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The house Maverick had sent him to, where two elderly people lived, was full of gas.
He backed off, down to the street, and called 911.
Then he texted Maverick.
Then, as he stood there up to his knees in snow, he realized the obvious: it was going to take any emergency vehicle forever to get here.
The Turners were probably dead. The gas smell was strong enough to be detectable outside their closed-up house, in twenty-degree weather. The leak had been going for some time.
But what if they weren’t? What if they were dying but not dead? What if he was standing here letting them die?
Any spark, the tiniest crackle of static, would turn that house into a bomb. In the winter, especially on a day like this, static was practically a given. If he even checked to see if the door was unlocked, he could blow the house—which could very well take a least one neighboring house with it. Certainly any force he’d have to apply to get in—breaking a window, say—could set it off.
But what if the Turners were still alive?
Deciding all his options were terrible ones, but he couldn’t stand here while two old people might need help, Dex made his way carefully to the other side of the house, as far from the gas line as he could get, found a wood-framed window big enough and low enough for him to get in through, and, sending up a small plea to a god he no longer believed in, put his gloved fist through the glass.
The smell of gas increased substantially and at once, but the house did not explode. He gingerly cleared as much glass from the frame as he could, then grabbed the sill, trusting his gloves and the winter riding suit he’d been wearing all day to protect him from the shards, and hoisted himself up and through the window.
He landed hard on a thin rug, and his whole body clenched as he waited to be atomized by an explosion. But, again, he was okay. However, his first inhale was so full of gas and empty of oxygen he was instantly dizzy and ill. Coughing, he pulled his scarf up over his nose and went to the other window in this small bedroom. After he eased that one open as well, he sucked in as much fresh air as his lungs would hold, then stepped lightly through the open door, trying not to let any part of him brush against anything, including himself. At least the rubber soles of his boots would resist static from the cheap carpet.
Now, getting sick himself from the gas and lack of oxygen, Dex was sure the Turners were gone. If they were home, they were dead; there was nothing good to breathe in this house. But he had to be sure. So he looked down the short hallway, trying to determine which room would be theirs.
An open door at the back of the hallway showed the foot of a four-poster bed with a blue terrycloth robe hanging from the nearest post. That was a good, and probably grim, indicator. Dex headed that way.
There was a small window in the hallway wall. He paused to ease that one open as well, and took another lungful of winter air.
The four-poster bed was, in fact, the Turners’ bed, and two elderly Black folks were in it. In pajamas, tucked under several old-fashioned quilts, they seemed peaceful, as if they were sleeping. But he went to Mr. Turner, on the side nearest the door, and confirmed what was obvious: they were dead. They’d been gone a while; Mr. Turner was cool to the touch, and in full rigor.
Expecting every second to die in a natural-gas explosion, Dex opened the windows in their bedroom, then made his way to the front, easing up every window he came to.
The front door was locked with a knob lock, a deadbolt, a slider bolt, and a chain, all of it metal, and all of it too much of a risk for a spark, so Dex opened the window beside it and worked his way back outside. He sucked deep breaths of frigid air until his stomach settled and his brain defogged. But damn, he had a hell of a headache now.
For now, that was the best he could do.
He went back down to the street and texted Maverick again.
~oOo~
With a plow attached to his 4x4 Suburban, Maverick arrived about five minutes after the emergency crew: an ambulance and a pumper truck. By then, a small crowd of neighbors had gathered. The firefighters had waved them all to the opposite side of the street and were now focused on abating the gas. After getting Dex’s report that the Turners were dead and in rigor, the firefighters had held the paramedics off from entering the house yet.
Without anything more pressing to attend to yet, the paramedics had Dex sitting on the back of the ambulance with an oxygen mask on. He’d tried to assure them he was fine and didn’t need attention, but a stout, middle-aged female paramedic was having none of it; she’d actually pushed him toward the ambulance and was now looking at him like a vice-principal dealing with a grade-school troublemaker while she took his vitals.
Maverick wasn’t alone. He stopped his Chevy in the middle of the street, alongside the ambulance, and the second the truck stopped, the back driver-side door flew open, and Kelsey jumped out. Jenny and Duncan came around from the passenger side. Everybody in the Helm family but Hannah had come to the scene of the Turners’ demise.
Jenny gave Dex a harried, sad look and a tense nod as she hurried through the trampled snow, apparently looking for a firefighter to talk to. Duncan followed after her.
Maverick and Kelsey came to the ambulance. Maverick looked pissed; Kelsey had obviously been crying. Her beautiful blue eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. Dex remembered that the Turners were her best friend’s grandparents. It seemed the whole Helm family had been close with these old folks.
The idea was foreign to him—to be so close with someone that their family was your family? All the way back to grandparents? No, he didn’t understand that.
Dex hadn’t had much of a family in the first place, and he’d never been good at making friends. He didn’t like people kicking at the rocks in his life to see what was underneath, and he didn’t kick at anybody else’s rocks, either. The friendships he’d had had always been situational, like his Marine buddies or his Bulls brothers.
Situational relationships, but not superficial. While he was in uniform, his squad was his family, and he’d have died for any one of them. Same with the Bulls now. He didn’t need to lay himself bare, and he didn’t need anyone else to bare themselves, to feel connected and bonded. He knew what he needed to know.
“You okay?” Maverick asked as the all-business paramedic finished taking his vitals.
Dex shifted his attention from Kelsey and pulled the mask off his face. “Yeah, fine. Right?”
