Page 79 of Christmas with Three Firemen

“Rico is in a burn unit, Grant.”

“I know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”

She’s quiet for a moment, arms crossed, and I let her be quiet, because I don’t have anything that makes this smaller than it is.

“There’s another piece,” she says. “You didn’t know about Delaney. Not until I found Meridian.”

“No. I had Marsh. That’s all I had. I didn’t know there was money behind him until you connected it.”

“So we both had half of it. For weeks.”

“Yes.”

“And neither of us said our half out loud.”

“No.”

She looks at me a long moment.

“I’m not going to pretend that didn’t cost something,” she says. “It did. Rico paid part of that cost.”

“I know.”

“But I understand why now. I didn’t, before. Now I do.”

She doesn’t get up to leave.

“There’s still the other thing,” she says.

Her eyes shift toward the photograph on my desk. She must have set it there when she came in. I haven’t touched it. Haven’t been able to.

I look at it, then back at her, at the mug of cold coffee she’s holding in both hands.

“You want to do this now,” I say.

“I’ve wanted to do this for weeks.” She sets the mug down. “You knew I was coming eventually.”

Outside my window, the storm’s easing off, snow falling straight down instead of sideways for the first time in days. Somewhere below us Danny’s laugh carries up through the floor, muffled, and then Mateo’s voice cutting back at him, and the ordinary noise of the station going on without us feels obscene right now.

“Eighteen,” I say.

“Third call I ever ran. I was a Junior volunteer, not certified for interior yet.” My hand finds the edge of the desk, grips it. “It meant I did what I was told and stood where they put me.”

“Where’d they put you?”

“Outside.” The word comes out rougher than I mean it to. “West 107th. Two in the morning.”

I stop there. Twenty-one years and I still hit the same wall in the same place. I unclench my hand from the desk edge.

I get up and go to the window instead of looking at her.

“Building was already going hard when we rolled up,” I say to the glass. “Third and fourth floor. Senior crew took the interior. I had perimeter.” My breath fogs the glass and clears. “Ground floor window blew out. Kid came through it.”

Behind me, I hear the mug set down harder than before.