Fade the Heat by Colleen Thompson

vehicles carrying medical and support staff, families and friends of patients, emergency crews, and local media. Some Friday and Saturday nights, a visitor might mistake the scene for a street festival.
    As Reagan left the parking garage, she pulled up short to let two women, both wearing scrubs beneath their jackets, cross in front of her car. They were smiling, their hands animating what appeared to be a friendly conversation. One of them paused to sip a steaming, overpriced beverage from what must be an all-night coffee shop.
    It was the type of scene she had seen a thousand times, ten thousand maybe, and yet tonight, it smacked her as surreal.
    “It doesn’t seem right,” she said to Jack. “How can they go about their lives as if everything’s normal, when the captain’s inside, maybe dying, and your life’s been turned upside down?”
    “I know what you mean,” he said. “But you and I both see people hurt and suffering, sometimes worse, in our jobs. All the while, we stand at the edges of their nightmares, going about our normal lives.”
    As they made their way toward the Heights, Reagan wondered what “normal life” would be after today, and whether she had been wrong to slip away from her crew and Donna in the hospital. Perhaps Jack was thinking along equally somber lines, for he didn’t speak except to give directions to his mother’s house when they reached her neighborhood.
    “I really appreciate the lift,” he added as they turned the corner. “Damn it all. Look at that!”
    Reagan pulled over, her eyes focusing on a half-dozen vans and pickups parked in front of a neat one-story bungalow. Even from half a block away, she could make out the logos of a couple of television stations.
    Jack swore again. “I was afraid of this. What I’d give to know who the hell leaked my mother’s address to those vultures.”
    Backing around the corner, Reagan drove past another vehicle and made her way out of eyeshot of the news crews.
    “Do you know where you’re heading?” he asked. “There’s a half-decent motel off of—”
    “Stay at my place,” she offered. “I have a guest room and an extra bed.”
    “Do you think that’s a good idea, Reagan?”
    Something in his tone made her stomach feel as if it had just fallen through the floorboards, especially when she glanced over and noticed the intensity of his regard. Shaking off her misgivings, she said, “Why not? You’ve just lost everything you own, so you don’t need to spend the money on a room you won’t be using more than a few hours anyway. I’m going right back to the hospital, so we won’t…we won’t be tripping over each other. And besides, you can feed Frank Lee and take him out in the morning so I won’t have to ask Miss Peaches to do it. She usually works late, and she gets a little testy if I call her before noon.”
    Not only that, but after a long night spent photographing murder scenes, accident sites, and the occasional autopsy for the Harris County medical examiner’s office, Peaches was likely to show up needing a shave—of her chest hair, which she invariably left exposed by some sort of low-cut top.
    “What kind of name is Miss Peaches?”
    Reagan snorted at the thought of Jack picturing an old-fashioned Southern girl. “That information’s strictly on a need-to-know basis,” she answered, not wanting to get into it. “Let’s just say she’s a nice neighbor lady who spoils Frank Lee when I’m gone.”
    “You said before he’s a therapy dog of some kind?”
    She nodded, momentarily distracted. “Yeah, we make weekly visits to a nursing home nearby. It’s the only thing besides a crowbar that’ll get the big lummox off my furniture.”
    Once they reached her house, Reagan took Jack inside through the back door, which led into her kitchen. Gesturing toward the fridge and pantry, she said, “You’re probably hungry. Help yourself to anythingyou see. I’m going to wake up my fabulous watchdog and take him