Into the Flame (12 page)
Yeah, they’d rolled it, all right.
The witness on the scene, a middle-aged white female, ran up to his car as soon as he parked in the lot. He opened the door and caught the scent of blood on the cold air.
Someone was badly hurt.
The witness started talking, and talking fast. ‘‘I bought a doughnut and coffee in Rocky Cliffs and stopped in the parking lot for breakfast. It’s empty this time of year. Quiet. I like that. I watched her come up the road. Speeding. She was speeding. Driving too fast.’’
As Doug pulled his emergency kit from his trunk, he appraised his witness. She looked shocky herself, pale and sweaty, kept upright only by her need to report what she’d seen.
‘‘I know her. Ashley Applebaum. Poor thing. I saw her look back. She missed the curve, rolled three times. My God, it was awful. I’ve never seen anything like that. Not in real life, I mean.’’ The witness stood shaking in cold and fear.
‘‘You’re Mrs. Shaw? You called it in?’’ He strode out of the parking lot and into the woods, toward the wisp of steam and smoke that rose through the trees like a campfire.
Mrs. Shaw followed him, still talking fast. ‘‘Yes, yes, I called at once, then I went over to help. Ashley’s hurt . . . really badly.’’
Suddenly Mrs. Shaw wasn’t behind him.
He glanced back.
She leaned one hand against a tree and vomited.
He jumped over some rocks, got his first clear glimpse of the wrecked vehicle, and appraised it with a practiced eye. Bark and needles from the shaken tree still sifted out of the sky, trying to cover the accident. All the windows were broken. The metal had crumpled like aluminum foil.
Yeah. They’d be lucky if no one was killed.
Then Mrs. Shaw was behind him again. ‘‘Ashley told me to get the kids out. I tried to, but I can’t figure out how to work the child restraints. I’m sorry. So sorry!’’ She gave a sob that would have made him feel sorry for her if he hadn’t been so focused on his job.
‘‘It’s okay, Mrs. Shaw. I’ll do it.’’ Thank God the children had been restrained, or they would never have survived in that crumpled mess of a vehicle.
‘‘Will it blow up? Do you think it will blow up?’’
‘‘It might.’’ For sure, they were headed for a car fire.
‘‘I couldn’t stand it if—’’
He interrupted her self-recriminations. ‘‘Are the kids okay?’’
‘‘In pretty good shape.’’
‘‘How old?’’
‘‘The boy’s seven, I think. The baby’s three months. She won’t stop crying, but except for some glass cuts, she looks okay. The little boy is in worse shape. I think maybe his hand is broken, but—’’ Mrs. Shaw broke off and started the whole story again. ‘‘She was driving too fast. I saw her look back. She missed the curve. She looked back. Why did she look back?’’
‘‘She must have been talking to the kids.’’ He stopped Mrs. Shaw in a sheltered spot in the trees. ‘‘Stay here. I’ll bring them to you.’’
Mrs. Shaw kept talking as he walked away. ‘‘I don’t think she was talking to the kids. That’s not what it looked like. It looked like she was scared, like she was watching the road behind her.’’
He opened the back door. The scent of blood grew stronger. He leaned in.
‘‘I didn’t even know she could drive,’’ Mrs. Shaw called.
The baby was strapped into her car seat and crying, a low, despairing, weary wail.
The black-haired boy was silent, cradling his arm and watching everything with wide, dark eyes.
Mrs. Shaw was right. They weren’t badly hurt.
In the front seat, the mother stared straight in front of her, her head tilted at an odd angle, her shoulders drawn up in pain. ‘‘It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay, baby. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.’’ She spoke softly, saying the same thing over and over again.
She was the source of the blood. Blood spattered across the dash, across the ceiling, and into her dark hair.
‘‘Mrs. Applebaum, this is State Patrolman Doug Black,’’ he said.
She stopped speaking.
‘‘I’m going to get your children out now.’’
‘‘Hurry,’’ she said.
‘‘I will.’’ As he pulled the baby seat free of the restraints, he nodded to the boy. ‘‘Hi, there.’’ He turned to place the seat on the ground, and Mrs. Shaw was there, taking the baby from him and heading back up the hill.
Frightened to death and still doing what she thought was right. Thank God for people like her.
He leaned back into the car and across the seat, and smiled at the boy. ‘‘I’m Officer Doug. I’m here to help you.’’ He frowned at the seat belt. The impact had smashed the door against the boy’s cushion, and the cushion now covered the connection. No wonder Mrs. Shaw couldn’t get him out. ‘‘What’s your name?’’ Doug asked.
‘‘Andrew.’’
‘‘Andrew, I’m going to have to cut you free.’’ Doug opened his emergency kit and pulled out his knife.
Andrew flinched back, turning so pale that his dark eyes looked like two black holes in white snow, watching the shiny blade. ‘‘I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry at all. I’m sorry about my wrist. Please don’t—’’
‘‘Don’t you hurt him!’’ Ashley Applebaum’s voice rose, and she looked as if she were trying to wrench herself around. ‘‘You bastard, don’t you hurt him!’’
Doug slid the knife under the belt and cut Andrew free. ‘‘I didn’t hurt him, Mrs. Applebaum.’’ He dropped the blade onto the ground, and he offered his hand. ‘‘Come out, Andrew. I need you to help Mrs. Shaw with the baby.’’
Andrew looked at Doug’s broad palm and long fingers, then eased from the seat and inched across to the open door.
Doug stepped back and let him maneuver his way out. Better that than trying to wrestle the frightened child free.
When Andrew stood beside the car, Doug pointed to Mrs. Shaw, up the hill and kneeling beside the baby seat. ‘‘That’s Mrs. Shaw. Can you go help her take care of your sister?’’
The boy looked at him. Just looked at him.
‘‘I’m going in after your mother next,’’ Doug told him.
‘‘Is she going to live?’’ Andrew was far too solemn, far too knowledgeable.
‘‘I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve looked at her. Go on, quickly. Ask Mrs. Shaw to make you a splint for your wrist.’’
Andrew went at once, as if the one question was all he dared ask.
Doug tried the front passenger-side door, but it wouldn’t open, so he crawled in the back, dragged his emergency kit behind him, placed it on the seat, and crawled over the bloody front seat to Ashley Applebaum.
The smell of death rolled off her in waves.
The steering column had pierced her below the ribs and impaled her liver and intestines. Glass had ripped a face already gaunt and worried. She was dying. Inexorably, she was dying.
‘‘I got the kids out. They’re going to be fine.’’ He took his handkerchief from his pocket. ‘‘I’m just going to tie this on your forehead to keep the blood out of your eyes.’’ He did, and asked, ‘‘Is that better?’’
‘‘It doesn’t hurt so bad.’’ She took long, deep breaths impeded by internal bleeding. ‘‘Listen. No matter what happens, you won’t let their father have my babies?’’
He knew why she begged so pathetically. He’d heard Mrs. Shaw call her ‘‘Poor Ashley,’’ seen Andrew cringe at the sight of his knife, heard the boy beg as if he feared for his life.
Their father abused them. Hurt them.
‘‘Where is their father?’’ he asked.
‘‘At the house. I hit him. With the fireplace poker. He’s unconscious. . . .’’ Ashley Applebaum gasped, a dying animal. Then she gripped Doug’s wrist. ‘‘Don’t go after him. He sells bombs.’’
‘‘Shit.’’ Doug pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed his chief, Yamashita, and gave him the information.
Ashley continued, ‘‘Bill sells the bombs to the white men, the ones who hate the Jews and the blacks and the Mexicans. And I . . . I fixed it so that when he got up from the floor, all the bombs would go off.’’
‘‘Where do you live?’’ He waited with his phone in his hand, ready to pass the information to Yamashita.
‘‘Off Highway Six.’’ She sagged as consciousness slipped away from her.
He gave Yamashita his report, and when he was done, Ashley was back, awake, but barely.
‘‘He branded her. Just like he branded me.’’
‘‘Branded you?’’
‘‘With his ring. He heats it up and . . . it hurts so bad.’’ She jerked and shuddered in anguished memory.
Doug felt the familiar, helpless horror tighten his muscles, but he pulled out a wet towelette and gently wiped her face. ‘‘It’s okay,’’ he said in the same soothing tone she’d used for her children.
‘‘He could do that to me. I was worthless . . . but not her. She’s just a baby. . . .’’ Ashley Applebaum’s breath came irregularly. ‘‘Don’t let him get her. She’s such a sweet thing . . . and Andrew . . . he doesn’t know what real life is like. . . .’’ As if she could see him, she turned her face toward Doug. ‘‘Don’t let him have them.’’
He wanted to promise her he would accede to her dying wish.
Yet the courts didn’t care. They would keep the nuclear family intact. They would give the children to their father.
She knew what the reality was. Painfully, she turned her head toward him, her eyes almost blind with oncoming death. ‘‘If God is just, Bill will blow himself to kingdom come before anyone has the chance to rescue him.’’
Yet Doug knew justice wasn’t so clean. ‘‘If he doesn’t get the kids, they’ll go to an orphanage, to a foster home.’’
‘‘Anything will be better than staying with him.’’ Tears slipped from beneath the handkerchief over her eyes.
‘‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’’ He had never meant anything so much in his life.
‘‘You
don’t know what
you’re
talking about.’’ Each breath was irregular, a pain in her chest. ‘‘Pray that I killed him. Pray . . .’’
don’t know what
you’re
talking about.’’ Each breath was irregular, a pain in her chest. ‘‘Pray that I killed him. Pray . . .’’
A muffled explosion blasted the air. The ground shook, rattling the SUV.
She smiled, a bare, ghastly grimace of justified pleasure. ‘‘There it is. There it is. I’ve only done one thing right in my life, and that’s it. He’s gone.’’
Ashley Applebaum died right before Doug’s eyes.
The
Denali
was smoking, and he needed to be out of here. Yet he cupped her eyes with the palm of his hand and closed them, cherishing her lost life for one last moment.
Denali
was smoking, and he needed to be out of here. Yet he cupped her eyes with the palm of his hand and closed them, cherishing her lost life for one last moment.
Then he leaned over the seat, slipped into the back, grabbed his kit, and was out the door. He ran up the hill, away from the impending car fire and toward the small group—the baby, the boy, Mrs. Shaw— huddled on the hill.
He heard the sirens in the distance. The sheriff, the state police, the EMTs—they were all on their way. Kneeling beside Andrew, Doug hugged his shoulders.
‘‘My mother . . . ?’’ Andrew saw the answer in Doug’s face. He gave a convulsive sob. ‘‘My mother . . .’’
Doug held the boy as he cried.
Mrs. Shaw looked up grimly. ‘‘Look what Andrew showed me.’’ She peeled back the baby’s onesie and displayed the little girl’s shoulder. A brutal red burn had ripped a mark like a lion’s face into the smooth, clear pale skin. ‘‘That bastard Applebaum branded the baby, the same as he did to Ashley on their wedding night.’’
‘‘That explosion?’’ Doug looked meaningfully at Mrs. Shaw. ‘‘She finished him.’’
‘‘It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,’’ Mrs. Shaw said sarcastically.
The ambulance and the county sheriff ripped into the parking lot, sirens blaring.
Andrew grabbed Doug’s arm and dug his fingers into the flesh. ‘‘The baby girl doesn’t matter, right? Girls are possessions. Just possessions. We have to show them who owns them.’’ The boy repeated his father’s credo as if it were gospel, but still he cried, big, childish tears at odds with his cruel sentiments.
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