If another man had said those words, it probably would have made Vic feel uncomfortable, but coming from Eric, it made her laugh. She watched while he donned his air pack and disappeared through the charred front door.
Five minutes went by. Another five.
Boom!
Flames flared out of one window, then vanished.
Vic’s heart leaped into her throat, her pulse taking off at a sprint.
Eric.
When the firefighters around her didn’t react, she figured everything must be okay. Eric was their chief. If he were lying there wounded or burned, they would be running inside to help him, not calmly going about their work.
When he emerged a few minutes later, she let out a sigh of relief.
And to think he did things like this every day.
* * *
“Butane hash oil extraction,” Eric climbed into his truck, his bunker gear stashed in the bed of his vehicle so that it wouldn’t stink up the cab. Between smoke from the fire and the stench of burning weed, it reeked. “That was the cause of the fire.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
He slipped the keys into the ignition, started the engine. “It’s illegal to do at home—and dangerous as hell. I counted ninety-four butane canisters. They were sitting right next to a big, old pile of weed. It’s a wonder Hank wasn’t incinerated.”
A woman on a bicycle cut in front of the truck’s headlights, headed straight for Hank’s place, what looked like a fat wad of twenties gripped in her right hand. When she saw a sheriff’s deputy squad car, she turned her bicycle around, cash disappearing into her fist.
“Jesus! Did you see that?” Eric couldn’t help but laugh.
Vic nodded. “Was she on her way there to buy drugs from him?”
“That’s what it looked like.” Eric nosed his truck into the street and headed back toward the station house. “Sometimes life in Scarlet feels like a bad Hollywood flick. Christ! You can’t make this shit up.”
“But isn’t it legal to buy marijuana here?”
“It is—if you buy it from a licensed seller. Hank doesn’t even have a driver’s license.” He glanced over at Victoria, found her watching him, a mysterious smile on those lips of hers. “What now? Did I say something funny?”
“You took good care of him.”
Eric shrugged off the compliment. “There wasn’t much I could do. Sometimes you’ve got to sleep in the bed you make.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” Something in the tone of her voice made him remember the conversation he’d overheard this afternoon.
Could he help it if he wanted to know the whole story?
He changed the subject. “Hey, do you mind if we stop at the station first so I can drop off my gear?”
“Whatever you need to do.”
“Are you still drinking?”
She held up an almost empty bottle of water. “No headache.”
“Good.”
Back at the firehouse, he returned his gear to his locker and dropped the cylinder from his SCBA off in the compressor room. The initial response crew pulled in as he was leaving, men and women piling out of the apparatus, all of them reeking of ganja.
Silver passed him, air cylinder in hand. “The firehouse is going to have a skunk funk tonight, chief.”