Hidden. Tara Quinn Taylor
from afar—as though he belonged to someone else. The little boy was almost the entire sum of her existence—certainly the basis of every conscious decision she’d made in the past two years—and she couldn’t connect. Not even with him. Not right now.
“Maamaa?” The little voice dropped as though in question.
Wordlessly, she glanced down at her lap, staring at the small, grainy picture that accompanied the article. It must’ve been pulled from the vault in a hurry. The likeness was old, an image captured more than two years before. Taken at yet another of Leah’s constant stream of charity events—a Monte Carlo night with proceeds to offer relief to recent hurricane victims.
Tricia recognized the dress Leah was wearing. The smile on her face. The picture. She’d been standing right beside her when that photo was snapped. Had posed for one herself. After all, they’d both been wearing gowns from the latest Kate Whitehead collection—gowns that were to have their own showing later that year.
“Ma! Ma! Down! Mama! Down!” The loud banging, a result of her son’s tennis shoe kicking back against the foothold on his chair, caught her attention.
With a trembling hand, she pushed a strand of her now-mousy brown hair toward the ponytail band that was supposed to have been holding it in place, watching as the toddler screwed up his face into the series of creases and curves that indicated a full-blown tantrum. And felt as though the expression was her own. Grief. Anger. Confusion. Leah was missing. Leah—her best friend. A piece of her heart.
Leah, whose memory afforded her a secret inner hold on sanity in a life that was nothing but secrets and insanity.
“Down!” The squeal of fear in her son’s voice catapulted Tricia out of her seat, across the foot and a half of cheap linoleum to his secondhand chair. In no time, she had him unstrapped and clutched his strong little body tight, cheek to cheek, the tears streaming down her face mingling with his.
She was shaking harder than he was.
“…Engine Eleven respond, overturned traffic…”
“Let’s go!” Captain Scott McCall dropped his sponge in the bucket of water he’d been using to clean the windows in the station’s kitchen and ran for the door. An overturned vehicle on the freeway couldn’t be good.
A flurry of heavy footsteps hitting cement rang through the station. Silent men, focused on the moments ahead, or perhaps the pizza they’d just ordered, all doing the jobs they’d been trained to do. Street boots off, Scott pulled on the heat-resistant pants with attached boots that he’d thrown over the side of the engine when they’d returned from a Dumpster fire that morning. He grabbed his jacket off the side mirror and jumped aboard, scooping up the helmet he’d left in the passenger seat.
Cliff Ralen, his engineer, already had the rig in motion. They traveled silently, as usual, having worked together so long they had no need for words. Scott was the captain, but he rarely had to give orders to any of the three men on the engine with him. They were well-trained, as firemen and as co-workers. He was damned lucky to have a group of guys who shared a sixth sense when it came to getting the job done.
The engine couldn’t get to the freeway quickly enough for Scott. Was it a multiple-car accident? Someone could be trapped inside. More than one someone. It was interstate. A second engine would be called. Police would be on-site.
With a rollover accident, there was a greater possibility of explosion.
And a greater possibility of severe injury—or death.
Sweating, impatient, Scott clenched his fists, waiting. This was always the worst part for him. The waiting. Patience wasn’t his strongest suit. Nor was inactivity.
Waiting could be the hardest part of his job because he knew what it was like to be on the other side, helpless, feeling time slip away while you waited for help to arrive….
He tapped a foot against the floorboard. He was help. He and his men. The guys would secure the area. Check for signs of fire danger. Rip car doors from their jambs. Break through back windows.
And Scott, as the engine’s paramedic, would…
Do whatever needed to be done. He always did. He wouldn’t think about the people. He wouldn’t feel. They didn’t pay him to think too much. Or to feel.
Feeling weakened a man. Got in the way. Could make the one-second difference between saving a life and losing it.
Scott wasn’t going to lose a life. Not if there was anything humanly possible he could do to save it.
He wasn’t going to witness another life fading away while he stood helplessly by and watched.
Period.
With his door open even before Cliff pulled to a halt, Scott jumped out. He took in the entire scene at a glance—the circle of tragedy, with bystanders on the periphery and his men moving forward checking for fuel leaks, other signs of explosion danger, trapped victims.
Engine Eleven was the first on-site. Goddamn, it was ugly. A pickup truck, the mangled cap several yards away. Off to the other side, also several yards from the smashed vehicle was a trailer hauling a late-model Corvette. Whoever had been driving that truck had been going too fast, jackknifed the trailer, lost control. Judging by the roof flattened clear down to the door frame, the truck had rolled more than once.
Whoever had been driving that truck was nowhere in sight. He hoped it was a man. Or an old woman who’d lived a full life. Please, God, don’t let it be a young woman.
“She’s trapped inside!” Joe Valentine called out. He’d worked with Scott for six of Scott’s eleven years with the department.
If she’s young, let her be okay, he demanded silently as he grabbed his black bag and approached the truck. She’s just trapped. Between the steel frame of the truck, the air bags and seat belt, the vehicle might have protected her. Cliff took a crowbar to the upside-down driver’s door. Metal on metal, screeching over raw nerves. He’d treat her for shock. Rail at her about the reason for speed limits. Make sure she understood how lucky she was to have escaped serious injury.
It was half an hour before Scott had his mind to himself again. He’d filled out his report. Tuesday, April 5, 2005. 11:45 a.m. Responded to call at…
Kelsey Stuart, the young woman who’d borrowed her boyfriend’s truck to pull her recently deceased father’s car to her apartment in San Diego, had been pronounced dead at the scene fifteen minutes before.
By the time she heard Scott’s black Chevy pickup in the drive shortly after eight on Wednesday morning, Tricia had had twenty-four hours to work herself into an inner frenzy and an outer state of complete calm. Much of her life had been spent learning things she’d never use. But little had she known, growing up the daughter of a wealthy San Franciscan couple, that the ability to keep up appearances had also equipped her with the skills to lead a double life.
“Hi, babe!” Even after almost two years of living with this man, sharing his bed and his life, she still felt that little leap in her belly every time he walked into a room.
She was in the kitchen and plunged her hands into the sink of dirty dishwater to keep from flinging them around Scott. He wouldn’t recognize the needy, clinging woman.
“Hi, yourself!”
He’d been gone four nights—part of the four on, four off rotation that made up most of his schedule, broken only once or twice a month with a one or two day on/off turn. She could have justified a hug. If she’d been able to trust herself not to fall apart the moment she felt his arms slide around her…
“Daaaddeee!” Taylor squirmed in his high chair, seemingly unaware of the toast crumbs smeared across his plump cheeks and up into his hair. His breakfast was a daily pre-bath ritual.
“Mornin’, squirt!” Scott rubbed the baby’s head and bent down to kiss his cheek, as though he was spotlessly clean. “Were you a good boy for your mama?”
“Good