Page 42 of His Reward
“Really, I could use a beer,” he muttered to me as I snuggled in next to him.
I laughed, even though I knew it wasn’t funny. Lucien couldn’t have alcohol with the pain meds he still had to take, even though the fire was close to four months ago. There was more to it than that, though. I had the distinct feeling that if he’d been able to, Lucien would have drowned his sorrows in alcohol. He’d fallen into a funk since we’d sat together on that same couch three nights ago to watch the Winter Games opening ceremony.
“I’ll just put them all on a plate and we can share it around as needed,” Bea said, bringing a large plate filled with nibbles of one sort or another over to the coffee table in front of the couch.
The theme music that the network played to signal the beginning of coverage for the night began to play, and the three of us got comfortable. I was more interested in keeping an eye on Lucien than I was on the recap of the competitions earlier in the day, and from the look of things, Bea was keeping an eye on the two of us together. None of us said a word, which made the whole thing incredibly awkward.
Finally, when neither she nor I could stand the awkwardness any longer, Bea spoke over the commentators and asked, “Are you off-duty again tonight, Bos?”
Okay, if that was how we were going to play things to diffuse the tension for Lucien, then I was all for it.
“Yeah,” I answered. “Roscoe and Ernie are taking the evening shifts for the next few days so I can be here to watch skating with you guys. They understand how important it is.”
“You don’t have to rearrange your schedule for me,” Lucien said tightly, watching the TV as if he were waiting for an announcement of winning lottery numbers. “I’m a big boy. I don’t need you to hold my hand for this.”
That was a big, fat lie, and we both knew it, but I just shrugged. “I want to be here with you. I like spending time with you.”
That was the truth. I smiled at Lucien and stretched my arm out behind him the way I liked. Lucien liked it too, as I could tell from how he leaned subtly closer to me.
“How are things going with those requests for additional funding?” Bea asked, peeking past me to her son. “Has the city freed up any more money for the station?”
“Not yet,” I answered, surprised by the twist of frustration thinking about my firehouse failures gave me. “We’re going to have to look for outside sources to raise the money we need.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know,” Bea said.
Lucien pulled his attention away from a recap of the afternoon’s bobsled competition, which had been held at a venue right next door to Kincade Slopes, and frowned a little. “Why won’t the city give you money? Isn’t that what the city is supposed to do?”
“For maintenance of equipment and my salary, yes,” I answered. “But they’re not responsible for extras, like snacks for the lounge or a few other initiatives I want to launch.”
“Such as?” Bea asked.
I turned to her and answered, “I’d love to start a fire prevention program for schools. And there are a few advanced training classes I wish I could send some of the guys to.”
“And the city doesn’t pay for that?” Lucien asked.
“Nope. All the extras are on us.” And frankly, these days, the extras were what made us an appealing place to volunteer. The fire station was desperate for volunteers, especially after Troy went back to college at the beginning of the year. They were what determined whether Engine Fifty-Five should remain standing on its own or be folded into another company.
I could tell Bea was about to ask me more, but all of our attention snapped to the TV when the commentator said, “We now move to figure skating, where competition kicks off tonight with the pairs. But first, I know all of Barrington and the nation has had one thing and one thing only on their minds this winter where the figure skating world is concerned, and that’s Lucien Monteverdi.”
Lucien went rigid as the camera panned out to reveal Jennifer Collier sitting on the sofa where athletes and coaches sat to be interviewed. “That’s right, Bruce. I’m sure none of us will forget where we were when we heard the news of the fire at the Davidson Memorial Ice Arena.”
They cut to a produced segment that started with footage of Lucien training and winning medals over the years, then moved on to an aerial view of the blazing inferno that was the rink on the afternoon of the fire. I only barely heard the explanation of an electrical fault that started a fire inside the walls of the arena that wasn’t caught before it was too late.
Somehow, they had footage of me carrying Lucien out of the fire. I hadn’t been aware of any cameras so close to the site. I hadn’t been aware of anything but Lucien. The cameras shouldn’t have been there, but the footage was unmistakable. Also unmistakable was the shot of Pietro racing up to the ambulance, his face sweaty and sooty, his concern for Lucien almost overdone. I definitely didn’t remember things happening that way.
More suspicious still, the next shot was an interview with Pietro.
“My entire life flashed before my eyes when I heard my boy was still trapped inside the inferno,” he said. “I didn’t know what I’d do if Lucien died.”
Pietro was a terrible actor, but I had the feeling no one who didn’t know any better would have picked up on that. Particularly when the interview cut to a segment of Pietro coaching Lucien over the years. They made it look like the father and son were the best and closest of friends.
“I’m going to kill him,” Bea said stiffly.
They cut back to the interview with Pietro for a few more seconds.
“It breaks my heart to know that such a promising career has been cut short,” Pietro said.
If it wasn’t bad enough that the asshole was contradicting everything Lucien was determined to do, the tenor of the segment changed suddenly. Pictures of Lucien immediately after the fire, while he was bandaged, intubated, and still unconscious, flashed on the screen. They were followed by more, grizzly shots from his recovery. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lucien wouldn’t have authorized any of those painful, vulnerable pictures being taken, much less being broadcast across the nation and the world.
