Total Rush Read Online Free PDF Page A

to do that? “Are we done here?” she asked.
    Aztec nodded.
    Turning off the light, Gemma led them back into her living room. Was there a protocol here? Was she supposed to offer them coffee or something, especially since this was a false alarm? Was she supposed to make a donation to the FDNY?
    Blue Eyes turned to Gemma. “Would it be possible for you to burn a less smoky brand of incense, miss, um—”
    â€œDante,” Gemma supplied.
    â€œDante,” he echoed thoughtfully. “Could you do that? Please?”
    â€œI suppose.” She’d been using this brand of incense for years. Now, thanks to Mrs. Croppy, she was going to have to find something else.
    â€œA less smoky brand wouldn’t trip a smoke detector,” Blue Eyes continued.
    Gemma bit her lip. “What if I took the batteries out whenever I burned the incense?”
    It was a bad question.
    â€œDo you know how many people take the batteries out of detectors when they’re cooking and forget to put them back?” Blue Eyes said wearily. “Look, just buy a new smoke detector, put the batteries in, and leave them there. In the meantime, try to find a less pungent brand of incense”—he sounded amused, which bugged Gemma—“burn it for a shorter period of time, and keep a window cracked. That should take care of the problem.”
    Then he smiled at her, his blue eyes so alive and full of life that Gemma thought, Old soul, Good heart, and goose bumps rose up on her arms. Ushering them to the front door, she apologized again for wasting their time.
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    â€œYo, Birdman, whaddaya think? A wacko or what?”
    Hanging up his turnout coat back at the station, Sean Kennealy turned to answer the question posed to him by Sal Ojeda, who, along with Mike Leary, had just helped him perpetrate a minor fraud on his neighbor.
    â€œCould be.” Sean shrugged. “I just hope she stops burning that crap.”
    â€œOh, she will,” Leary predicted, sliding out of his boots. “You were very professional.”
    Sean chuckled. For over a month, the smell coming out of Theresa Falconetti’s old apartment had been driving him crazy. He’d come home from his shift, desperate for sleep, but he couldn’t. The stinky smell wafting its way to his apartment was so strong it was suffocating. Opening all of his windows didn’t help. The stink clung to the air, tormenting him. One morning, sleep deprived and pissed off, he slipped a note under the apartment’s door, hoping that would do the trick.
    Then two nights later the stench returned.
    That bugged him.
    Years earlier, someone down the hall had complained that Pete and Roger squawked their heads off whenever he wasn’t home. He’d tracked down a vet who was able to prescribe some antianxiety meds. Presto! Problem solved. If he could respond to a neighbor’s request, why couldn’t the incense burner? Was his note too nasty? True, he’d scribbled it in haste. Maybe he should have knocked on the door and asked The Stinker to stop? But he was in no mood to get into it with someone who might be a wacko. What kind of person wants their apartment to smell like that?
    Instead, Sean asked two of his buddies from the firehouse to help him take care of the problem once and for all. They waited until their shift was over, then bunkered up and walked over to his building on Fifty-ninth and First, feeling like three naughty schoolboys. Seeing where he lived, Leary and Ojeda razzed him about being Yuppie scum, but Sean offered no apologies. Years back, he’d worked hard on Wall Street to buy his apartment. Now he owned it outright and was proud of it.
    â€œYou catch that teddy on the bed?” Leary drawled. “I bet she was waiting for her guru to come over and take her to a higher plane, if you know what I mean.”
    Ojeda laughed. “All the way to nirvana, baby.”
    Sean laughed, too. He had