Chasing the Fire (Backdraft, Fully Involved, Flashover) by Kathryn Shay Page A

Jackson. He raised an
eyebrow.
    “What’s that chief?” Lisa Beth said. “You’re
breaking up.”
    “The hell I am. Duncan, I mean…”
    She clicked off.
    “I’m not lettin’ that bastard hurt a kid.”
Jackson thrust open the driver’s side door. Lisa Beth grabbed the
ALS bag out of the back of the medical truck. They rushed up the
sidewalk to the door. Knocked hard. “Open up. Police.”
    Silence inside. Then crying.
    McCabe eyed the door. “It looks flimsy. I can
kick it in.”
    Just then the door swung open. A huge man
with a beer gut, stinking of pot, holding a knife. “What the fuck…
You’re not five-o.” He pointed the weapon at them. “Get the fuck
out.”
    Lisa Beth, said, “Not a chance.”
    The guy started to move toward her, so she
braced her arms on the door frame and kicked him as hard as she
could in the balls. He crumpled to the ground, gurgling out
animal-like noises.
    Moaning and crying came from inside. “Find
the kid,” McCabe said. “I got the woman.”
    Sirens blared, signaling the police’s
arrival, but Lisa Beth ignored them. She rushed in the direction of
the crying sounds coming from the basement. “Jesus, a little girl’s
at the bottom of the cellar stairs.” Lisa Beth trundled down. “God
Almighty.”
    The child of about eight lay on the concrete
floor, wailing. Because both her legs were positioned at weird
angles, each with a raggedly broken bone sticking out, one bubbling
over with blood.
    oOo
    HIS INTERN BURST into the on-call
room, bringing Linc upright and instantly awake. “Kid coming in
with fractures in both legs and profuse bleeding.”
    Linc bounded off the cot and raced out of the
small sleeping space in the ER unit. Down the hall, two paramedics
were wheeling the stretcher. When he saw one was Lisa Beth and the
other was McCabe, the same guy who’d brought her in injured, he
gave her a brief nod and said, “Report, please.”
    “Child found at the bottom of the cellar
stairs while a domestic fight ensued on first floor.” McCabe spoke
neutrally, but Linc could tell he was corralling his anger. “Tibia
in right leg and fibula in the other are broken…” which Linc could
see. “We stemmed the bleeding with ice packs on the way over. My
guess is the poor kid has weak bones, anyway. That she’s suffering
from poor nutrition.”
    Linc turned to his intern. “Get her an X-ray,
stat.” To a nurse, he ordered, “Book an OR for surgery and take her
up there as soon as the scan’s done.” He looked at the paramedics.
“Walk with me up to the OR. Tell me what happened.”
    They flanked him.
    “We were called to a domestic-abuse
situation…” When Lisa Beth finished the story Linc stopped short.
“You went into all that without police protection?”
    “She didn’t need it.” McCabe chuckled as he
walked a few feet farther and pressed the elevator button. “She
crushed his balls with her foot when he lifted a knife to us.”
    “I held the kid all the way over.” Lisa
Beth’s voice was strained. “She whimpered and came in and out of
consciousness.”
    The elevator door opened and they rode up.
When they got out on the surgical floor, he turned to her. “If you
want, you can watch in the galley.”
    “Seriously?” She faced McCabe. “You think we
could?”
    “Sorry, I have a meeting at eight. You can
stay. We’ll be off duty by the time we get the truck back to the
house. You’ll need a ride to get your car, though.”
    Linc squeezed her arm and started into the
scrub room.
    “Linc?” He turned back. “Thanks.”
    He winked at her. “Thank you for putting that
bastard out of commission.”
    oOo
    HE WAS A miracle worker. She’d never
seen anyone so facile with his hands, so precise with his
movements, so quick in all of it. For four hours, she watched him
adjust the tibia and fibula of the child’s legs. Raze off
splintered bone. Reposition. Attach. Close up. When it was over,
her body was as tense as a strung wire, as if she’d