Page 150 of Honeyfires

I found Vera in the back row. She was watching me with wet, hopeful eyes.

"I regret that homes were lost," I said, turning back to the board. "I regret that families lost irreplaceable things. I regret that Firefighter Stevens was injured. I regret that Captain Rodriguez was put in a position that cost him professionally and personally. I regret all of that."

"But do you regret calling for evacuation?"

"No," I said. "My crew is alive. Brandon Stevens is alive. And if I had to make that choice again, knowing everything I know now, I would make the same decision. Because lives are worth more than property. Always. And I will not apologize for believing that."

The silence stretched.

"Thank you, Forewoman Alves. You may step down."

I stood. On the way back to the counsel table I passed close enough to Diana that I could see her legal pad. In the margin, in her neat handwriting, she had written: good.

The board deliberated for four hours.

Four hours in the hallway, Knoss on one side, Vera on the other, Diana standing at the window at the end of the corridor making phone calls in a low voice and not telling me who she was calling.

Stevens sat with us for a while, until the pain medication wore off and he needed to go home. Before he left, he squeezed my shoulder with his good hand.

"You did good in there," he said. "Told the truth. That's all any of us can do."

"I hope it's enough."

"It will be." He glanced at Vera. "You've got good people in your corner." He looked at me. "Both kinds."

After he left, Miller appeared from somewhere down the corridor the way Miller always appeared, as if he'd simply materialized when the conditions were right.

He stood in front of me for a moment, not sitting, not touching anything, just being present in that way he was always present.

"Made the right call," he said. "Most of us know it." He glanced down the hallway. "Some of us took a while to catch up. But they got there when it mattered."

"Thanks, Miller."

He nodded once and walked away. Twenty feet down the corridor he stopped, turned back. "When this is over, however it comes out, you should know that teaching Stevens to bake snickerdoodles was either the best or the worst thing that ever happened to this crew, and we haven't decided which yet." He looked at Vera. "The brown butter was right, though."

Vera's eyes went bright and she smiled warmly. Then Miller was gone, too.

Davids and Emerson came by next, together, which was itself something. Davids stopped in front of me and said nothing for a moment.

"I said it in there," he started. "But I need to say it here too. Without the formality." He met my eyes. "I'm sorry, Petra. For all of it. The cold shoulder, the barbecue, the months of making your job harder than it needed to be. You never deserved any of that." He paused. "And you saved my life anyway."

"Yeah," I said. "I did."

His mouth twitched. "Least you're not modest about it."

"I've earned a little immodesty on that particular point."

Emerson laughed and Davids almost smiled. Almost.

"You're going to be alright, Alves," Davids said. "Whatever they decide in there. You know that, right?"

I didn't answer him. But I held his gaze, and he nodded like I had.

Jackson found us twenty minutes before the end, Cassie at his elbow, both of them having apparently decided that the hallway outside a disciplinary hearing was an appropriate place to be. Jackson sat down next to me, not saying anything for a moment, just being there the way Jackson always was when it counted.

"For what it's worth," he said, "I've been telling everyone who'd listen for the last six weeks that you made the right call. My wife has been told this story so many times she could probably give testimony herself."

"She really could," Cassie confirmed. "I have opinions about the wind shift data."