Page 81 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
I couldn’t.
So now I’m doing what Beckett would do, what Blue Line would do. I read the play and see what needs to be done.
And I’m running into the dark.
The west corridor is blistering. Heat that stings my skin and burns my eyes. I pull my sweater up over my nose, trying to filter out the smoke. I know that’s not how it works—I’ve written enough fires to burn down a small city—but I do it anyway.
But it’s not the smoke that burns my lungs—it’s the heat.
My book research did not prepare me for the level of heat.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear my name being called. Beckett’s realized where I’ve gone. He’ll be here soon. I’m running out of time.
I reach the office. The door hangs open. Flames climb the east wall, eating up pictures and rosters and hockey schedules, the accumulated memories of thirty years curling and blackening.
The filing cabinets are against the far wall. Metal. Scalding. But the fire hasn’t breached the drawers—contents still paper instead of ash. I pull the top drawer. Spot the manila folder. I grab it and shove it under my sweater.
You know, the heroine in my novel would have a sleek tactical bag and a one-liner about backing up your data. The real heroine has a bulky folder stuffed inside her sweater like Nothing to see here, folks. Just keep walking.
The smoke is starting to coat my lungs as a hacking cough nearly doubles me over.
I have what I need. It’s time to go.
I turn to leave.
And see it.
On the desk. A framed photograph, the glass flickering with gold in the firelight.
Coach Hart, and I think Beckett’s dad. He’s wearing a number forty-seven jersey, just like Beckett, and they’re about the same age. And with them is a little boy, dark, curly hair, maybe two years old, on skates.
Baby Beckett and his dad and my dad, here in Sutton Arena, and no, I’m not crying—you’re crying! Everyone is grinning. No one has any idea of what is going to go down.
The before picture. Of everything.
And it tells me something big—my dad was a good guy, and clearly there was more to him helping Beckett than favoritism.
Were mistakes made? Absolutely.
Do I need to live in them forever? Nope.
I grab the picture. Of course I do. Because it’s what you do for someone you care about. And I know this now—I deeply care about Beckett Benson (and like we discussed earlier, maybe I always have). And I’m tired of the hurt. I’m tired of a life of ashes and debris.
For both of us.
Three steps from the office door, the building makes a decision.
The fire has reached the critical threshold—the temperature triggers the ancient, failing sprinkler system. Through twelve hours of blizzard and power failure and every infrastructural indignity, the sprinkler system has sat dormant, patient, its pipes accumulating cold with the quiet diligence of a system that knows its moment will come.
Its moment has come.
Water erupts from the ceiling heads—I can hear it pounding the arena floor, flooding inward toward my burning office door—the entire corridor transformed from a burning building into a deluge, a biblical event that has the sky opening and the great flood descending.
I am drenched. Instantly. Completely. The water is cold—aggressive, Minnesota March-groundwater cold.
My gasp is involuntary. My lungs seem to collapse in on themselves, every nerve firing, sharp and icy.
The files! I clutch them tighter, wrap my arms closer around my body, shield them from the storm. Because I did not run into a burning building and jam a manila folder into my waistband to have the evidence destroyed by the rescue system.
