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"You did the right thing calling tonight, Linda."

"Did I?"

I didn't have an answer for that.

Through the phone, I could hear the paramedics reaching her. "Ma'am, are you hurt? Come with us, we're going to check you out."

I disconnected from the call and stayed on the radio until Alex's voice came through.

"Engine 19 to dispatch. Fire is under control. Primary search complete, all occupants accounted for."

"Copy, Engine 19."

I logged the disposition and closed the call.

CHAPTER 22

Someone to Come Home To

ALEX

The crew had gone down an hour ago. Sawyer was asleep across the hall. I could hear him snoring through the wall. He'd carried Abbott through a doorway tonight, set him on the grass, checked his vitals, and thirty minutes later, eaten half a sandwich, and told Julio how the movie ended.

I was on my back with my boots off and my eyes open, running the same sequence and landing in the same place every time.

"Is that a threat?"

"It's the opposite. I'm telling you before I tell anyone else. That's the only thing I can give you. Get help, Soren. If you do it yourself, you keep some control over what happens next."

Then he went home and got high. When the house caught fire, he stayed where he was. As if he wanted to off himself.

My phone rang on the mattress. Janine.

"Hey."

"Hey." She sounded wrung out. "Did I wake you?"

"No. Is everything okay?"

"I just wanted to hear your voice."

I smiled in the dark. I'd been lying there for an hour trying to talk myself out of calling her for the same reason.

"Long day," she said. "A lot of domestics today. I don't know if it's the weather or the full moon, but everyone was fighting."

"Any casualties?"

"One. Officers had to shoot him." She was quiet for a second. "How about yours?"

"Long."

"I'm glad you got Abbott out. That call solved a mystery I've been sitting on for months."

"What mystery?"

"Pocket dialers. We get them all the time. Someone accidentally calls 911, you pick up, there's no voice, just background noise, and the call drops. It happens." She shifted the phone. "But I've been getting them from the same area since September. Same pattern every time. Open line, someone breathing on the other end, and then they hang up. Different numbers, so I couldn't trace them back to one person. I flagged them, but there was never enough to send a unit."

"That was Linda Abbott?"