Page 6 of Calling a Cease-Fire

I shook my head and slid my phone across the table. “The town’s retired know-it-all has struck again.”

Barry always had something to say about everything. All the time. Even when he had no clue what he was talking about.

Adam’s facial expression morphed from annoyed to furious. “What the hell is wrong with this guy?” He hissed. “Does he really think it’s one of us?”

Jay stopped halfway to the kitchen, spinning back toward us. “What are you talking about?” He cocked a brow, glancing from Adam to me.

“Listen to this shit,” Adam said, anger lacing each word. “‘It’s obvious that the arsonist is a firefighter,’” he read out loud. “‘How else would he be able to get away with this for a year? The police department knows exactly who it is, and they don’t care.’”

Adam went on to read more. As he did, the rest of the guys huddled around us, looks of pure murder on their faces. We wanted the serial arsonist referenced in the post caught and put away just as much as the police department did. Regardless of who it was. Dude had been setting fires around our small town since January the year before, and everyone’s patience and nerves were wearing thin.

Barry—the retiree whose rant we were all fuming over—had moved to our town a few years ago and obviously had nothing better to do than hang around on social media all day acting like he was some sort of detective. Maybe he was the arsonist. Could I post that as a comment?

I smirked. The chief would have my ass if I did. Might be worth it, though.

But the keyboard warrior wasn’t wrong about it possibly being a firefighter. The police department finally had a substantial lead after finding a fire department button at the arsonist’s hideout in the woods.

The prints on the button led them back to a retired firefighter they had already considered a suspect at one point. Originally, his godson had been deemed a person of interest after a matchbook at one of the scenes had led the police to his family. The kid’s father had been pulled from a fire seven years earlier and died a year later from damage to his lungs due to a smoking habit. The smoke inhalation he experienced possibly exacerbated the issue, and there was speculation his son felt we didn’t get his father out quickly enough. The police suspected it gave the kid a possible motive of seeking vengeance against the Half Moon Lake Fire Department. But they hadn’t been able to prove the kid was involved in any of the actual arsons.

Until now, they didn’t have any solid evidence to arrest either suspect. Unfortunately, the godfather lawyered up as soon as the police questioned him about the button. To make matters worse, he left town immediately after. The only bright side to his fleeing was the arsons had stopped. The last one was two months ago at the beginning of December. The same fire where Adam had been shot after chasing the arsonist through the woods. That chase ultimately led police to his hideout.

I was still pissed at my best friend for taking a bullet like that, but at least it had a silver lining.

The lights above us flashed, and everyone turned to scowl at me, knowing the alarms were about to blare and a call was going to come in. I secretly cheered, trying not to show too much excitement as we all headed toward the stairs that led down to the bay.

“You better hope this isn’t a waste of our time, Stoer,” Jay snapped, turning to look back at me over his shoulder.

The radio crackled to life, alerting us that truck seven and ambulance twenty-one were being dispatched to a distress call involving a teenage boy who had fallen through ice. Adam and Lyla loaded into the ambo while the rest of us grabbed our gear and piled in the truck. Except for Owen, who jumped in the small utility vehicle, heading out first and alerting dispatch we were en route.

Mia’s voice came through the radio, and I tried to ignore the way my blood pounded through my body. It had taken me months to realize the dispatcher’s voice that I found calming and smooth, almost in a sensual way, belonged to Lyla’s best friend, Mia. The same girl I had dubbed an ice queen the first time I met her. Beautiful, no doubt, but cold and aloof.

Then one night when we all hung out at the local bar together, she intrigued me as a myriad of emotions flashed in her eyes, showing depth and layers I wanted to pull back. She had a tough-girl armor firmly in place, but underneath I would bet was a woman who just wanted to be loved and protected.

We all knew where we were going before Mia even relayed the address. We’d just had a month of the coldest temperatures in years, and the large pond on the other side of town had a layer of ice across it. This was our third call to that location in the last thirty days. Kids here had no idea how dangerous it was. Even though the town roped it off, they were still curious and seemed to have no clue that it wasn’t frozen solid enough to walk on. The edges where it was shallow and solid gave them a false sense of security, not realizing that the farther out they went the more treacherous it got. On top of that, it also made it harder for us to get to them. So far we hadn’t lost a kid, and I prayed that wasn’t about to change.

Jay, Adam, and I had just attended an ice rescue training with the local search and rescue division. Logan and Seth had already completed a similar training earlier in their careers. After the last close call with the half-frozen pond, I’d looked into it and asked Owen and the chief to sign us up. Because there was no way I was losing someone due to insufficient training.

We arrived on scene and suited up as Owen assessed the situation, asking dispatch to update us. There was a young girl, possibly about twelve years old, lying flat on her stomach in the middle of the pond, army crawling toward shore. She was the only one we could see. My stomach knotted at what that meant.

The radio crackled, and this time a male dispatcher came through the line instead of Mia. “Someone’s on the line with the female, coaxing her to stay calm and move toward shore slowly. Her brother is in the water. Submerged. Has not resurfaced.”

Fuck.

A scream pierced the air followed by the eerie laser beam-like sounds of ice shifting and cracking.

“We need to get out there,” Owen yelled. “Get your asses into gear.”

We had a plan for this, taken directly from our recent training. Jay and I would be tethered to Logan and Seth respectively as our belayers, forming two parallel lines. We got set up and I took the lead, crawling out onto the ice with Jay following parallel a few feet behind. When I got to a section that felt thinner, I lay flat, shimmying forward, and Jay followed my lead.

As I got closer, I could make out what the girl was saying to the dispatcher.

“I can’t. I’m scared.” She stared at me with wide eyes, fear swimming in her irises. “They have to save him. They have to save my brother.” Lines in the ice shot out from every direction underneath her. I could tell it was thin, but I didn’t think thin enough to break. “Don’t hang up. Please.” The phone sat in front of her on the ice and a familiar voice came through the line.

“I’m not.” Mia was steady and calm. “Are they close?”

“Yes.” The young girl shimmied forward, letting out another scream as the ice whistled below her.

“It’s okay, Tara,” Mia soothed. “Remember how I told you frozen ponds and lakes make all those weird sounds? Just stay calm.”