don’t you two sit down on the floor there next to the window? Breathing will be easier,” Rafe said, eyeing the smoke that was seeping beneath the doorway. He went to the window and pulled down the drape. Rolling up the fabric, he laid it on the floor next to the door, covering the crack as best he could.
Rafe pulled the helmet and mask off the firefighter, doing his best not to jar him—her! he realized as a long, black braid tumbled out of the hat. Her eyelashes were as dark as her hair, making her skin look all the more pale.
“¿Está muerta?” one of the children asked, a little boy who looked as though he could be no more than four or five.
“No,” Rafe answered, reassured by the pulse beating strongly beneath his fingertips. She wasn’t dead. “La señorita no está muerta. ¿Hablas inglés?”
The boy shook his head.
To the woman, he said, “Can you hear me?”
She moaned again.
Rafe took off his jacket, folded it, and slipped it beneath her head as she lay on her side, her canister of air still strapped to her back.
“Are you visiting a brother or sister?” he asked the children in Spanish.
“Mi hermana,” the other child said, creeping closer to hold the boy’s hand. “Ana.”
“Ah. This is your brother—tu hermano?”
She nodded. “Ramón.”
“And what’s your name?” Rafe asked, continuing to speak in Spanish while keeping a close eye on the firefighter. Thankfully, color was beginning to seep back into her cheeks. She didn’t seem to be unconscious, but she wasn’t with it, either.
“Teresa.”
Pulling his cell phone from his jeans pocket, Rafe dialed 9–1-1, reminded of when he had done so a little earlier. This time the line was busy, and it remained that way for the next several times he dialed the number.
Next to him on the floor, the woman opened her eyes. When her gaze lit on him, she immediately struggled to sit up.
Rafe pressed a hand against her shoulder. “Just take a breath first.”
Her eyes were huge in her face, her skin too pale. “I’m okay,” she said around a cough. “The explosion just knocked me down.”
“All the more reason to take a minute.” Rafe figured she was lucky. Her lungs could have been seared by the heat from the explosion.
“I’ve got to get back—”
“There’s fire clear across the hall.”
“We’re trapped?”
There was still a way out of the chapel, though not his first choice. Rafe glanced toward the big, west-facing window, and her gaze followed his.
“That’s a last resort,” she said, evidently coming to the same conclusion he had. Sitting up, she put the small radio strapped to the outside of her turnout coat to her mouth. “Donovan, are you there?”
There was a moment of static, then a voice said, “Lucia, where are you?”
When she met Rafe’s gaze, he said, “The chapel across the hall from the janitor’s closet that’s on fire.”
She nodded and repeated the information, adding, “I’m in here with a civilian and two kids.”
“Stay put,” Donovan said. “We’ll have water on the fire in the hallway in a minute.”
Her gaze lit on the two children, then came back to Rafe. “You were the one fighting the fire when we got here.” After he nodded, she added, “Your children?”
“No. Just met them.” He motioned toward them. “This is Ramón and Teresa, and they’ve been visiting their sister, Ana. I’m Rafael Wright. Are you okay?”
“Not bad for having the breath knocked out of me.” She pulled off her gloves, then ran a slim hand over her forehead. “I’d just hooked up the hose to the valve. I hadn’t gotten a drop of water on the fire before the explosion.” With an easy motion that came only with practiced repetition, she slipped the air tank off her shoulders and set it with her helmet and mask.
“I didn’t see your partner.”
She looked at Rafe. “Chief O’Brien sent him away. Said he’d stay with me.”
“A heavyset guy?” When she nodded, Rafe added, “He was headed back toward the stairwell right before the explosion.”
“Well, that figures.” The inflection in her voice gave Rafe the idea that she didn’t like or respect O’Brien. Still, she spoke into the radio once more. “Vance reporting in.”
“Are you hurt?” came a gruff voice, clearly not Donovan’s, over the speaker.
“Your chief?” Rafe asked.
She nodded, and into the radio said, “I’m okay, sir.”
“Donovan said you’re trapped in the chapel. When we get this baby put out, you’ve got some explaining to do.”
Rafe bristled at the man’s tone. As a hotshot superintendent who had often been the commander on a fire, he knew there was a time to hold your people accountable and a time to put their well-being and safety first. A fleeting look of irritation chased across her face, confirming to Rafe that he hadn’t imagined the man’s imperious tone.
“Strange the sprinklers in this brand-new building haven’t come on,” Rafe said.
She nodded. “As strange as all the false alarms we’ve had the last few days. We expected this to be another one.”
The smoke at the ceiling grew thicker, and Rafe motioned to the kids. “Ven acá,” Rafe said, motioning for them to come sit beside him and the firefighter. “Sentémonos aquí.”
“They don’t speak English?” Lucia asked as the kids approached.
Rafe shook his head, and again spoke to the children, repeating the same words, then adding in English, “Come sit next to me.”
She held her arms out to the little girl, who somehow recognized the gesture of comfort and came toward her. Settling the child in her lap, the woman touched the child’s chest. “Teresa.” Then she repeated the gesture against her own chest. “Lucia.”
Lucia, Rafe mentally echoed. The name fit her. As exotic as her dark brown eyes and her creamy complexion.
“My partner is out there,” she said, “and he’s going to have us out of here muy pronto.”
Her fractured Spanish made the kids smile, just as Rafe suspected she had intended. She looked from the child to him and the little boy, who had sat down between them.
“If these kids are like my nieces and nephews, they don’t care what you’re saying—they
