The Lies We Believe: A Christian Suspense Novel Read online

  My visibility was low at the top of the stairs inside. The charcoal-black smoke was thick and filled every square inch. Seeing a door within reach, I came up to it. Squinting, I could see it read ‘one forty-four.’ It wasn’t the one I needed. I trudged through the ever-thickening smoke as the heat gnawed at my skin until I found the apartment I needed. One-forty-two. Relieved, I grabbed for the door knob, but found it locked. Taking a few steps back, I launched a kick to the door that would have impressed an MMA fighter, but it wasn’t enough to make it budge. I brought my Halligan front side and stuck it right between the door and the frame. My skin continued to burn from the heat and my muscles screamed in pain as I pried open the door. Finally, it budged open.

  Stepping through the smoke-filled room, I shouted, “Fire department, Call out!” The sound of the roaring flames and falling pieces of debris made it nearly impossible to hear anything else.

  Lowering myself to the floor, I moved through the living room and reached a doorway. An explosion suddenly came from another part of the building. Covering my helmet, I braced myself for any falling debris. Continuing through the doorway and smoke, I noticed a smoldering teddy bear next to me. This must be the girl’s room, I thought to myself as I raised my head to survey the room. Trying to see through the smoke was difficult, but I spotted a closet across the floor. I repeated, “Fire department, call out!” as I inched my way over to the closet.

  Getting to the closet, I found the little girl almost about to lose consciousness. Ripping my mask off in a frenzy, I shoved it over her face and said, “It is going to be okay, I’m going to get you out of here.” She struggled to breathe into the mask. Our breathing apparatuses weren’t so easy to use when not properly trained. “Just try to take small and short breaths,” I said.

  I grabbed the little girl and held her close to my chest in my arms, using myself as a shield as I crawled back towards the doorway. Once back into the living room, I stood up for the rest of the journey out. But before I could reach the front door of the apartment, an explosion came from the kitchen. Covering the girl as much as possible and dropping to the floor, I protected her from the blast. But a piece of metal shot across the room from the explosion and hit me in the upper arm. I thanked God it was only my arm as I regained my footing and continued to the door with the girl. My adrenaline was pumping and my heart was pounding so hard that I had no idea how bad my wound was. As I came to the stairs that led out of the building, pain suddenly shot through my arm, sending me collapsing to the top of the stairs.

  Lying there I turned my head and looked down to the base of the stairs. I could see through the mostly faded smoke as Kane came rushing through the doorway and up the stairs to me. He was trying to talk, but a ringing sound deafened his words.

  “Just get her out of here!” I shouted, trying to move the little girl out of my arms.

  He picked her up and placed the oxygen mask back onto my face. He took off down the stairs as I grasped onto my arm and shoulder. Looking around I saw a railing right near me and I tried to grab at it. Another wave of the worst imaginable pain tore through my arm, sending me to my back. I stared upward at the ceiling as I waited for Kane to come back.

  “Taylor!” Kane shouted as he grabbed onto my good arm. I could hear him this time. “You’re bleeding out everywhere!” he shouted as he grabbed me and helped me up to my feet. He bent down and grabbed my axe and Halligan.

  I had lost a ton of blood, but I was trying to ignore my injury. “I’ll be okay, don’t worry about me. Is the girl going to be alright?” I asked as he helped me down the stairs.

  “She’ll be okay,” Kane said as we came out of the building. I nodded as I tried to walk on my own. An unbearable pain weighed on my bad arm, giving me the sensation of being pulled down.

  “Ahh…” I grunted, grabbing my forearm to help ease the pulling feeling.

  A paramedic came over to me and said, “I need to take a look at you.”

  “I’m fine,” I replied as I wiped my face of sweat with my good arm. I could feel the soot from the building smear across my forehead. “Just make sure that little girl is okay.”

  His eyebrows went up as he looked at my arm and all the blood my jacket was soaked in. Glancing down at where I was hit, I saw my Kevlar jacket was no match for whatever hit me; it tore through the material with ease. Whatever ‘it’ was it managed to slice through all the layers and straight into the muscle of my arm. Suddenly I felt light headed, and everything went black.

  Lying in a hospital bed was the last place on earth I wanted to be that afternoon. The rest of the guys were back at the station getting ready for the next call to come in. Being idle, motion-less and like that of a vegetable was absolute torture for me. I felt useless lying in that bed and everything was out of my control. This injury didn’t need an operation in my mind, but the doctors and nurses insisted otherwise.

  My wife Megan was three hours away in Yakima visiting a friend, but she headed here as soon as she got word that I was hurt. She overreacted, as usual. Last year I fell off a ladder and scraped my arm, and for a month straight she told me to be careful every time I left for work. She was always worrying about me.

  Walking into my hospital room, Megan began crying immediately, as our eyes met on her way over to my bed. Those tears that live in my wife’s eyes were no regular tears at all. They had the ability to cut right through me when they made their appearance.

  “Honey, don’t cry. Please? Save those tears for the next time you want something at the mall. Don’t waste them here and on this little injury,” I said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood.

  “How can I not cry? You could have died, Cole!” she said, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  “I wasn’t even close to dying, love,” I replied, bringing her hand up to my lips. Planting one on her hand, I looked up at her and smiled.

  “You should really take Luis up on that offer in California. Me, you and the boys can all just have a normal life and you can work a normal 9 to 5 at MyTech.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “I can’t do that to the guys at the station. We’ve been over this…”

  She pulled her hand out of mine and said, “You hadn’t been hurt before, though… Not seriously anyway… I don’t want you to end up like my uncle.”

  “That was a freak accident and he’s one of only twelve guys who have lost their lives at the station since 1914 when it opened.”

  “I know… but it’s still a dangerous line of work.”

  “You knew that when we got married. Heck, I met you at the fire station!” I began laughing.

  “I know… but you used to have passions that led me to believe you might want something different than this all your life.”

  “What’s wrong with saving lives? I saved a little girl in that burning building today. She might not be alive if it wasn’t for me finding her in time.”

  “I know… And that’s really cool, babe… I… I just worry.”

  “I love you, baby, and I’m sorry I got hurt,” I said grasping onto her hand tightly. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

  CHAPTER 2

  A couple days into my recovery at home and I was already going out of my mind. Megan was constantly hollering at the boys, and a pungent smell of poop and pee seemed to fill the air in every room. I was more than ready to get back to work pronto.

  One morning my cell phone buzzed on the nightstand next to me. Reaching over, I grabbed the remote for the TV and hit the pause on the western I was in the middle of watching. Westerns were about the only part of bed rest I wasn’t minding. Outside of the western rerun channel, I found nothing but weight loss infomercials, how to get rich quick schemes and over-the-top reality shows that seemed anything but real.

  “How’s it going, Brother?” Micah asked.

  “Oh, you know, just lying around doing nothing with my life.” I scoffed.

  He laughed. “I bet it’s a little bit nice to be taking a load off for a while. I don’t rec
all too many days in the past ten years where you took time off.”

  “You would think it’d be nice… but it’s really not. The medications they have me on make me sleepy all the time… and having the boys constantly bumping my bed is getting old quick.”

  “Well, at least it’s not long term,” He replied. “Couple of the guys and I were talking about possibly stopping by to see you today. We made a big batch of my Chicken Alfredo for you and your family. Plus, Ted wants to see your incision.”

  “I could go for some of your famous Chicken Alfredo right about now. I’m starving! As for Ted… I’m in a cast, so nothing to see for him,” I replied.

  Micah laughed. “Alright, I’ll let him know. So that sounds okay with you and Megan if we come over?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I replied as I thought about that delicious Alfredo sauce. My mouth was salivating at just the thought of it.

  “We’ll be by later this afternoon, probably about three or so. After we get off our shift.”

  “Fantastic! Don’t forget the Alfredo!”

  I smiled as I hung up the phone and continued watching my western. Thinking about the guys coming over made me do something I hadn’t been doing a lot of since I had been bedridden the last couple days —smile. They knew I was dying on the vine being away from the station and knew exactly what would cheer me up.

  Megan came up the stairs and into the bedroom with a laundry basket in her hands. She went over and into the closet. Flipping on a light switch, she asked, “Did you need anything from the store? I’m about to load up the boys and head there after I finish this laundry.”

  Glancing up at the ceiling for a moment, I thought about it and then said, “Get some of those pretzels and that white sugary stuff you put on them. Those were delicious when you made them for the Christmas party.”

  She smiled at me. “Alright,” she replied as she continued putting the folded laundry away.

  “Thanks,” I said as I smiled and continued watching my western.

  Ding, Dong.

  Looking over at the alarm clock on the nightstand, I saw it was already a little after three in the afternoon. I had forgotten to warn Megan about the guys coming over. I could hear Megan open the door downstairs and I cringed as I thought about how she was caught off guard. She hated it when I did that kind of thing.

  As all the guys came up the stairs, Megan entered the room first, shooting a glare over at me. “Hey honey… a few of your co-workers decided to stop by and bring us dinner…” I could tell she was searching my eyes to see if I had already known about them coming.

  “Oh, wow! What a nice surprise,” I said, trying to save my own hide.

  She nodded as her eyes narrowed on me. Thankfully, Bradley began screaming downstairs and pulled her away. “Duty calls. Nice seeing you all,” she said as she headed out of the room.

  Micah approached my bedside. “You shouldn’t lie to her.” He had a concerned look on his face as he folded his hands together in front of him. Kane put his hand on Micah’s shoulder and pulled him back out of the way to give himself room to get to me.

  “Lay off him, Micah! Can’t you see Taylor’s in enemy territory?” Kane said as he scoffed.

  “It’s not that bad being home,” I replied.

  “Sure, you say that now. But wait until she decides to not bring you some food or wipe your butt or whatever else you have her doing.” Kane looked back at Micah. “Bible doesn’t talk about that!”

  Micah’s eyebrows furrowed and he cleared his throat. “Megan should never be viewed as an enemy, Kane. She’s his wife. Maybe your hatred against marriage is why you still haven’t landed a solid lady.”

  Kane shook his head, “Did you forget I got those digits from that bakery chick? We got a date this coming Friday night.”

  “What’s her name?” I asked.

  He pulled out the napkin she wrote her number on. “It doesn’t have a name.”

  “What, no name? You don’t remember it?” I asked.

  He laughed. “No I don’t remember!”

  Megan peeked back into the room, “Do any of you want anything to drink? We have cola and lemonade in the fridge.”

  “I’ll take lemonade,” Ted said from behind Micah. Everybody else declined. Megan nodded and vanished again downstairs.

  Ted peered past Micah at my cast and said, “So what did they have to do in the surgery?”

  “Attach the muscle back to the tendon…” I said.

  He shivered a little. “Sounds crazy man… Do you worry they left some tools in there? I heard about some crazy stuff on the news a while back about them doing that kind of thing.”

  “Shut up, Ted,” Kane said. “You watch too much TV.”

  Ted shook his head at Kane as he said, “No man… It really happens!”

  “Well, I’m not really worried about that kind of thing,” I said. “I’m more worried about the recovery time… I can’t lift a cup of coffee for even the first month!”

  All their eyes widened at the same time. Micah said, “Denise and I will keep you in our prayers, Brother.”

  Kane said, “The station feels really strange without you around to keep everyone in line. Alderman forgot to mop the apparatus room yesterday and when the Cap was doing his inspection he noticed it. Oh man… you should have seen the Cap, he was flaming mad!”

  “Bet Alderman felt stupid,” I said.

  Micah nodded along with Ted.

  Kane continued, “The Captain ripped into him pretty bad about it. Talking about how he’s one of the vets around there and how we all look up to him… It was brutal.”

  “How’d you guys hear about it?” I asked.

  Kane smiled. “We were at the top of the fire pole listening in on the conversation between them…”

  “That’s no surprise for my father to get like that,” Megan said coming into the room. “He’s been that way forever. I remember once when I was a kid I spaced making my bed one morning and he lectured me for an hour about how responsibility and duty comes before playing. Then he grounded me for the rest of the week.”

  We all shook our heads at the story. I said, “He’s rough at times, but he’s a good man.”

  “You say that because he’s your father-in-law,” Kane replied with a grin. “We all know you don’t like him, Taylor.”

  “I know that too,” Megan said smiling.

  “Father-in-law or not,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for that man that dates back to before he got that title of Captain.”

  “Yeah…” Kane replied, nodding.

  “He gave me a chance when I didn’t deserve one. He put his name in for recommending me when I was just a young buck, and he didn’t even know me,” I said.

  “It’s too bad he hates you now for marrying his daughter,” Ted added.

  “I don’t think he hates him,” Kane said.

  “No, he’s right, he hates Cole,” Megan said, nodding as she handed Ted his cup of lemonade.

  I smiled over at her.

  “Hate to break up this bro fest you all are having, but I need to help Cole take care of some stuff before dinner time rolls around,” Megan said weaving between the guys. She didn’t verbalize the word ‘bath,’ but it was still embarrassing.

  I went red in the face. I felt so weak, so incapable, and the worst part of what Megan did in that moment was she did it in front of the men that look up to me at the station. They weren’t just friends. They trusted me with their lives. “Megan…” I said as I pushed her hand away from my shoulder. “Just give me a few more minutes to talk.”

  “That’s okay,” Micah said, raising a hand. “We were about to get going anyways.”

  “Yeah. We need to get back to the station so I can get my car and head up to Colville to see my Mom tonight,” Kane added.

  “Oh wow, two hot dates in a row?” Ted said with a laugh. “Tonight your Mom and tomorrow the nameless bakery gal.”

  “Shut it, Sherman,” Kane said, shooting a sharp glance
over at Ted.

  Ted raised his hands. “Just playing, just playing.”

  Micah leaned in to me a little and said, “Take it easy and get plenty of rest, Cole. And do not hesitate to let us know if you need anything.”

  “Thanks for coming by,” I replied as Megan went for my hand to help me up. The guys all funneled out of my room and back down the stairs to leave.

  As I heard the front door shut, I asked, “Why’d you have to embarrass me like that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Cole… why’d you fail to mention they were coming over? The house was trashed when they showed up… you know I hate that! Plus, it’s not like I said you needed a bath, just that we needed to take care of some things… Jeez.”

  “They don’t care about the house, Megan. They have families of their own. They understand.”

  “You should have seen the way Ted looked at the toys strewn across the living room. It was mortifying!”

  “Ted’s just a weirdo; he always gives those looks.”

  “Whatever, I didn’t appreciate it!” Megan retorted. “You think you’d be a little nicer to me since I’m helping you here.”

  “Got it,” I replied.

  After my sponge bath, I watched the end of my western before joining the family for dinner. By the time I joined the boys at the table, Bradley had already dumped his cup of milk over his head in the high chair and Justin was crawling under the table trying to hide.

  “Get up to the table, please,” I said, exhausted as I took a seat.

  “Why?” Justin whined. He started the ‘why’ kick a few weeks ago. It was cute before I had to be on bed rest and I only saw him for a few minutes here and there. But on my first day home I realized quickly that ‘why’ made up a large part of his vocabulary. And thus Megan’s annoyance over the question made a whole lot more sense after being home. Every chance he got, he’d ask it.