Six-year-old Nick’s voice rang with excitement as he pelted after his little brother.
“Daddy?” Brady popped around the corner to stare at his father in undisguised horror. “What are you doing here!”
Like Alex himself, all three boys had brown eyes and brown-blond hair. Mikey, slight and angular, had his mother’s sweet smile and sensitive nature. Nick was sturdy and round-cheeked, with a sprinkle of freckles across his nose and an easy-to-read expression. But it was Brady who drew the eye. Slim and reedy, with intent brown eyes and an engaging grin, he had more curiosity than a convention of rocket scientists, more energy than a fleet of nuclear submarines and more enthusiasm than a gymnasium of cheerleaders—a combination that attracted trouble the way flowers drew bees.
At the moment, he was staring at his father as if he were an escaped felon caught in a spotlight.
Alex gave the two younger boys a brief awkward hug, then peeled them off his pant legs as he focused on his firstborn son. “We wrapped up the negotiations,” he said slowly. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“But I’m not ready!”
“Ready?” Alex raised one eyebrow. “For what?”
Brady became instantly fascinated with the toe of his sneaker. “Well, you know...” he mumbled. “Stuff.”
Alex’s apprehension grew. He shifted his gaze to his middle son. “Nicholas? You want to tell me what’s going on?”
After a quick sideways glance at his big brother, Nick also developed a sudden infatuation with his feet.
There was a moment’s tense silence. And then Mikey tugged on his father’s sleeve and said clearly, “Shay’s stuck.”
Alex’s gaze softened as he stared down at his youngest child. “She who’s stuck?”
Brady sighed. “Not she, Shay,” he murmured.
“It was a mersion of missy, Daddy,” Mikey said earnestly. “She saved Bwutus.”
Brady sighed again. “Mission of mercy, Mikey.”
“Yeah!” Nick chimed. “Everybody knows that. Besides, it was your fault!”
Mikey’s lower lip trembled. “Was not.”
“Was too! If you’d just holded on to Brutus like you were supposed to, none of this would’ve happened!”
“Who is Brutus?” Alex asked.
Mikey’s eyes flooded with tears. “He’s my g-gerbil. Uncle J-James sended him for my end-of-school pwesent. Brady gots a lizard and Nick got Ike and Spike. I got Bwutus. He’s my bestest fwiend.”
Alex’s mouth tightened. He made a mental note to call his younger brother James and ask him—again—to refrain from sending the boys any more pets.
Which he’d be sure to do after he got to the bottom of the current situation. “So what’s Brutus got to do with—”
“Pardon me, fellows,” a faint, disembodied voice interrupted. “But do you think you could save the discussion for later and get me out of here? Soon?”
Alex jerked around, telling himself the voice couldn’t possibly have come from the floor vent the way he thought it had. “What the—” He stopped in shock as the tallest of the fireman stepped forward, making it possible for Alex to see that the other two men were in the process of lifting the built-in clothes hamper out of the wall. “Is there someone down there?” he exclaimed in disbelief.
“Don’t worry, sir.” The tall fireman stuck out his hand. “Lieutenant Malloy, Port Sandy Fire Department. The lady—your child-care provider, we gathered from the boys?—says she’s fine. As far as we can tell, she only dropped about five feet before the bend in the chute stopped her.”
“I...see,” Alex said, his gaze riveted on the hole on the wall. Truthfully, he didn’t see at all. Try as he might, he not only couldn’t imagine tall, stately Mrs. Kiltz doing something so undignified, but he also found it hard to believe she’d actually been able to fit in such a narrow space....
“Like I said, don’t worry,” the lieutenant repeated, nodding at his men to proceed. “We should have her out in no time.”
Frozen in disbelief, Alex watched as the firemen fed a line with a noose at the end down the now-gaping hole in his wall. They fished for a moment and then Mrs. Kiltz, sounding very unKiltzlike, called out, “Bingo! Nice toss, guys!”
The firemen grinned and began to reel in the line. Moments later a pair of small, sneaker-shod feet appeared. While one fireman leaned back, keeping the line taut, the other reached forward, grabbed the bare, slender ankles attached to the feet, and pulled.
Like a genie emerging from a bottle, a woman popped out of the depths of the wall. Dressed in khaki shorts and a loose navy T-shirt, her back to the room, she was small and slim, with dark glossy hair and a nice, firm fanny.
Alex had never seen her before in his life.
Shock stole his voice. Before he could recover it, the room erupted in a flurry of activity. First, the paramedics rushed past, blocking the stranger from view as she sank to the ground and they moved in to check her out. Next, all three boys darted over, practically trampling Alex in their haste to get close to the stranger. Everyone began to talk.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” Lieutenant Malloy asked.
“I’m fine,” she murmured in a husky alto. “I really appreciate you getting me out.”
“Those are pretty nasty scrapes on your legs,” one of the paramedics stated. “If you’ll just sit still for a minute we can—”
“I’m fine, really,” she insisted.
“She’s tough,” Brady said, a disturbing note of pride in his voice.
“Was it dark?” Nick asked.
“Were you ascared?” Mikey inquired.
“Yes, it was, and no, I wasn’t. I had Brutus to keep me company, remember?”
“Hand me a sterile 9-O pack, would you, Bill? I’m sorry, ma’am, but this is going to sting a little.”
“Well, Mr. Morrison—” Malloy stepped over to Alex, pulled out a small notepad and began to write in it as he talked “—it looks as if everything turned out all right here. I’ll send you a copy of my report, of course, but I might as well tell you right now, I am going to recommend that you close up that chute. In addition to the obvious danger to your children, the thing’s a fire hazard.” He tore the piece of paper from the pad and handed it to Alex.
It was a citation for violating the county fire code. “Now just one minute—” Alex protested.
Malloy held up a hand for silence as the two-way radio hooked to his belt began to squawk. He listened intently as the dispatcher requested assistance at a house fire with possible injuries and rattled off an address. He unclipped the radio and spoke rapidly into it, before saying to the other men, “Gentlemen,
