“If you want to sit up front now, be my guest. We need to get your temperature up, or you’ll be going to the ER.” Exiting the back, he sat shotgun with the EMT in the seat behind Fiona, who drove. She spent most of the ride asking questions about Angelina and Marc’s ceremony and reception, whether to pass the time or test his mental faculties, Tony wasn’t sure. She’d gotten to know Marc pretty well since he became an EMT at the station in January, but hadn’t been able to take off for the wedding.
The minutes seemed to pass like hours, and he stopped talking whenever he heard chatter on the radio, but so far no word had come in that the mother and toddler were out of the river. Finally, they reached the Division One area.
“I’m not shivering anymore. I need to get back to the ladder truck.”
Fiona told him what signs to watch for to indicate he might need further medical care, and he nodded. Stepping out of the ambulance, Tony surveyed the area to see where he might be needed. Brad had already retracted the ladder and Michael worked on putting away their equipment and cleaning up the scene.
Rafe was nowhere in sight. Tony was a little relieved until he spotted his brother talking with the battalion chief on the other side of the ladder truck. Tony’s heart pumped a little harder thinking about the chewing out he’d soon receive from Rafe and maybe the BC too. In an attempt to avoid his brother, he pitched in to help Michael.
As dusk set in without any word about the victims being found, the battalion chief called off the water search for the ladder company and ordered them back to the station. Tony wasn’t on duty and knew the SAR teams would continue searching the riverbanks until the victims were found. Maybe he could go out with them tonight to search. No way was he going to get any sleep until they were rescued.
Rafe approached the passenger side of the truck and stared silently at Tony, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Finally, he said to the three of them, “Let’s head back.”
Unable to speak past the lump of humiliation in his throat, Tony nodded. Without another word, Rafe took his place in the officer’s seat in the front of the cab. Tony sat in the rear-facing seat behind his brother, unable to look in his brother’s direction. Perhaps needing to have his own time to regroup, Michael also chose a rear-facing seat and stared out his window. Or was it that Michael couldn’t stand looking at Tony after that colossal screwup?
No one said anything on the ten-minute drive back to the station. Thank you, Jesus. He wasn’t ready to talk about it yet; everything was still too raw. He needed some time to process what happened—or didn’t happen—on his own first.
Would the rest of the crew join Rafe in blaming Tony for botching up the rescue? He’d tried to do all he could to save the stranded victims, but he’d failed. If Tony hadn’t been hanging out at the station when the tones dropped, would Michael and Rafe have been able to successfully rescue the two after heading out on the ladder, rather than having Tony in the mix?
Why hadn’t Tony instructed the woman about backup plans and the safety ropes downstream as he was approaching her via the ladder? If she’d known there were safety lines stretched across the river at regular intervals, would she have been able to grab on to one of them? However, he hadn’t wanted to frighten the already terrified woman even further. Undoubtedly, rescue personnel shouted for her to grab onto ropes as she passed them, but he knew firsthand how loud the water was and that he hadn’t been able to hear their shouts to him.
Damn! He’d been so damned sure he’d be able to get them both off that roof safely. If only he hadn’t let go of the woman’s hand.
You were knocked into the damned water.
Okay. Realistically, she wouldn’t have known what he was talking about anyway if he’d tried to tell her about the lines downriver. And with hypothermia setting in, her reaction times would have been too slow and her grip too weak even if she had been able to latch on to one.
Maybe if he’d tossed the mother the vest before jumping onto the vehicle’s roof, she could have at least put it on before the tree trunk slammed into the RAV4.
You had her in your hand, for Christ’s sake!
All he’d had to do was pull her in, but she’d slipped from his grasp the instant the small SUV had been struck. Hell, the whole thing had happened in the blink of an eye, from the point where he’d jumped from the ladder onto the roof to when Tony had grabbed the safety line and abandoned his part in the rescue.
But it played out much more slowly in his mind’s eye now.
Back at the station, Tony returned to the kitchen to warm up the minestrone and pull out bowls, telling the guys it would be ready in fifteen minutes. Rafe went into his office and closed the door.
Shivering again, Tony grabbed a change of clothes from his locker and took a hot shower while the soup reheated. When he returned to the kitchen, Michael was at the stove ladling out two bowls. He handed one to Tony. “Rafe’s just worried about what might have happened if you hadn’t grabbed the line in time.”
Tony nodded, not wanting to encourage further discussion. Everyone working this shift—except Rafe—joined him at the table. All ate silently. Tony continued to listen for word that the mother and her daughter had been found alive, but
