“Grab your gear. It looks like we have enough volunteers now to take the tanker up.”
His brother Connor’s new father-in-law and brother-in-law had come in behind the Hanlons. With so many members working in Ticonderoga and other surrounding villages, getting a crew together could be hard.
Jack took his position behind the wheel of the truck while Josh and the others put on their protective gear. Tom pressed the button to open the hall door, and Jon and Autumn went ahead in the emergency vehicle followed by Tom in his pickup.
Josh and the other guys piled into the truck. Adrenaline rushed through him as the siren screamed and the lights flashed, increased by the fear he had whenever they responded to an accident that someone he knew might be involved.
He spotted the flashing lights of the sheriff car and the EMS vehicle when the fire truck raced through the intersection of Routes 9 and 74. Jack pulled the truck ahead of one of the accident vehicles, a pickup truck with a smashed left fender sprawled diagonally across the two lanes of the highway. The wrecker from Hill’s Garage was already there, along with one from a garage in Schroon Lake. But Josh didn’t see a second vehicle. He hopped off the truck and saw it, a compact station wagon with a crushed top rolled off the road in a small gully, resting against a stand of pine trees. A second emergency vehicle arrived from Newcomb as Jon and Autumn carried a stretcher down the incline.
Tom returned from talking with the deputy who was directing traffic. “A woman and two kids. Doesn’t look good. The other driver is intoxicated.” Tom jerked his head toward the deputy’s car, where a middle-aged man sat staring out the window.
Bile choked Josh. The unkempt dark hair and strong profile reminded him of his father. He turned away and caught his breath. It wasn’t him. Dad was dead, had been for nine years.
“Let’s get the hose and extinguishers down there. The jaws of life, too,” Tom commanded.
Josh joined his fellow volunteers, glad for the action to stop his thoughts. When he and the rest of the team reached the car, Jon and Autumn had a small unconscious form on the stretcher. He swallowed hard. The child looked about Hope’s age, maybe a little younger.
The child’s eyes opened. “Mommy?”
“We’re working on getting her out,” Autumn reassured him.
“There’s a woman and another child trapped inside,” Jon reported to Tom. “We talked to the little boy. The woman is unresponsive. Moriah and Newcomb are on their way.”
“Newcomb’s here,” Tom said. “Pulled in right after us.”
As if on cue, the second emergency squad came down the bank.
“We’ll get this little guy up,” Jon said. “I don’t like the looks of that smoke from the engine, not with all the dead winter growth.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Tom said. “Jack, Donnelly.” He motioned to the front of the car, and Josh and Jack began soaking it.
The third emergency squad arrived as Josh and the other firefighters were tramping back up to the road.
Tom approached the deputy when they reached the pavement. “If you want to get him to county lockup—” he jerked his thumb toward the deputy’s car “—we can take over traffic control.”
Josh made a furtive glance toward the car. The man had his head down, chin resting on his chest. It couldn’t be Dad. He looked away. One wrecker had removed the pickup, and he could hear the fading siren of the Schroon EMS team on its way to the hospital. Hill’s truck waited to take the car. Soon after, the other two rescue squads had extricated the woman and other child and taken off for the hospital.
“You guys can head back to the fire hall,” Tom said. “I’ll go back to the shop with the wrecker.”
“The guy in the cruiser,” Josh said. “Anyone we know?”
Tom shook his head. “The deputy said he didn’t have any ID.”
Josh wiped his forearm across his forehead. Responding to accidents always took more out of him than the actual physical demands warranted. He looked at the evening sky. If it wasn’t too late, maybe he’d stop by the Majestic and hang out with Tessa and Myles. The drunk in the deputy’s car and the little boy on the stretcher were juxtaposed in his mind. He could use some companionship to take the edge off before going back to the empty cabin.
His cell phone buzzed as he walked to the truck. It could be Tessa. He stopped and checked the phone. Connor’s, not Tessa’s, name flashed at him. Two missed calls and a text. His little brother was on his honeymoon. What could he want?
Josh swiped his finger across the screen and went stock-still when he read the text.
Call me. We got back from the beach, and there was a voice-mail message on my cell, forwarded from the parsonage phone. From Dad.
Josh stared blankly at the phone screen. The colors of his apps blurred together. He shook his vision clear and jammed the phone back in his pocket. Dear old Dad. He had no doubt the call Connor had gotten was from their father. It fit his MO. Reappear after a bender expecting the family to welcome him home as if nothing had happened. Except this bender had lasted nine years. Dad had known better than to call him or Jared. He’d called Connor because Connor was a minister and most like their mother, making him the only one of them likely to take the call.
Josh grabbed the door handle and hurled himself into the back of the fire truck, looking over at the cleared accident scene. Bile rose in his throat as he focused his mind on the glimpse he’d had of the man in the sheriff’s car. Once they were back at the firehouse and he called Connor, the first thing he was going to ask was when his father had called and from where. His skin tightened. If it was his father, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d hurt someone driving drunk. Only this time it was kids.
“You all right, Josh?” Paul Delacroix, Connor’s brother-in-law, asked.
Josh blinked Paul and the other guys in the truck into focus. “Yeah.”
“Kids,” Paul’s father said. “I hate responding to injury accidents, but it’s always worse when kids are involved.”
“Right,” Josh said. And not only in car accidents.
When they got to the firehouse, Josh took his time stowing his equipment. Now he sat in his pickup in the parking lot, his finger hovering over Connor’s call notice on his phone screen. He touched it and pressed the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Josh,” Connor answered.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Connor laughed. “No, we just got back from supper.”
“So, was it really him?” Josh refused to personalize the man by calling him Dad.
“Yeah, it was Dad.”
“You’re saying that from the message he left, or you got back to him?”
“I called him back before we went to dinner.”
“And he was drunk.”
“He didn’t sound drunk, wasn’t slurring his words.”
That didn’t mean he hadn’t been impaired enough to hurt that family.
“Dad called to—”
Josh clenched his free fist. How could Connor sound so calm about this? “I have a good idea why he called.”
“He—”
Josh cut Connor off again. “What time did he call and when did you call him back?” Connor had probably called when their father was in