20. Patrick

Em chewed on one temple tip of her glasses. Her eyes were locked on mine; tiny, unwavering orbs of fixation where nothing—and no one—hoped for escape. The fingernails of her off hand strummed against the Formica of her desktop. Her legs were crossed, and the toes pointing accusingly in my direction bobbed as she waggled her leg back and forth.

None of this was good.

"So, progress?" she asked, needing no explanation or preamble.

"I did the ride-along day, learned a lot about the daily routine of the station."

Her foot wagging quickened. One brow peaked.

My head bowed. "Nothing on … the other thing."

Her glasses skidded across her desk as she tossed them aside and clasped her hands in her lap. Something about the way her fingers interlaced and lost all color warned me about thin ice ahead.

"I bought you one extra week. That means your story is due next Tuesday. You have eight days to discover whatever there is to discover before the other people do and write your story. Demmit will want full citations and thorough background. You'll need to be airtight here."

I nodded. "I know—"

"No, you don't." She unclasped her hands, unfurled her legs, and leaned forward, a clear command for me to do the same. I rolled my chair so we were staring at each other across a football pitch of inches. Her voice was a husky whisper. "You nail this, and your career is on its way. You miss even one step, leave one stone unturned, mess up one fact, and you'll be writing about the dearth of dog poop bags at public parks for the rest of your life."

My nod was frantic, almost panicked.

She pointed her index finger, nearly stabbing me with a well-filed nail. "Get your perky little butt to that station and find me something we can print."

I nodded again, almost bumping her forehead. "On it. Right now. Thanks, Em."

Her eyes smoothed, just a tad, at the use of her pet name, then hardened back to diamond-crusted orbs. "Now."

I pushed back with my legs, wheeling my chair like a rocket launching. Its back slammed into my desk so loudly reporters seated nearby startled, one jumping from her seat with a squeal.

"Sorry," I said, offering a sheepish wave before turning to my phone and typing furiously.

Me:Hey, you. Any chance I could do another visit?

The school-style clock on the wall near my desk ticked so loudly, I thought it might hop off the wall and run away. Finally, a dozen minutes of staring at the screen later, the dots wiggled. I leaned forward, as if proximity to my screen would speed up Dane's response.

Walkman:I don't see why not. Cap gave you permission but let me ask again. It's been a really busy morning. Monday commute sucks.

Me:Great. Thanks.

The Atlanta commute sucked for everyone, but I'd never really thought about it from a first responder's perspective. They had to clean up all the messes we made. Getting assigned a Monday shift must make anyone in uniform groan.

With nothing to do but wait, I decided to YouTube videos on fire station procedures, see if I could learn how and where they kept records of things like expired drugs. Did they destroy those themselves? Was there a central repository? Was there even a formal procedure, or did each station handle things in their own way?

Twenty minutes later, I'd struck out, finding plenty of day-in-the-life videos posted by firemen encouraging young people to consider a career in public service but little on actual procedures or record keeping. YouTube was great for education and entertainment, not so much for nerding out on paperwork.

My phone buzzed. I nearly fumbled grabbing it off the desk.

Walkman:Cap says you're okay to visit today. What time were you thinking?

Me:Now?

Walkman:Eager beaver this morning? Come on over. If we get a call, you can just hang out in the den and watch TV.

Me:See you soon.

I popped out of my chair, holding my phone in the air as if to light up the room with its glow. I'd made it two strides when I realized I'd left my pad. I turned back, grabbed it off the desk, and stepped away again. This time I made it to the door before feeling the empty spiral of my pad where my pen should've been. I loped back to my desk and grabbed my pen. As I stepped into the sunlight, headed toward my car, I realized my keys were still on my desk.

"Dammit!" I wheeled about, nodding at the desk guard who stared curiously at the idiot exiting and reentering while cursing.

Em chuckled and stared over the top of her glasses when I passed her desk, scooped up my keys, and walked out for what felt like the forty-second time.

The station was oddly quiet as I stepped through the side door and into the garage. Neither the truck nor the ambulance was present. I strode toward the stairs, past a long stainless steel counter attached along the length of one wall—the counter where I'd seen Alex checking bottles when I'd visited the first time. The counter glistened, empty and clean. There was no sign of medicine or EMT kits. The garbage bins beneath were also empty.

"So much for finding bottles lying about," I muttered, teasing myself for thinking this could be easy. When I glanced up to the stairwell entrance, a middle-aged Asian man in the dark blue of Atlanta's finest stared with crossed arms. I startled, and he asked, "Looking for something?"

"Uh, not really, no. Sorry, Captain Zhang, I just got here. Guess I wasn't expecting things to be so quiet."

"You're Dane's reporter?"

Something grinned within my chest at being referred to as Dane's, though I kept my expression neutral. "I'm with the AJC, yes, sir."

He nodded slowly. "The teams just left. Medical call. You're welcome to wait in the lounge. If they get waved off, they'll be back soon. If they have to work the scene, who knows?"

I stepped up and offered a hand to shake. "Thank you, sir. I'll stay out of your way."

He took my hand in a firm grip. "Good. There's old coffee in the pot. Help yourself."

He turned to climb the stairs, but I didn't move.

"Uh, sir. Would you mind if I looked around down here? I didn't get much time in the garage last time. For a guy who grew up playing with fire trucks, this whole place is … it's really cool."

"Knock yourself out. Just don't mess with any equipment. We have sharp things that bite." Zhang chuckled. "And trust me, we know how cool all this is. We're just big kids playing with trucks and ladders."

It was clear why Dane liked his captain so much. Zhang was solid, but he had a sense of humor and playfulness that likely went over well with his rowdy bunch of firefighters. I almost regretted fooling him into leaving me alone so I could snoop.

Almost, but not quite. I was a reporter, after all. Snooping was as much my job as playing with ladders and trucks was his.

The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut, and I immediately began scanning the walls. The place was meticulously neat. Tall red metal cabinets stood at intervals along one wall. They looked like tool lockers I'd seen at Home Depot a few weeks back, except these were labeled with neatly printed tags, indicating various truck or equipment parts contained within.

Several of the support beams stretching from floor to ceiling in the garage's center sported round spinning devices containing tightly rolled hoses. I stepped closer and bent down, finding that each could be easily removed.

"Huh, extra hoses."

I made my way along the far wall next to where the ambulance usually parked. There were spare medical kits, some looking like duffel bags, while others were little more than backpacks emblazoned with a medical logo.

Then something shiny caught my eye, and I turned back to the stainless steel counter. It was still empty and smooth, polished to a sheen a dentist would envy. Scanning its length, I noticed several large ring binders at the far end, held upright by a miniature fire hydrant that looked like a kid's coin bank. On closer inspection, I found a note taped to the hydrant that read, "Swear Jar: Drop a coin if you go a full day without swearing. That's not fucking natural."

Fireman humor. I had to laugh.

The first binder's label was faded, but I could make out part of the word "Procedures" printed near the bottom. The second was marked "Oxygen Tanks," which I assumed was a record of the filling and refilling of their back tanks Dane had called "bottles." The third binder's tag made my pulse race. "Expiry Check" was printed in bold Arial font. I listened for the captain, then grabbed the binder and laid it open on the cold counter.

Column headers read: Date, Item, Assigned To, Expiry Date, Inspector, and Initials. Along the far right was a column to itself, a line of checkboxes titled, "Disposal Confirmed." Red all-cap lettering across the bottom of each page read, DISPOSE OF PARAPHERNALIA IN APPROPRIATELY MARKED CONTAINERS ONLY.

I glanced back under the counter to find a bin I hadn't seen before. It was plastic, like those one might see in a doctor's examination room, with the little flap on top that closed once an item was dropped inside. On the front of the bin was the familiar biohazard symbol, three plant-like things sprouting away from each other, their trunks meeting in the center. If that wasn't clear enough, the word "BIOHAZARD" was printed beneath the symbol.

Curious, I reached down and shook the bin. It weighed almost nothing, and only a few bottles rattled.

Returning to the binder, I flipped to the pages with the most recent entries. Only a few notes were made for each date, which made sense. Some days, there were no entries, only a date, a notation with "None" scrawled where the "Item" would've been filled in, a printed name, and initials. I thought about it a moment, flipping through the prior weeks, seeing the same pattern of entries and non-entries. It made sense. Only a few would expire on any given day. There shouldn't be pages filled with entries.

What also made sense was how the "Inspector" appeared to rotate. Alex Bennet was listed more than any other name, but Burton , Samantha, Dane, and several others I didn't recognize were also present, indicating they'd performed the daily inspection on various days. I tried to remember what Dane had told me about these inspections on my first visit. He hadn't dwelled on them, simply mentioned Alex was performing the task as we passed by. I had the impression that Alex had primary responsibility for maintaining the med kits, despite Sami being the EMT on the team. In the context of Dane being assigned to handle the routine checks on the bottles or Burton inspecting the battery-powered equipment, everything appeared well ordered.

Footfalls above snapped my gaze to the ceiling. The captain—or some other person I hadn't thought would be present—was moving about. My heart nearly skipped a beat.

Thinking quickly, I grabbed my phone and began snapping pictures of the log's pages, not really paying attention to the entries. When I'd photographed two months of pages, I closed the binder and shoved it back into place, careful to line it up with the others, though I doubted anyone would look that closely.

The upstairs door squealed. Heavy boots slapped against metal stairs.

I stepped to a wall where axes and other tools hung, holding my hand out as if to grasp a handle.

"No touching." Zhang's voice echoed throughout the empty garage. "If you're a good boy, I'll give you a plastic fireman badge before you leave. We might even have some candy upstairs."

The smirk on his lips matched the one in his voice.

I grinned. "That would be total awesomeness, Mr. Fireman."

He laughed, a genuine, rich sound, free of guile. "I bet you give Dane shit non-stop."

Something caught in my throat. What had that meant? Did he know about Dane and me? Our dating—or whatever it was—was so out of bounds. Maybe it wasn't as bad for him, but as a reporter, I was supposed to be objective and neutral, above playing favorites or getting involved with my sources.

Was Dane still a source? I hadn't really asked him about anything related to my story. All he'd done was make an introduction. Technically, Zhang was my source. He'd given permission for my visit. He'd unintentionally given me permission to snoop too.

So Dane wasn't a source? Was I rationalizing? Probably. Did I care? Not one bit.

I suddenly felt the weight of professional guilt lift from my shoulders and drift toward the ceiling.

"You still in there?" Zhang asked, his brows bunched.

"Oh, sorry." I chuckled awkwardly. "I get inside my own head sometimes. Mind if I take you up on that coffee now?"

Now it was Zhang's turn to chuckle. "I just had some of the sludge myself. It's thick enough to cut. You might grow hair on your chest or catch your balls dragging the ground."

I blinked. My balls?

He laughed again and motioned for me to follow. "Come on, let's get you some java."

"Dane and I barely spent five minutes together before the next tone sounded. It's like the whole city decided to pull a fire alarm today. The poor team looked exhausted."

I'd made it back to the office around four thirty to find Emily munching on a sandwich at her desk. Except for days when she took me to a restaurant or had a meeting with a source, she rarely ate lunch at a reasonable time. It amused me how she cut the crust off the bread before assembling her meal. That was my favorite part.

She chewed slowly and glanced around the newsroom. Most of the desks were empty, but a few of our fellow newsies remained, pecking away at keyboards or talking quietly on phones.

"So, what did you find? I can see it in your eyes. You're excited about something."

I wheeled my chair up to her desk and held out my phone.

She peered down, scowling as though I'd just squashed a bug and asked her to eat it. "What am I looking at, Patrick? The writing on that screen is tiny, and my eyes aren't what they used to be."

That was hogwash. She was as keen as ever—and her eyes and ears might as well have been those of a hawk and hound. I knew her glasses weren't even prescription. She wore them for show.

I bit back a retort and blew up the image on my screen. "These are the logbooks in the station. It's how they record the expirations."

"And destructions?"

"That's where they indicate they threw the item out." I nodded, pointing at the column of checkboxes.

She leaned down, then popped back upright. "How do they destroy them?"

"There's a bin. It looks like a sharps container at a doctor's office. They toss them in there."

She took a bite of sandwich and waved it in the air. "Then what? Where does that container go? How often? Who handles it? Who has access to it?"

My chair groaned as I sat back. "That I don't know. This was all I got today. The captain almost caught me—"

"Shh," she hissed, darting forward, her eyes snapping about. "Don't say things like that loud enough to be overheard. It sounds juicy, like you were doing something you weren't supposed to. Nothing will excite these rabid dogs more than to see you waving raw meat around."

I blanched.

"I am not referring to your actual raw meat, Patrick. Please."

"I didn't think—"

"I am well aware … and very used to that." She tossed the last bite into her mouth and swiped her hands together to clean off the crumbs. "We need answers to those questions. We also need to know if there are any patterns that repeat in that logbook."

"Okay, I'll start on that now."

"Good. I have a meeting with a very handsome massage therapist. I expect progress when I see you tomorrow."

"Massage therapist?" I couldn't stop my mouth from moving.

She smirked, grabbed her purse, and stood. "Yes, Patrick, a massage therapist. Every book needs a happy ending, and I intend to get mine in about thirty minutes."

My head reeling from that mental image I'd likely never be able to scrub from my brain, I wheeled back to my desk and plugged my iPhone into a stand next to my PC. A moment later, the photos I'd taken had been downloaded onto my hard drive, and the printer whirred as it spat printed versions into its plastic tray.

Two months' worth of logbooks didn't sound like much, but it consumed nearly fifty sheets of paper. I banged the stack on the counter, straightening the pages, then grabbed a yellow and green highlighter—my favorite tools for dissecting data—and went to work.