“You’re not,” Rodriguez said gently, crouching slightly so she was eye level. “You’re helping us help someone else.”
Mrs. Patterson hesitated, then nodded. “Well… all right. Let me get my things.”
Getting her “things” turned out to be an event. She worried about her medications first, then her coat, then her boots. Then she stopped short in the hallway and looked genuinely distressed.
“I can’t leave Mr. Whiskers,” she said, voice wobbling.
“Bring him,” I said without missing a beat. “He can supervise my house for the night.”
That earned a shaky little laugh, the sound thin but real, and it felt like a small victory. We gathered her pills, her purse, warm clothes, and a surprisingly heavy stack of photo albums she insisted on taking because, as she put it, “you never know.”
By the time we made it back to my house, the storm had layered another inch of snow on everything, smoothing footprints almost as fast as we made them. I set Mrs. Patterson up in the guest room with extra quilts, turned on the fireplace in the living room, and made sure she had water, snacks, and her phone charger.
Mr. Whiskers emerged from his carrier, sniffed my hallway like a building inspector, then jumped onto the couch and curled up as if he’d always lived there.
Rodriguez stayed with Mrs. Patterson for a few minutes, chatting softly, making sure she was comfortable. Chen and I headed back out to the garage to deal with the generator.
Disconnecting it from the transfer switch took longer than usual with numb fingers and snow blowing in every time we opened the door. We worked carefully, methodical despite the cold, because rushing with electricity is how people get hurt.
As we loaded the generator into the back of the cruiser, securing it with straps and padding, Chen shook his head.
“About your HOA president,” he said. “Brenda Hartwell, right?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s called us four times tonight. Four separate noise complaints. All bogus.”
My stomach tightened. “She’s doing this to other people?”
Chen nodded grimly. “You’re not the only one with a generator. But you’re the only one she confronted in person so far. If she calls again, we’re going to have a conversation with her about misuse of emergency services.”
“Good,” I said. “Because she’s going to get someone hurt.”
He paused, studying me for a moment with something like respect. “Document everything,” he said. “Every threat. Every notice. If anyone gets hurt because they were afraid of her, that becomes something else.”
He didn’t say criminal charges. He didn’t have to.
The cruiser pulled away, red taillights disappearing into the swirling white, my generator riding in the back like a borrowed lifeline. I went inside, locked the door, and checked on Mrs. Patterson. She was wrapped in a quilt in my recliner, hands folded around a mug of tea I’d made her, Mr. Whiskers purring like a small engine in her lap.
“You’re a good man, Frank,” she said softly. “Your mother raised you right.”
I swallowed. “She tried.”
The sky was just starting to lighten when my doorbell rang again.
I opened it to a woman I vaguely recognized from down the block. Early thirties, hair pulled into a messy bun, eyes frantic, cheeks red from cold and panic.
“Are you Frank?” she asked breathlessly. “The guy with the generator?”
“I’m Frank,” I said, “but the police borrowed the generator for a family with a newborn.”
Her face crumpled. “Oh no. My father lives with me. He’s on oxygen. The battery backup on his concentrator is almost dead. Hospitals are on diversion. We can’t get there in this storm—”
She stopped, words collapsing into a sob.
My brain snapped into triage mode.
“What kind of concentrator?” I asked. “Model?”
“Philips EverFlo,” she said quickly. “I don’t know the power needs.”
“Hold on.”
I ran to my office, flipped open my laptop, and pulled up the specs, fingers moving faster than I consciously directed them. Three hundred fifty watts.
Relief hit me hard enough to make my knees wobble.
I grabbed my portable power station from the garage—a Jackery I’d bought for camping and emergencies and never expected to use like this. It was fully charged.
Thank God.
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