“Drive to the fire.”
“What?” Mo looks between me and the road. “No, Claire. I don’t know much about fires, but I know that’s not something you do.”
“Please, Mo. We don’t have to get close, but I need to be there if something happens.”
“Nothing is going to happen.”
“You don’t know that,” I shout. “Please, Mo. Please, just take me.”
“Rhett is going to kill me.” She looks in her rearview mirror and side mirror and then executes a perfect three-point turn. A second later we fly past Rhett’s truck going the opposite direction. Mo looks in her rearview mirror and flinches when she sees Rhett whip a U-turn in the middle of the road.
Her phone rings through the Bluetooth and she hits the answer button on the screen on her dash. “You’re on speaker,” she says.
“I don’t care if the Pope can hear me. Where are you going? Do you know how dangerous it is to turn around like that on the highway?”
“Oh, and your U-turn was so much better?” she counters.
“Mo,” Rhett warns. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking Claire to the fire. But don’t worry, we’re not going to get close,” she adds
Rhett laughs, but it lacks any sort of humor. “Don’t worry? Are you two stupid? You know better than to do something like that.”
“Don’t be mad at her,” I tell him. “I asked her to take me.”
“And she could’ve said no.”
Mo rolls her eyes.
“Turn around,” he orders.
Mo scowls at her dash. “No.”
“Monroe Danielle Gallagher, turn your truck around.”
“Absolutely not. She needs to be there, Rhett. If the situation was reversed and you were about to run into an inferno, I’d want to be there, too, and I hope to God she’d take me if I asked.”
We listen to Rhett sigh through the phone. Mo gives me a tight smile and a thumbs up low enough that Rhett wouldn’t be able to see it through the window.
“You don’t even know where you’re going.”
“Dayton. It’s a small town. We’ll look for the plume of smoke.”
There’s a long pause filled with lots of white noise, and then Rhett gives in.
“Fine, but do not get close, and do not get out of your car. The last thing Trevor needs is to see you there. He needs his head in the game for this sort of shit, Claire.”
“I know. We promise.”
Mo disconnects the call and looks at me. “You owe me big time for this.”
44
Claire
I’m not ready.
I’ve been sitting outside the fire in Mo’s car for over three hours now, and I’ve come to that conclusion. I’m not ready to be with a man who risks his life every single day. The amount of fear and anxiety that has raced through my body as I’ve watched men run in and out the building, pulling out victims and collapsing on the ground beside them, has been immeasurable.