But I don’t delete the conversation either.
Chapter Nine
Zoe
The next time I go to the station I bring cookies and a bucket.
Not at the same time. The cookies come first. Same recipe, same walk down Haverford. Torres is in the bay when I arrive, and she sees me coming from half a block away and calls inside without looking.
“Cookie girl’s back.”
“I have a name.”
“You have cookies. That’s better than a name.” She takes the container from me and opens it and nods with the solemnity of a judge at a baking competition. “Still good. Consistent. That’s important.”
“Is the captain in?”
“She’s on a call. Sit.” Torres points to the folding chair by the side entrance, the one that’s always there, the one someone clearly uses during downtime. I sit. Torres leans against theengine and eats a cookie and watches me with that assessing look I’m starting to think is just her face.
A woman I haven’t met comes out of the kitchen carrying a plate. Tall, athletic, dark hair in a braid. She stops when she sees me and looks at Torres.
“This her?”
“This is her.”
“Huh.” She looks at me. “I’m Rivera.”
“Zoe.”
“I know. Torres has a running bet with Walsh about how many weeks you last.” Rivera glances at Torres, who doesn’t deny it. “I took the over. Don’t let me down.”
“What’s the over?”
“Five weeks.”
“I only have three.”
“Then you better be efficient.” Rivera takes a cookie from the Tupperware, bites it, and walks back inside.
I sit in the folding chair and wait. The bay smells clean, diesel and soap, and the engine gleams in the mid-morning light. I can hear voices inside, the ambient sound of a station between calls. Someone laughing. A cabinet closing. The low murmur of a radio on the dispatch channel, steady and constant, like a heartbeat.
A woman appears in the doorway. Older, calm, watchful. She doesn’t introduce herself. She just stands there and looks at me for a long moment, and then she says, “You’re the one who told Cap she’s not a kid.”
“I said I’m not a kid. I said I’m a firefighter.”
“Same thing to her.” The woman crosses her arms. She’s got a stillness about her that’s different from Torres’s busy energy or Rivera’s sharpness. She looks like someone who’s been here a long time and plans to be here longer. “I’m Hayes.”
Nora Hayes. I know the name from the department registry and from an article about Station 11’s rescue operations. She’s been on Cap’s crew for years. If Torres is the engine, Hayes is the frame.
“How long have you been at 11?” I ask.
“Long enough to know Cap doesn’t change her mind because someone asks nicely.” Hayes unfolds her arms. “She changes her mind when the evidence changes.”
“What evidence?”
“That’s for you to figure out.” She looks at me, and there’s nothing unkind in it but nothing soft either. “Cookies are nice. But cookies aren’t evidence.”
She goes back inside. I sit in the folding chair and think about that.
