No Ordinary Day (17 page)

Then he took off his glove and turned to Sue. “We won’t be able to stay in the house tonight,” he said, running his hand over her tangled hair. “That whole area of town is a controlled zone; there’s no power or running water, even if the house is still standing. Find a Red Cross worker—you’ll know them by the badge, of course—and get directed to putting your name on the list for shelter. Be careful—it’s chaos all over town, especially between here and the west end of Tree Hill Park, but that’s where a lot of the aid workers are.”

Susan nodded and put her hand over his, resting it against her cheek for a long moment.

“We are blessed,” she whispered.

“Sure are,” Dave said. “I love you. Forever and ever, honey. Give Sarah lots of kisses for me, and have a good ride to the hospital.”

Then he kissed his wife and baby daughters, put his helmet back on, and returned to the trenches of Hell.

‡

5:33
PM

A
s the ambulances
began to pull away one by one, carrying each of the girls and the parent accompanying her to Medical Emergency Center in Emmettsville to be checked over, Sergeant Evans came over to Lucy Sullivan.

It took him a few moments to find her, because she was wrapped in a Red Cross blanket, her curly long hair hidden from view.

“Miss Sullivan?”

Lucy didn’t appear to hear him. Her face was blank, her eyes locked on the emergency vehicles, each one bearing a child she loved away from the nightmare they had all survived.

Together.

Even though the logical part of her brain was not really functioning, the thought that passed through her mind was that somehow this had bonded the girls to each other for life.

And all of them to her as well.

I’m going to worry about them forever now,
she thought.

“Ma’am?”

She said nothing.

“Ma’am,” Ace said quietly, “who do you have here waiting for you?”

After a few moments, she blinked.

“No one,” she said. Her voice was hollow.

“No family in town?” the soldier pressed.

“No family, period.” As the flashing lights of the last of ambulances disappeared into the darkness, she sighed and let her head drop. “Lost my mom when I was twelve, my dad four years ago—at least he got to see me graduate from college with my Masters—first one in the family. Then the last one, my grandmother, last year. So, no one. On the bright side—at least there was no one worrying about me the way so many of these folks are worrying. But thanks for asking.”

“Let me get you someone from the Red Cross—”

Lucy’s head snapped up and she glared at him. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“OK,” said Sergeant Evans.

He turned quickly and disappeared.

Lucy returned to watching the rescue workers—the National Guardsmen in their fatigues, the Red Cross aides with their symbol on their arms and chests, and the firefighters from the Obergrande volunteer companies scrambling like ants, moving with surprising organization through the wreckage that had once been her adopted hometown. She tried to form a coherent thought, to make a determination about where to go next, what to do, but her mind seemed to be filled with the heavy mist through which the helicopter had lifted her.

A moment later, a gentle nudge at her elbow brought her around again.

Ace stood in front of her once more, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand.

“Please drink this, ma’am,” he said. “Sorry it isn’t Jameson’s.”

Lucy snorted wryly.
“Ma’am?
What is it with you and ‘ma’am’? How old are you, Sergeant?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Well, you’re two years older than me. ‘Ma’am’ seems a little over the top, wouldn’t you say?”

The soldier shrugged, but a fragment of a smile touched the corner of his mouth, a mouth that Lucy had first noticed was sensual and pleasant when he was staring in her car window the night before, his upper lip shaped like Cupid’s bow.

“Standard operating procedure, ma’—er, Miss Sullivan.”

Lucy eyed him humorously, a little bit of light coming back into her eyes. She took a deep swig of the coffee.

“Even ‘Miss Sullivan’ seems a little formal, given that I know you’ve seen my boobs from above today at least once, and you had your hand on my butt and up my skirt, or at least on my thigh, when you pulled me into the helicopter, Sergeant,” she said jokingly, holding the Styrofoam cup in both hands and trying to keep the blanket from falling off her. “You could probably get away with calling me ‘Lucy,’ I think.”

“Sorry, Miss Sullivan,” Ace said solemnly. “I’m on duty.”

Lucy nodded. “Ah. I see. Well, I’m glad groping my caboose and my thigh was something you were allowed to do while on duty, but calling me ‘Lucy’ isn’t.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She drank the rest of the coffee.

“There’s some intake information the Red Cross needs, if you feel up to giving it,” the young soldier pressed carefully. “Just information about your residence, your car—”

“Oh crap,” Lucy said, desperation rising in her voice, “did the flood get my
car,
too?”

“Was it in the faculty parking lot?”

“Yessss,” Lucy said faintly.

Sergeant Evans cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Lucy closed her eyes. “What about my house?”

The soldier reached into his gear and pulled out a folded map of town.

“Where’s your house?”

“Second Street,” Lucy whispered, her voice almost gone. “River side of the street.”

Sergeant Evans opened the map and consulted it in the beam of his flashlight. “Second street is borderline. Maybe yes, maybe no.”

“Can we go there?” Lucy asked desperately. “My—oh, no, Sadie—my cat—omigod—”

“It’s a controlled zone at the moment,” the soldier said uncomfortably. “No admittance, except for rescue workers. I’m sorry, Miss Sullivan.”

“Sergeant,
please,”
Lucy begged. “Sadie is my only family. Please.”

Ace looked uncomfortable. “Uhmm—”

Lucy did not have to try to look pathetic; her eyes had already filled with tears and her chin was quivering.

Sergeant Evans exhaled in defeat.

“Can you show me a driver’s license or some sort of ID that proves you live on Second Street?” he asked, looking around so as not to be overheard.

“I—yes! I took my wallet out of the classroom with me!” Lucy said, her hopes rising. “It’s—it’s around here somewhere—”

Sergeant Evans cleared his throat again, rumbling deeper this time.

“Was it that
plop
from a falling object as you were being lifted into the helicopter?”

Lucy felt quickly in her bra, finding it empty of anything but what it was meant to hold. She sank to the ground in a flood of tears and a cyclone of curse words.

Ace cleared his throat again. He crouched down in front of her.

“Well, I think I saw your wallet—at least for a moment—so I guess I can take you into the zone. I have to check in with Colonel Genovese, and my commanding officer from my unit—we’re deployed for rescue, though I expect they may reassign me to the dam tomorrow. It may be a while before I can get back to you tonight, but, if you want to wait, I’ll come back. Without fail.”

“Well, I had big plans for a night on the town, but I suppose I can make room on my dance card for you, since you’ve been so accommodating, Sergeant,” Lucy said, a sour note in her voice.

Ace smiled. “I’m honored, ma’am. If you get help or shelter from the Red Cross, or need to go somewhere else, no problem. I will have plenty to do here if you need to leave the dance early.”

Lucy looked at him and felt a sudden swell of remorse rise inside her. She had displayed a wide range of emotions that day, many of them ugly, and in response he had been unfailingly pleasant. She cleared her throat.

“No, I’ll wait. My dad always told me to dance with the one that brung you, and let him take you home. So, since you brung me, and are probably the only one I know who’s willing, and authorized, to take me to my house, I guess I’ll just be patient.”

The Sergeant’s slight smile widened, and he nodded. “All right. Get something to eat and drink, and stay warm as you can,” he advised. “I’ll grab you another cup of coffee, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He rose as smoothly as she had seen him do the night before, and melted into the dark.

‡

7:16
PM

L
ucy pulled the
blanket higher up around her neck and took another sip of her second cup of coffee, lukewarm now. She watched the scenes, some happy, of parents and children being reunited, or sad, parents desperately searching for unaccounted-for kids, most of whom had stayed home that day. As far as she could tell, all of the kids who had been in the building had been successfully rescued.

She glanced at one point to her right and saw a mother huddled with two children on her lap, both boys, it seemed, hugging them tightly and staring blankly off into the coming night.

Lucy squinted in the dark, then allowed the beam of her flashlight to brush across them, as all the emergency lights were routinely doing.

And smiled.

The woman on the ground was Mrs. Burlingame, whom she had threatened with hair pulling to Mrs. Cox the day before, with both her sons, Garrett and Devin.

Safe, and grateful.

She was grateful herself just to be out of the ever-present water in the school building.

Her tired mind wandered back a few hours to the memory of the young Sergeant standing in the window just before he began his series of climbs up and down the outside wall, and shook her head in amazement. The dark eyes were like searchlights, almost looking through her, the mouth that was haunting her thoughts, making her own lips buzz—there was no doubt that Ace Evans was pretty to look at.

She shook her head to drive out the memory of how his body looked as he stood in the window, the strong neck above heavily muscled arms and shoulders, a waist that tapered down into the turnout gear. She had not gotten a clear view of anything below his waist, swallowed as it was in the heavy rubber fire pants and suspenders, but she could only imagine what his legs must look like, legs that had strode without difficulty through deep flood waters, carrying three children on his broad back, or rappelling repeatedly up and down the exterior wall of the school, taking each of the five girls, and her, to safety.

And now he was back in the command of his unit, being deployed elsewhere in the suffering town.

Lucy’s brain told her she should feel weak, outclassed, but her mind was too tired to care.

“Lucy?” The voice, craggy and exhausted, came from the air above her. “Lucy Sullivan?”

Lucy looked up.

Eleanor Preston, the ninety-two-year-old town historian, was standing above her, resting both hands on her cane and staring down at her sympathetically.

She started to rise, but Eleanor put up her hand.

“Well, you’ve had quite the day, I hear. Can I get you anything?” the historian asked. “More coffee? Something to eat?”

Lucy shook her head. “Thanks, Eleanor—I’m all right.”

“You’re an East-sider, aren’t you?”

Lucy nodded. “Second Street.”

Eleanor exhaled. “I’ll pray for you. Have you found a place to stay?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. Don’t know if I need one.”

The elderly lady’s brows drew together, and she chuckled in her famous rasp.

“Oh, you’ll need one, all right,” she said, causing Lucy’s stomach to cramp. “Whether the flood got your house or not, there’s no electricity on that side of town. You’d best be prepared to bug out to higher ground.”

Lucy’s head came to rest on her knees, suddenly too tired to remain upright.

Just then, several news reporters approached in a jangle of harsh words and voices that were clearly not from Obergrande. They had been traveling back and forth across the fields and the west side of Tree Hill Park all day, documenting and reporting on the flood, trying to stop busy firefighters who waved them away before the reporters could get an interview, or attempting to speak to dazed victims, in one case almost causing a fist fight between a cameraman and a grieving husband.