The following day was just about the last thing Mike needed—slow. After a 9 AM call to put out an abandoned burning shed, he had cleaned the fire engine, eaten a snack, and swept the floor, hoping that once one task was completed, another one would immediately show up. Or maybe those doggone klaxons would be so kind as to call for them.
No luck.
"Hey Mike, if you'd like to read the paper, I'm just about done." Cap scanned a JC Penney ad before moving on to the sports section.
Mike was trying to stay busy by rearranging the spices in the cabinet. He'd already tried organizing by type, color, and alphabetical order, but the alarm had yet to sound, and he dreaded being idle. Or being anywhere near the Los Angeles Times.
"Thanks, Cap, but—" he paused, thinking of the best way to put it without arousing suspicion, "I'm kind of busy right now. You can go ahead and pass it off to Roy. I'll read it later."
"You sure?" Cap looked over the top of the paper at his restless coworker.
"Yeah, I'm sure." When he had finished arranging the spices for the umpteenth time, he decided to clean out the refrigerator, looking for foods that had been long forgotten. He opened the door and removed each bottle, jar, and Tupperware, checking both the contents and the expiration date before putting it back in the fridge or leaving it out for disposal. It wasn't fun, but it kept his mind off of everything else.
When Cap finished with the sports section, he refolded the paper and handed it to Roy. He looked to Mike and watched him lift the lid of a Tupperware container and sniff the contents before resealing the lid and placing it back in the refrigerator. Something was most definitely not right.
"Mike," he said at last, "forgive me if I'm prying, but is something bothering you?"
"I'm fine," Mike replied, setting out a moldy jar of pickle relish.
"You're certain?"
"Yeah. I'm just trying to keep busy, that's all."
Cap weighed his options. He felt fairly certain that Mike was hiding something, and as captain, he wanted to be a resource to the others. However, there was the chance that he was reading too far into a bad day, and even if something was wrong, he couldn't force Mike to talk. He opened his mouth to speak, but his words were drowned out by the klaxons. Something big was going on.
The entire station jumped into action, getting into their uniforms and jumping into the vehicles. Both the engine and the squad were soon at the scene of a horrendous fire at a warehouse. The building was glowing a molten red, while hysteric onlookers and escapees stood by crying and shrieking for help. Other stations had already been called to the scene and were battling the blaze.
At last the fire was extinguished, and police and paramedics had helped to calm and diminish the crowd. Ambulances took away burn victims, and the fireman set to pack up their equipment and return to their respective stations. The local television station had arrived, seeking interviews with police and onlookers. Seeing this made Mike uneasy, and he picked up the pace, wanting to leave before the people from the newspapers showed up.
"What a blaze!" said Chet, wiping sweat from his forehead. "I kind of preferred the lack of action we had earlier."
"I'm not used to having all of this time," replied Marco. "Usually it's one thing after another."
Mike tended to the hose, wishing the others would hurry up. They had work to do! He had a refrigerator to tend to! They needed to hurry back to the station in case something else caught on fire!
He was just about done with the hose when a polite, professional voice broke through his thoughts.
"Excuse me. Could you point me to your captain?"
Mike turned around and suddenly felt as he had been socked in the gut. He leaned against the fire engine, concerned that he might lose his balance. He stared back at the person, flabbergasted, surprised, dizzy.
Renee!