrapes on her face and arms. Her clothes were torn and filthy, and a white powder covered her hair.

  “Have you had any word yet?” Jill asked.

  “Nothing yet,” Allie said. She started to weep, and Jill clung to her in kindred grief.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Anybody here?” Mark Branning’s voice cracked through the silence, almost startling him in its clarity. He had gone down with the building, hanging on to the railing of the stairwell between twelve and fourteen, and had ridden the surf of cement, glass, and steel until it came to a crashing halt.

  He lay in darkness now and stared up at the opaque black. Was he alive or in some twilight-zone death stage before the light revealed itself and drew him home?

  He hadn’t expected to feel so alone at death. Weren’t loved ones supposed to meet you? Usher you into a place of beauty and peace?

  He felt around beneath him. He lay on an uneven bed of crushed cement, but he wasn’t pinned or trapped in any way. Several inches of powder covered him, gritting into his eyes and ears, his nose and mouth.

  He shook his face to clear them, rubbed his eyes, but his hands just brought more grit. But that was the least of his worries.