Page 95 of Hold Your Breath
He snorted as they pulled up to Station One. Grabbing their gear, they ran for the building. The cutting wind stole Lou’s breath, and she burst through the door into the warmth of the station. As Callum donned a dry suit, she started the van and opened the overhead door before fastening his suit for him. Even by the time they left the station, no firefighters had made it in yet.
Thanks to the clumsy nature of the suit, with its attached gloves and boots, Lou drove the van. It was hard to find a balance between urgent speed and care, and the wind gusted hard enough to rock the van, adding to her tension. Clutching the wheel with both hands, she leaned forward and tried to peer through the white curtain of snow in front of her.
“Let me know if I’m going to run into anything, okay?” she tried to joke, although her voice shook.
“Steady,” he said in a calm voice. She could almost feel her blood pressure dropping just listening to him. “Slow down if you need to. If we wreck, we can’t help anyone.”
“Okay.” Taking a deep breath and then letting it out, she forced her fingers to ease up on the steering wheel. The reservoir was only five miles away from Station One. She could do this.
“What I don’t get,” Callum said, still in that composed, easy tone, “is how anyone managed to go through the ice on Mission. Verde, I’d get. There are always weak spots on Verde once the temps start warming up. But Mission? What’d this guy do? Chop a hole before jumping in?”
Her laugh came out in a nervous rush. “Thanks.” When he cocked an eyebrow in question, she explained, “For settling me down, I mean.”
“You’re doing fine, Lou.” His dry-gloved hand reached over and squeezed her leg above her knee.
“Thanks,” she said again, her gaze fixed at the tiny portion of road she could see in front of her. “Now keep your hands to yourself and quit distracting the driver.”
It was his turn to laugh. “I thought you liked how I distracted you.”
“I said ‘settling me.’ Your touch is more unsettling than settling.”
He laughed again but removed his hand from her leg. The horrible visibility didn’t allow her to dwell on how she missed the weight of it.
They were quiet for the remainder of the drive, the silence broken by short, stressed transmissions from the other emergency vehicles trying to make their way to the reservoir. Callum managed to convey their progress over the radio, even wearing his clumsy gloves, for which Lou was thankful. She didn’t need one more responsibility, not when her entire focus was keeping the dive van on the road.
When the van’s headlights reflected off the sign for the reservoir turnoff, she almost burst into tears of relief. Instead, she bit the inside of her lip hard enough to send a shock of pain through her. Lou reminded herself that this was just the beginning of the call, and the hardest part was yet to come.
Although she knew, thanks to the radio transmissions, that none of the other first responders were even close to the reservoir, it was still a disappointment not to see any flashing lights through the blowing snow.
“Where do I go?” she asked, leaning even closer to the windshield. “I know I was just here, but it looks different in the dark and with the snow flying.”
“Take a left.”
She did, bumping across the frozen ruts in the gravel road. The wind had blown most of the snow clear, leaving only a few hard-as-rock drifts to maneuver. Lou was concentrating so hard on navigating the narrow road that Callum’s voice made her jump.
“Dispatch, are you still on the line with the caller?”
“Negative,” she replied. “I lost the connection four minutes ago. I’ve been trying to call him back, but he’s not answering.”
Lou’s stomach clenched. If the complainant wasn’t answering his phone, there was a good chance he was doing something stupid, like going onto the ice to help the victim. She braced herself for the likelihood that she and Callum were going to have to pull two hypothermic people out of the water.
“Fuck,” Callum muttered off the air before he depressed the mic button again. “Copy. Let me know if you reach him. 1210 and 1244 are on scene. I don’t see the caller on shore, but visibility is sh—uh, not good.”
“Copy.”
“Park up there,” he said, pointing to a section of shore mostly blown free of snow.
“Copy,” Lou said, making him send a wry look in her direction. She shrugged as she eased the van into the spot he’d indicated. It was hard not to fall into the radio pattern of speaking when on a call.
“There!” he said abruptly, and Lou jumped, hitting the brakes. “There he is.”
She squinted through the blowing snow, realizing that the cover had lightened slightly between gusts of wind. A dark circle of water surrounded an even darker spot before it disappeared under the surface.
“Oh shit!” she yelped. “I think he just went under.”
They both climbed into the back of the van. Callum sat to slide his arms into the buoyancy control device that was strapped to the oxygen tank. Ripping off her gloves, Lou secured the BCD, arranging the regulator and gauges to hang over his shoulders for easy access. Lifting the weight belt, she paused, frowning.
“Is this going to be enough with the buoyancy of your dry suit?” she asked.
