Diane Chamberlain - Before the Storm

Andy stuck out his left arm for the blood pressure cuff.

“Your other arm, Andy,” the nurse said. “Remember? You need to be careful with the burned arm for a few days.”

She took his blood pressure and temperature and then left us alone.

“I’m going to write a book about being a hero,” Andy said, as I reached beneath the bed for the plastic bag containing his shirt and shoes.

“Maybe someday you will.” I considered bringing him down to earth a little, but how often did he get to crow about an accomplishment? Other people would not be so kind, though.

Opening the bag, I recoiled from the pungent scent of his clothes. “Andy, what you did tonight was very brave and smart,” I said.

He nodded. “Right.”

I thought about letting him leave the hospital without his odorous shirt or shoes, but it was chilly outside. I handed him the striped shirt.

“But the fire was a very serious thing and a lot of people were hurt.” I hesitated. It was best that he heard it from me. “Some died.”

He shook his head violently. “I saved them.”

“You couldn’t save everyone, though. That’s not your fault. I know you tried. But don’t talk to people about how you’re a hero. It’s bragging. Remember, we don’t brag.”

“Is it bragging if it’s in a book?”

“That would be okay,” I said.

Behind me, the glass door plowed open and I turned to see Dawn Reynolds fly through the room toward Ben.

“Oh my God! Ben! ” She nearly knocked Maggie off the stool as she rushed to pull Ben into her arms. “I was so scared,” she said, crying. Tears welled in my own eyes as I watched the love and relief pour from her. She and Ben lived together in a little beach cottage in Surf City, and Dawn worked with Sara at Jabeen’s Java.

“I’m okay.” Ben rubbed her arms in reassurance. “I’m all right.”

Maggie quietly stood up, offering the stool to Dawn, then walked back to us.

“Is he okay?” I nodded toward Ben.

“Not exactly.” She bit her lip. “He has a seven-year-old daughter who lives with his ex-wife in Charlotte. He keeps thinking about her being trapped like that. He’s upset that people…” She looked at Andy, then me. “You know.”

“I explained to Andy that some people died in the fire,” I said.

Maggie started to cry again. She reached in her jeans pocket for her shredded tissue. “I just don’t understand how this could happen.”

“I’m going to write a book about it so it won’t be bragging,” Andy said as he pulled on one of his shoes.

Maggie stuffed her tissue in her pocket again. She lifted Andy’s leg so his foot rested on her hip as she tied his shoelaces. “Ben said a beam landed on his head,” she said. “Uncle Marcus was with him.”

Marcus. I remembered what the ATF agent had said: Two kids and one adult. And for the second time that night, my fear and worry shifted from my son to my brother-in-law.

Marcus

I DIALED LAUREL’S NUMBER FOR THE THIRD TIME as I swerved onto Market Street. Voice mail. Again. Cute, Laurel. Now’s not the time to pretend you don’t know me.

“Call me, for Christ’s sake!” I shouted into the phone.

I still couldn’t picture Laurel letting Andy go to a lock-in, especially one at Drury Memorial.

I’d just come out of that fire pit when Pete ran up to me.

“Lockwood!” He’d only been a few feet away, but he had to shout above the racket of generators and sizzling water and sirens. “Your nephew’s at New Hanover. Get out of here!”

It took a second for his words to register. “Andy was here? ” I shrugged out of the air pack and peeled off my helmet. My hands had been rock steady inside the church. Suddenly, they were shaking.

“Right,” Pete called over his shoulder as he raced back to the truck. “Drop your gear and get going. We’ll take care of it.”

“Does Laurel know?” I shouted as I stripped off my turnout jacket, but he didn’t hear me.

I ran the few blocks to the fire station, yanking off my gear along the way until I was down to my uniform. Jumped into my pickup and peeled out of the parking lot. They’d closed the bridge to all traffic other than emergency vehicles, but when the officer guarding the entrance recognized me, she waved me through. I’d tried Laurel at home as well as her cell. Now I called the emergency room at New Hanover. I had to dial the number twice; my hands were shaking that hard. I set the phone to speaker and dropped it in the cup holder.

“E.R.,” a woman answered.

“This is Surf City Fire Marshal Marcus Lockwood,” I shouted in the direction of the phone. “You have a patient, Andy Lockwood, from Drury Memorial. Can you give me a status on him?”

“Just a moment.”

The chaos at the hospital—sirens and shouting—filled the cab of my pickup. Someone screamed words I couldn’t make out. Someone else wailed. It was like the frenzied scene at the fire had moved to the hospital.

“Come on, come on.” My fists clenched the steering wheel.

“Mr. Lockwood?”

“Yes.”

“He’s being treated for smoke inhalation and burns.”

Shit.

“Hold on a sec…”

I heard her talking to someone. Then she was back on the phone. “First-degree burn, his nurse says. Just his arm. He’s stable. His nurse says he’s a hero.”

She had the wrong boy. The words “Andy” and “hero” didn’t go together in the same sentence.

“You sure you’re talking about Andy Lockwood?”

“He’s your nephew, right?”

“Right.”

“His nurse says he led some kids out of the church through the men’s room window.”

“What?”

“And she says he’s going to be fine.”

I couldn’t speak. I managed to turn off the phone, then struggled to keep control of the pickup as the road blurred in front of me. As nerve-racking as the fire had been, it hadn’t scared me half as much as those last couple of minutes on the phone.

Now that I knew Andy was going to be okay, I was royally pissed off. The fire was arson. I had been on the first truck out and done a quick walk around. The fire ring was even on all four sides of the building. That didn’t happen by accident.

I understood arson. I’d been the kind of kid who played with matches and I once set our shed on fire. I tried to blame it on Jamie, but my parents knew their saintly older son would never be that stupid. I don’t remember my punishment—just the initial thrill of watching Daddy’s oily rags explode into flame on his workbench, followed by terror as the fire shot up the wall. So I got it—the thrill, the excitement. But damn it, if some asshole had to start a fire, why a church filled with kids? Why not one of the hundreds of empty summer homes on the island? The building itself was no great loss. Drury Memorial had been on a fund-raising kick for years, trying to get the money to build a bigger church. So, was that just a coincidence? And was it a coincidence that the lock-in was moved from the youth building to the church? Whatever, it felt good to be thinking about the investigation instead of Andy.

Ben Trippett and Dawn Reynolds were coming out of the E.R. as I ran toward the entrance. Now there was a guy who could call himself a hero. As much as I wanted to see Andy, I had to stop.

“There’s the man!” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Dude,” Ben said, with a failed effort at a smile. He leaned against Dawn and in the light from the entrance I saw her eyes were red.

“How’s the head?” He’d been crawling in front of me in the church when something—a joist or a statue or who knew what—crashed on top of him, knocking off his helmet. In the beam from my flashlight, I’d seen blood pouring down his cheek.