Not in the Cards

by Alex Westmore

  “I’ll be right back, I promise!” Jumping into the cab of her truck, Delta squealed out of the parking lot in chase of a blinking green light. Glancing at the receiver, Delta realized it wasn’t far from where she was, so she put the pedal to the metal, took a few side streets, and managed to come within only four cars behind a bright red Camaro with dealer plates.

  “Bingo!” she said, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. Somewhere in her gut, she knew the thin man was behind the wheel of that car. The same electric energy had grabbed her instincts during the Zuckerman case. This was it.

  Trying to follow as inconspicuously as possible, Delta let three more cars ahead of her. She had the receiver and that was all she needed to keep a safe distance.

  “Where are those units?” she mumbled, glancing at her watch. She had been following this guy for almost five minutes now and there were no black and whites in sight

  When the Camaro took a series of turns, Delta knew he was simply trying to establish that he hadn’t been tailed. Ah, Delta grinned to herself, the beauty of high-tech police work.

  The next time she stopped, Delta allowed a little more distance between the Camaro and her truck. As she waited, a black and white rolled through the intersection, oblivious to her waving hands in the cab of the truck.

  “Damn it! ” she cried, beating the steering wheel with her fists. “What’s the matter with those guys?”

  Suddenly, the green light held steady, and Delta watched and waited for it to blink again. After waiting what felt like hours, it was clear that the Camaro had arrived at its destination. In a moment, she slowly rounded the corner and saw the Camaro pull into a garage.

  “Come on, guys, where are you?” When the garage door came to a close, Delta pulled over seven houses away, jammed her gun in the back of her pants, and quietly clicked the door closed. Looking up and down the street, Delta wondered where everyone was.

  Opening the passenger side door, Delta pulled her ankle holster out from under the seat, pushed the nine-millimeter into it, and made her way across the shadowy front lawns that stretched like a darkened football field before her. In the sparse glow of the city night, Delta heard every cricket, every blade of grass crunch beneath her feet, and every dog within a mile barking to the twilight hours. By the time she reached the house where she assumed the Camaro safely sat behind the garage door, a white, unmarked van pulled into the driveway. The van had no plates and bore no markings other than a dent in the right fender. From her vantage point behind the ubiquitous California oleanders Delta watched as the garage door opened, allowing the van to pull in while three dark figures walked casually out.

  Flattening herself against the house, Delta held her breath. One of the figures, a man with a foreign accent, gesticulated wildly while the other two—the thin man and Rubin—tried to calm him down.

  Delta looked up at an open window and scrambled to the house. She guessed it was probably the kitchen or maybe a bathroom. It as too hard to tell in the dark. Slowly rising up, she slipped her fingers against the window and opened it a little more before sliding back down behind the bush. From somewhere inside, she could hear a television booming loudly. She guessed there were four, maybe five men. If three of them were outside, at least one, maybe two would be inside. Checking the house out from her concealed position, Delta cursed when she discovered that it was a two-story house.

  Gazing back down at her watch, Delta sighed. It was pretty clear no unit would be showing up.She was flying solo. She’d have to rely on her own best judgment. This was the razor’s edge she had spent her career balancing on. At times like these, when her fate rested on her own shoulders, it pumped her up and gave her a natural high. This was why she so loved the streets and their dangers.

  One slip and it would be over for her and any children inside. One wrong move might sentence herself and others to death.

  Inching closer, Delta listened to the heated conversation among the three men.

  “I told you he was stupid enough to be dangerous.”

  “It’s not a problem, man. Relax.”

  “Relax?” the thin man said. “The feds are all over town, that bitch cop must have done something to Martinez and Dice, and we got a bunch a kids we gotta waste. Man, this has really gone sour. I say we bail.”

  “Bail?” Rubin’s calm voice said evenly. “We’ve only delivered half of what the man ordered.”

  “So what? I’m not about to go to jail for some screw-loose dude, even if he is rich.”

  “What about the brats?”

  “Leave them.”

  “No way! We busted our asses to get those Indian pups. Now you’re telling me we aren’t going to use ’em?”

  The thin man raised his voice. “I don’t give a shit what the man wants! I’m not spending time behind bars for him or nobody else. I been there, man, and I ain’t going back.”

  A fourth man joined them. “Cool it, will you? I just talked with Poppy and he agrees we gotta jet. He’s got another line on a real high roller in ’Frisco and he wants us to lay low while he makes the arrangements.”

  “So what are we supposed to do with the kids while we’re laying low?”

  “Poppy says he wants everything destroyed. He wants us to gut this whole house and everything in it. He thinks bringing the brats along is too risky, so they’re staying here. Able is drugging the kids right now. We’ll leave them here. Kirk, come help me detonate this place.”

  Delta had heard enough. The razor’s edge just got sharper and she knew that the fate of the children rested on her next decision—a decision that could mean the end of her career, if not her life. But then, weren’t the two synonymous?

  Slowly standing, Delta peeked in the window and saw two men hurrying about, placing explosives and gasoline-soaked rags all about the house. Running through a mental list of her possible choices, Delta looked around before sprinting in between houses to the house next door.

  “Who’s there?” A gruff voice asked after Delta pressed the doorbell.

  “The police,” Delta pushed out in a loud whisper. “I need to use your phone.”

  “Oh yeah? How do I know it’s really the police?”

  “Look through the hole. I’ll show you my badge.” Delta waited, feeling her heart banging.

  “People make fake badges all the time, you know.”

  Frustrated and losing time she couldn’t afford to waste, Delta pulled her gun from her holster and pointed it at the peephole. “That may be true, sir, but does this look fake to you? This is an emergency. Open the damn door before I blow it off its hinges and arrest you for obstructing justice.”

  In a blink, the door was open and Delta rushed past the man. “I need your phone.”

  “Over there,” he grunted, following her into the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

  Picking the phone up, Delta rang Connie’s desk. She picked it up on half a ring.

  “Where the hell are you?” Connie asked as soon as she picked up the phone. “We’ve been looking all over the place. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Listen, the perps are at 683 West Tennyson and they’re getting ready to bust out of there. They’re going to blow the house up.”

  “West Tennyson? Are you sure? Carducci said you headed east. We’ve got units all over the place down there.”

  “Well, send them west. Send fire trucks and paramedics also. There’s a number of children who’ve been—” before Delta could finish, she heard a huge explosion followed by a secondary explosion.

  “Del? What the hell—”

  “I gotta go, Con. Get those cars here ASAP!” Dropping the phone, Delta rushed out the door. “Stay inside!” she commanded over her shoulder to the man.

  The house next door was ablaze. Orange and glowing yellows flickered from the garage and the kitchen windows. Black smoke twisted menacingly up to become one with the darkness as flames greedily licked at the shingles on the roof. The van was gone and Delta couldn’t remember if she had menti
oned it to Connie or not.

  “Lord, help me,” Delta uttered as she ran. The heat from the garage made it impossible to approach from the front so Delta scooted to the back of the house to check there.

  After trying the back door and finding it locked, Delta realized she was wasting seconds looking for an easy way in. Picking up a piece of firewood from a stack a few yards away on the porch, and noting the irony, Delta tossed it through the window. Immediately, a whoosh of hot air hit her in the face so hard, it felt like it singed her eyebrows.

  Inhaling deeply, Delta zipped up her bomber jacket and tried to ignore the fear clawing at her courage. Then, as if an afterthought, Delta jammed her weapon back in her ankle holster.

  “You’ve got to go in, Storm,” Delta said to herself as she felt the searing heat bow out the window. From outside, she could see the flames devouring curtains in the family room. Like a living tornado, the flames jumped from one piece of furniture to another, engulfing everything in its path.

  Inhaling one more time, Delta picked up another piece of firewood and knocked the remaining glass away before climbing through the now-empty window frame and into the orange inferno.

  Inside, the heat was stifling. Besides the curtains and furniture, the rug had already caught fire, and things not yet been touched by the fiery tentacles were beginning to melt. Losing no more time, Delta ran forward into the kitchen, wet a towel and wrapped it around her head like a turban. As she turned toward the animated flames, anxiety grabbed her, immobilizing her for a moment.

  “Come on, Storm. This is your big chance.” Taking another step toward the fire, Delta pulled her shirt up around her nose and prepared to take the stairs. “Come on, Con. I know you’re out there.” Delta inhaled, held her breath, bowed her neck and ran through the three-foot wall of flames blocking the stairs. Bounding up the stairs two at a time, oblivious to her burning pant leg and the fiery fingers caressing her ankles, Delta wondered if she should have left her gun outside.

  As she reached the top of the stairs, she slapped at the fire burning her jeans with the towel and yelped when she looked down at her singed jacket and her already-starting-to-soften tennis shoes. It was far hotter inside than she had imagined.

  On her feet again, Delta watched the fire creeping up the banister as it reached toward the ceiling. The heat was already unbearable, and the blue-gray smoke filled the upper half of the house like a demonic genie. Her eyes began to water and her throat started to hurt.

  Her eyes watering and stinging from the smoke, Delta wiped them with the edge of her now nearly-dried towel. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?” Delta felt the first closed door she came to, withdrawing her hand quickly from the scorching heat. “Hello?” she yelled, coughing as soon as she inhaled a lung full of smoke. “I won’t hurt you! I’m here to help!” Kicking the door in, Delta saw nothing but a column of flames. “Where are you?” Holding her forearm above her forehead, she peered inside at the burning room and knew, if anyone was in there, they were already dead.

  The second door was warm, but not as hot as the one before. Kicking it, she found two children about five years old on the burning bed. Both boys were dark-skinned with black hair, wearing jeans and white t-shirts. The fire was only four feet from their heads, and already, Delta could see heat blisters on their arms.

  “God, no,” Delta ran to the bed and tore both children from it. Their bodies hung like limp sacks of corn meal as their arms flopped over her shoulders

  Sliding open the back door to a short balcony, Delta set the boys against the railing and ran back in. The fire, like an oil spill, spread rapidly through the house as if chasing her.

  Moving past the bathroom, which had the only open door upstairs, Delta peeked back over her shoulder at the balcony and knew she had less than a minute before the heat became unbearable and she would have to leave any children she had not yet found.

  Coming to the third and final closed door, Delta didn’t need to feel it to know the fire raged on the other side. Nonetheless, she smashed the door open and was immediately thrown backward by a large, whooshing force that blew out of the room and knocked her across the hall.

  “Shit, shit shit!” Delta beat at the fire on her jeans as she struggled for air. After surveying her clothes, she reached up and felt her face. From what she could tell, her eyebrows were gone and she’d suffered a burn on her cheek.

  Knowing she could not enter that room, and that anyone in there would be dead, Delta decided to try the closets in the two rooms she did have access to. The first closet had telltale signs of arson; rags, turpentine, and other flammable containers were strewn carelessly about. When Delta opened the second closet, she almost missed the little girl who must have managed to crawl into a corner before the full effect of the drugs took place. Delta knelt down and cradled the girl in her arms. The girl’s eyelashes fluttered for just an instant, as if still trying to fight off the drugs.

  “Hang in there, baby,” Delta whispered, setting the girl on the balcony with the boys. Peering through the night, she wondered where the guys were; her hopes bolstered slightly by the distant sound of fire engines and the growing crowd watching the house burn.

  Turning back into the house, Delta found herself face-to-face with a wall of flames. Inhaling her last clean breath of air, she plunged through the flames and into the bathroom to check it out.

  At first, she saw nothing. Then, her gaze traveled over the bathtub, and Delta saw black, tangled hair. She peered more closely through the smoke and saw that the little bundle in the bathtub was another child. Without hesitating, Delta turned the water on, got her wet, and then pulled her from the tub to set her on the balcony with the others.

  Delta knew her time was up; she could not reenter the house. She had no choice but to drop the kids into the bushes below and hope the branches broke the fall—and nothing else. Hell, kids could recover from broken bones, but fire? That was another story.

  Delta couldn’t see the hedges very clearly, but it appeared as if all but one of the kids might land safely on them. She would have to take one of the kids with her.

  Grabbing the littlest girl by her wrists, Delta swung her out and over the hedges. When she was almost perpendicular to Delta, she let her go and watched as her lifeless body turned half a turn and landed in the middle of the hedges. To Delta’s relief, they supported the girl’s weight.

  She did the same with the two boys, but as the last boy crunched into the hedges, the balcony started to give way and Delta barely managed to get back inside with the little girl from the bathroom before the gutter came crashing down. Heat to her back and no way out from the door, she looked for another escape.

  Hearing sirens in the distance gave Delta the renewed courage she needed. She was not alone. If only she could beat the flames below. If only she were a little faster. If only...

  Delta stopped herself. She had faced her own death once this week, and survived. Now, there wasn’t time to see if the little girl was dead or alive; the heat was so incredibly hot and the smoke so thick and intense, Delta knew she had very little time before both overtook her.

  Opening her jacket, Delta wrapped the immobile child close to her. Like a ragdoll, her little legs hung below the hem.

  “I got you, honey,” Delta whispered as she zipped the jacket halfway up to keep the girl from falling out. From the top of the stairs, Delta could barely see through the haze of smoke scratching the back of her throat and nostrils. But she could see enough to know that all of her escape routes were choked off by the flames tickling the ceiling. One look down the stairs told her that the entire lower level was an inescapable inferno. Every piece of furniture had been consumed by the ravenous flames; the walls were now three-dimensional with flames moving and dancing on them as if they were alive. The fiery whips controlled everything, and Delta knew if they were going to make it out alive, they would have to go through them.

  Taking the girl back to the bathroom and coughing so hard she thought a lung was
coming up, Delta stepped into the shower and soaked both of them before resoaking the towel and wrapping it around her own head and face. Then, she moved to the top of the steps once more and stared down at the flames. Her eyes burned from the smoke, and her lungs heaved, trying to pull fresh air through the towel. The heat acted as an invisible barrier pushing her backwards. The flames, alive as they stretched and reached for her at the top of the stairs, dared her to try to get past them. Suddenly, in a wild flash of panic, Delta understood why she had been so afraid of fire as a child. Fire was an enemy that carried with it a wide arsenal. As it raged about devouring everything it touched, it sent out heat and smoke to melt and penetrate those yet untouched by the flaming arms. Yet unlike the every suspect she had ever taken down, she could not reason with this enemy.

  “Not this time,” Delta growled through tears that ran from her burning eyes. This time, she would not fail to keep a little girl safe.

  Delta glanced down at her melting tennis shoes. Her face, her hands, her entire body felt as though she were inside an oven. Frantically dodging flaking bits of fiery wallpaper while searching for the best route, Delta noticed the large plate glass window next to the front door - now her only way out.

  If she could gather enough steam behind her, she could make it through that window, the fire be damned.

  “This is it,” she said, inhaling one last time, and feeling the burn in her lungs.

  “I’m sorry, Megan,” Delta whispered. Whether she would live to admit it or not, Delta had chosen her badge. The key, she realized, had already sunk. “Damn it.” And with that, Delta bolted down the flaming stairs two steps at a time.

  All around her, the flames voraciously grabbed at her. Like a science-fiction movie, the invisible shield of heat tried to push her back up the stairs and into the arms of the eagerly awaiting flames. Like a strong head-wind, it pushed against her.

  Nearing the bottom of the stairs, Delta knew she needed enough momentum to propel herself—and the child—through the thick glass, or else she stood a good chance of breaking her neck or shoulder. With one step to go, Delta used every fiber in every muscle to hurl herself toward the window. In a leap that defied the law of gravity, Delta jumped toward the window, twisting in the air and allowing her shoulder to take the brunt of the powerful impact As her shoulder and head collided with the glass, the heat, which followed so closely behind her, violently shoved her through the window and continued to harass her as she landed with a heavy thud on the ground below.