Quiver & Burn (Surrender to Them 5)

“Maybe I’ll get there one day too.” I looked at the clock again. “I think I want to grab a quick shower before we go.”

“We’re just going to be sweating like a mother fucker in a few hours.” Jett chuckled and sniffed his arm. “Okay, maybe a shower wouldn’t hurt.”

We headed to the showers and I tried to focus on what we had planned for the day instead of what we saw the night before. We had two more storage lockers to get through. I hoped we could get through the both of them since we had all day to do it. One of them had a decent amount of furniture, and there might be some stuff in there that Maria could use. We would have to sell enough stuff to cover our costs, but I was okay if we didn’t make any money off what we bought. Breaking even would be fine if we got a chance to help someone out in the process. There was still plenty of potential. There were boxes that could contain treasure. I just hoped they would be distracting enough to get my mind off everything else.

I definitely can’t take any of this with me when I leave the station. Brylee knows we deal with a lot of shit, but she doesn’t need to hear the horrible details.

I finished my shower and got dressed. We were lucky that the end of the shift was quiet and we got some rest, especially since we would be busy most of the day. Jett was still finishing up, so I grabbed another cup of coffee and went to look at the report from the previous night on the computer. I didn’t expect much, and I wasn’t surprised when I saw that the woman’s name was still listed as Jane Doe. The investigators would start looking at everyt

hing on Monday, and probably confirm that it was arson. I hoped there would be something to identify the woman we found, even if it was just dental records. There must not have been any missing persons that fit her description, or else that would have been linked to the file.

“Are you ready?” Jett walked into the office and put his hands on his hips.

“Yeah.” I nodded and shut down the computer.

“Nothing new?” He tilted his head to the side as I turned around.

“Nope, we’ll probably have to wait until Monday.” I sighed and walked towards the door.

“Let’s grab Brylee and get something to eat before we head to the locker. I really need something besides a bagel today.” Jett patted me on the shoulder and followed me towards the truck.

“Sounds good.” I looked back at him and nodded.

Chapter Fifteen

Jett

Shifts that ended with a body in the morgue were the ones that I hated most. I had learned to deal with it a little better than Rand, but I understood why it impacted him so much. He almost paid the ultimate price for his bravery, and I knew it changed him. He was still a damn good firefighter and there was nobody I wanted by my side, but the victims lingered in his thoughts a lot more after that night. I recognized the shift in his personality, even before he told me that it was keeping him from pursuing a serious relationship. I knew it left scars, but I had no idea how deep they were. I was pretty confident that there was nothing we could have done to helped the woman we pulled out of the warehouse. She was likely gone before we ever got the call. It didn’t make things easier, but I hoped we would be able to bottle those emotions up once we were with Brylee.

“Good morning!” Brylee met us in the hallway as soon as we stepped off the elevator.

“Someone’s very eager to get started.” Rand chuckled and walked over to wrap his arms around Brylee.

“I missed you guys!” Brylee grinned from ear-to-ear as she embraced Rand.

Seeing Brylee eased some of the darkness that was spinning inside me. Rand seemed to be temporarily pulling through his despair as well. We had work to do, no matter how shitty the previous night was. It was even more important than ever since we would be looking for stuff that could help Maria out. After Rand and Brylee hugged, she walked over to me, and I just couldn’t resist tasting her lips. It was nice to have someone waiting for us when we got off work. I could get used to that. We went into the apartment to grab a few things before heading out for breakfast. After breakfast was over, we headed to the storage locker and opened the two we had left to dig through.

“Let’s do the one with the furniture first.” I motioned with my hand. “That one should go pretty quickly, and we can arrange to have a moving company come to pick up the pieces that won’t fit on the truck.”

“Where do you put all this stuff?” Brylee raised her eyebrows inquisitively.

“We’ve got a friend that works at the Salvation Army. They have a huge warehouse, and we’ve donated enough stuff to them over the years that they will usually let us store a few things there if we need to.” Rand nodded and walked into the storage locker.

“Mainly because they get to keep the stuff we can’t do anything with.” I chuckled under my breath. “If it’s valuable, we’ll keep it at the apartment and try to sell it pretty quickly, but the valuable stuff doesn’t take up much room.”

“Hey, come help me with this mattress.” Rand motioned to me.

“Okay—why don’t you stay out here for a minute.” I looked over at Brylee. “I don’t want you climbing up on any stools when we’re carrying furniture out of the locker.”

“You’re never going to let me live that down are you?” Brylee narrowed her eyes and smiled. “I’ll just grab some of the small stuff.”

“Be careful.” I squeezed her hand and walked into the storage locker.

“Check this out.” Rand pulled the mattress out and pointed behind it.

“Oh shit.” My eyes lit up. “That one is brand new! It’s still wrapped in plastic.”

Rand and I carried the first mattress out of the locker and checked it over once it was in the light. It wasn’t in terrible shape by any means, so we could probably donate it. The second one though—if it was brand new, it would be a very nice one to give to Maria. The way the stuff was stacked, we couldn’t even see it when we originally inspected the storage locker from the outside. We carried it out and confirmed that it was new, which was almost as good as buried treasure. It was a queen-size and it was a name brand. We could have probably gotten a decent price for it if we didn’t have someone who needed it more. Brylee found a few smaller items and started a pile for Maria, so Rand and I carried the mattress over to that side of the building.