Sweet Southern Nights. Liz Talley

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      The chief leveled bushy eyebrows at Eva. “I’m not assuming command, but I’ll send Martin next door to clear the apartment.”

      “I can go,” Eva said.

      “No, you stay here with Ms....”

      “Glory Mitchell,” the woman managed, wiping her eyes with one hand.

      “Ms. Mitchell,” the chief repeated, glancing back at Eva. “Take care of things here, Eva. Thanks.” The chief walked away before Eva could protest. She snapped her mouth shut, tamping down the sour taste of disappointment.

      Over her shoulder, she heard Jake burst into Glory’s apartment using the battering ram. The older woman sucked in an injured breath before moaning and turned away. Her threadbare cotton robe swished against the tall hitchhiker grass peppering the yard.

      “Oh, Jesus, they broke the door,” Glory said, her shoulders shaking. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe this.”

      “It’ll be okay, Ms. Mitchell. You’re safe, and that’s most important. Doors can be fixed.”

      The older woman nodded, trying to staunch the emotion shaking her.

      “So, can you tell me what happened?” Eva asked.

      “When I saw those curtains on fire, I grabbed Kiki and we ran out the back door. She had her phone so I called 911.”

      “Very smart, Ms. Mitchell,” Eva said, taking the older woman’s elbow and moving her back toward the sprawling mimosa tree on the edge of the yard. Seemed like the only thing that grew on the hardscrabble lot. Glory shuffled back, but her eyes remained fixed on the apartment building.

      Captain Sorrento released the valves, and water started pumping out of the blue hose strapped to the ladder and the red hose Jake had dragged in through the front door.

      “Ms. Mitchell, do you have any idea what may have sparked this fire?” Eva asked, placing a gentle hand on Glory’s shoulder.

      “I don’t rightly know. I was cooking breakfast, and Kiki was in the bathroom. You do somethin’, Kiki?”

      The girl shook her head but her gaze slid away.

      “Then I heard Kiki start screaming.”

      “So you don’t know where the fire started?”

      Glory shook her head.

      “Uh, the bedroom. I think,” Kiki said. “I mean, there was this, uh, lighter sittin’ on the dresser.”

      Glory stiffened. “What’s a lighter doin’ in you and your mama’s room?”

      “Ms. Quita gave Mama a candle that smells like peaches. She been lighting it at night so our room don’t smell like feet,” Kiki said, her voice almost a whisper.

      Glory grabbed Kiki’s shoulder, pulling her toward her. “Girl, did you start this? Did you?”

      “No, Ma Glory,” Kiki said, whipping her head back and forth. “I didn’t do nothin’. Mama lit the candle last night but she blew it out. I think. I don’t know. I just saw that lighter. That’s all.”

      “Don’t make no sense,” Glory said, anger crackling in her voice even as she released the girl. “A lighter don’t suddenly light itself.”

      “I opened the window,” the girl said.

      “Why you do that?”

      Kiki swiped an arm across her nose and stuck out her chin. “I was hot. We ain’t had no air-conditioning in a long time and I don’t wanna go to school sweaty. That’s all I did. I only told this lady the lighter was there ’cause there’s fluid in it that catches fire, right?” The girl looked at Eva.

      “That’s right,” Eva said, scanning the area. A few residents of Spring Street had gathered, all in various state of morning dress, some holding coffee cups. Nothing like a fire to bring out lookyloos.

      Eva flinched when she saw a Magnolia Bend Police cruiser lurch to a stop behind the snorkel truck. Funny how every time she saw one of the town’s finest stepping from a police car, she tensed for a confrontation. Her break up with Officer Chase Grider was recent enough to still make her uncomfortable.

      Thankfully, it wasn’t Chase but his brother Cole.

      Eva excused herself, radioed the point of origin to the captain and went to Engine One to get the prefire plan binder so she could start the on-scene report. Hank was still busy running the fire, which looked to be knocked down, while Moon was at the back of the engine, pulling out the positive pressure fan to clear the smoke and blow some good air inside the still-smoking apartment.

      Bobby John Crow, the department’s fire investigator, pulled in behind the police cruiser, meeting Cole, who held a coffee from the Short Stop. Bobby John’s motto was that every fire was potential arson. Eva had argued with him about it once, to which Bobby John had flipped a beer bottle cap and declared it was his job to prove it wasn’t.

      Whatever. Wasn’t her job.

      Jake came trudging out, still on his tank, tugging the red hose. Moon had already cut off the blue one. Acrid smoke hung in the air like a persistent salesman, and the apartment building looked forlorn and lost.

      “Morning, fellas,” Bobby John said as he approached the engine. Eva grabbed the binder and stood, nearly bumping her head on the top of the engine. Bobby John made a face. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t see it was you.”

      But he had known damn well it was Eva bent over in Engine One.

      He was the only guy who took pleasure in needling Eva about being a female firefighter. Yeah, Jake teased, but he respected her. And Dutch was just old-school and found it hard to step outside the social mores he’d been raised with. But Bobby John outright didn’t like the fact Eva had been hired— period. She’d overheard him once tell Dutch she was a token, that women didn’t belong in the department. He also hadn’t let go of the fact that when he’d hit on her the first night she was in town, she’d shot him down.

      Eva turned, shapeless beneath her gear, her dark wavy hair concealed under her helmet. “Easy mistake, since you don’t get to see the female form that often.”

      “Ouch,” he said, the smile not quite reaching his cold blue eyes. “What’ve we got here?”

      “I think you’ll find your origin in the back bedroom. Ten to one, the curtains blew into a lit candle, but the residents are over there.” She pointed toward Glory and Kiki, who were now talking to a few neighbors.

      Bobby John’s gaze flitted over her face, lingering a bit too long on her lips. For the umpteenth time in her life, Eva wished she was plain.

      Yeah. Most girls wanted to be dainty and pretty.

      Not Eva. Because being small and attractive wasn’t a plus when a gal was fighting for equality in a nontraditional occupation for women. She figured if she’d been born country-strong with a blockier form and a jutting jawline, she’d probably have climbed СКАЧАТЬ