“How?”

“The rookie and I kind of pieced it together.”

I walked closer. “He’s awake? He’s okay? You saw him?”

He nodded. “Last night. They just moved him from the ICU.”

A funny little sob of relief passed through me, and then my eyes filled with tears—but I squeezed a tight blink to push them back. “How is he?”

“He’s on the mend,” the captain said. He shook his head at Diana. “Youth.”

I smiled and wrapped my arms around my waist. “You talked to him?”

“Yep. He asked after you.”

“He did?”

“He wanted to know if you’d been to see him.”

I felt my expression harden. “Did you tell him why I had not been to see him?”

“I did.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said DeStasio’s account of what happened at the fire was—his words here: ‘an utterly false pack of bitter-old-man lies.’ Then the rookie ranted and raved on your behalf and accused DeStasio of lying and being a sleazebag reptile. He got so agitated he gave himself a coughing fit.”

I smiled a little. “He called DeStasio a sleazebag reptile?”

The captain smiled a little, too. “He’s on a lot of medication.”

“Sounds like he’s feeling better.”

The captain went on. “When he’d settled down, I told him the department was handling it, that there would be a full investigation, and that we’d get to the bottom of everything, for sure. I meant to reassure him, but he kept pushing for information, and when it came out you’d been suspended, he quit.”

“He quit?”

The captain nodded, impressed with the gesture. “In protest.”

Good thing the captain didn’t know he’d been about to quit anyway.

“Anyway, I thought you were nuts when you confessed”—he cleared his throat—“your, uh, special feelings for the rookie. But now I’d say, just based on our conversation and, uh, his body language, it seems pretty mutual.”

That was it. Time to go. I needed to get dressed.

I turned toward the stairs.

“Wait!” the captain said.

I kept walking. “I’m going to Boston,” I said. “I’ve waited more than long enough.”

“But that’s why we’re here,” the captain said.

I stopped and turned around. “Why?”

“To take you to Boston.”

I angled back toward him. “Wait—why are you here?”

“To apologize to you,” the captain said, “and to your mother. And to try to make things right.”

“What are you apologizing to me for?”

“Suspending you, for one. You’re unsuspended, by the way.”

“What does that mean, ‘unsuspended’?”

He gave a little shrug. “You’ve got your job back, if you want it.”

That didn’t feel like a question I could answer just yet. I looked around at the guys. They’d all stopped working, and they were watching us.

The captain continued. “I also apologize for doubting you when you were telling the truth.”

I stared at him. How did he know I was telling the truth?

“The rookie confirmed every detail of your story,” the captain said. “Every detail he was conscious for, anyway. But then, on top of it, I got a phone call from DeStasio last night. From rehab.”

DeStasio had called the captain from rehab? Were phone calls even allowed?

“He confessed everything. The false report. The locker, the tires, the brick. His OD, and the painkillers. He’s been stealing painkillers from our supplies for months.”

“Wow,” I said. “He did confess everything.”

“He also told me that you saved his life.”

That was unexpected. “Twice,” I confirmed. If you counted not letting him roast alone inside a burning grocery store.

The captain went on. “He’s withdrawn his initial report about what happened at the fire and will submit a new one.”

I lifted my eyebrows.

He nodded. “It will corroborate yours and make it clear that you put your own safety at risk for others that day, acting with extreme courage and pretty much saving his life and the rookie’s.”

“So he’s admitted everything he did wrong?”

“I think so,” the captain said, “unless he’s leaving something out.”

“He swore he was never going to confess,” I said.

“I guess he changed his mind.”

“But—will he be suspended?”

“He will.”

“Will he lose his pension?”

The captain nodded. “Probably.”

“Why would he give all that up? He was getting away with it.”

“He said he owed you big-time,” the captain said. Then he added, “He said he didn’t want to be a villain.”

I didn’t quite know how to feel.

“I was a stupid idiot,” the captain said then. “We were all idiots. We underestimated you and didn’t trust you. And now we’re going to put things right.”

I wasn’t sure things could ever be put right. It made me feel worse, almost, to hear him admit it. But only almost. “How exactly are you going to do that?” I asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” the captain said. “But I know we’re going to start by driving you down to Boston. With lights and sirens.”

* * *

ON THE ROAD, we hashed it all out. We all piled into the captain’s Suburban—the captain and Tiny up front, and me squeezed between Six-Pack and Case in the back. I talked them through exactly how I’d figured out what was going on with DeStasio, describing all the clues and how they all just fell into place.

“He would have died if you hadn’t showed up,” the captain said.

“Probably.”

“He would have died if he’d gone into that building alone,” Six-Pack said.

“Definitely.”

On the drive down, the guys acted like things were totally normal—like I’d never been under suspicion, never been shunned or doubted. In fact, things were better than normal. Something about the whole ordeal seemed to have broken some final, unseen barrier that I hadn’t even realized was there. The guys joked around, and teased me, and thanked me, and apologized, and called themselves idiots over and over.

They mostly teased me about the rookie.

Yeah, no way was I getting out of that one unteased.

“We need to combine your names,” Six-Pack said.

“‘Cassie’ plus ‘rookie,’” Case said. “‘Cookie.’”

“I called it from the beginning,” Six-Pack said.

“You never saw it coming,” Case said, reaching around me to punch him.

“Shut your yaps,” Tiny said. “It was an epic secret love. Nobody called it.”

“Mentally,” Case said. “To myself. I said, ‘Those two will be in the sack before you know it.’”

“Nobody’s in the sack,” I said, my ears getting a little hot.