Page 86 of Anchor Point

I ran forward to help Nate and Thoren get Mo to the ambulance. Dread pooled in my belly, but I had to know. “Where’s Burgess?”

“He’s with Three’s crew.”

Relief flooded hot and fierce through my system.

The remaining crews from the other stations all reported in. Burgess was being brought over by the two who had helped him out of the building.

They were all banged up but alive.

I looked behind the two men supporting Burgess, expecting to see Olivia and Rosie somewhere in the distance. But now that we’d moved to exterior defensive, there was no way to see beyond the massive amounts of water being dumped on the building.

The hair on the back of my neck stood. Something was off. I didn’t buy that the shooter had been taken out or run off.

But I knew what Olivia would want me to do. She’d want me to stay put and help her injured people. So I fought the urge to go search for her, for them.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Olivia

My panic was in overdrive. I’d been so sure I’d seen Rosie at the back of the fire engine with Thoren—until Thoren tumbled out of the burning building. When he’d ripped that BA mask off his face, my heart stopped. If Thoren had been inside fighting the fire, who had Rosie been with?

I sprinted down the sidewalk, shooter be damned. “Excuse me, have you seen a teenage girl with curly blond hair?” I asked a man standing inside his business door. He barely paid attention to me, giving me the briefest head shake.

Hyperaware that the street had been cleared, I noticed every crack in the sidewalk as I jogged to the next cluster of onlookers and asked them the same question.

I stopped every stranger I saw. I was two blocks away from the court square and swallowing bile when a little old woman poked her head out of a used bookstore.

“My dear, you look affright. Can I help you?”

“Yes, please.” My voice broke on a sob I couldn’t quite contain. Rosie was fine. This was all a big mistake.

“Take a breath, dear. What can I help you with.”

“My daughter. I can’t find her. She’s fourteen, wearing a denim jacket. And light jeans. She’s about this tall and has blond hair.” I tried to calm my nerves and make sense of the situation, but every moment that ticked by without finding her let more panic sneak in.

The old woman appeared to be thinking hard, her gaze distant. She glanced down the street, away from the fire, and then back at me. “Does she have curly hair?”

“Yes!” I grabbed her hands, clutching to her words like a life preserver.

“I saw a young girl a bit ago. I figured it was just a dad dragging his kid away from trouble. You know how kids?—”

“Which way did they go?” I had no time to waste on her theories of troubled teenagers.

For a split second, she acted as if I’d offended her by interrupting, and then her face fell. “I’m sorry, dear, I only know they went that way.” She pointed away from the fire. Just beyond her shop was a four-way stop.

Straight ahead, the road led to a residential neighborhood. To the right led to a large church that took up the whole block. And the left led back into the business district.

“I couldn’t see much beyond this door, and I was paying more attention to the courthouse.”

I swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

I stumbled forward to the stop sign at the corner. I needed to think.

He wouldn’t have taken her back toward the businesses. Too many people that way. Same for the neighborhood. Too many onlookers checking out the fire.

I spun on a heel and called, “Ma’am, what’s behind the church?”

Her brow knit with concern. “It’s an empty lot. It used to be a playground. But they let it grow over. Kinda spooky back there with the empty shed buildings.”

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