But right now, they had to get someone to evacuate the school, and every second was going to count. Had watched while Joshua took a deep breath and spoke to the Crime Lab woman again.
“Look, I know you have no idea who I am…”
“Sure I do,” she answered. “You’re the alcoholic ex-agent who’s working on some crazy conspiracy theory.”
Okay, so maybe that relationship with Salazar still needed some work.
The veins were now standing out on Joshua’s forehead, and Had was amazed when the former agent’s tone still managed to be civil.
“There is a strong possibility that there will be a major explosion within the next…” Joshua glanced up at the clock on the wall. “… eleven minutes, now.”
The woman’s face blanched for a moment, but then her skeptical expression returned. “He said you were all a little nuts. Besides, it’s not my call, either.”
Bella growled at the Asian woman, her hackles up. Her face went even paler, but her expression became, if possible, more resolute.
Joshua’s jaw muscle worked and his skin color was approaching purple. Had wasn’t sure how much more the former agent would be able to take before they had to deal with an explosion right here, right now.
“Do you have a number for the investigator in charge out at the crime scene?” he said, the words tight and pinched coming out of his mouth.
“Yes, but…”
“I know, I know. Agent Salazar. I get it.” Joshua snatched up the Post-It the Asian woman had scribbled a number on, then turned to face Coop. “Make the call.”
To Coop’s credit, she didn’t hesitate. As the team all moved through the hallway back out to the entrance of the Crime Lab, she pulled up the number and tapped at it to call her least favorite agent on the planet.
They could only hope that Salazar would be in an accommodating mood.
Joshua met Had’s gaze and flicked his eyes down to the phone he’d used to text Nadira. “She on her way?”
“Yep.”
“Good,” he said. “Let’s see just how fast that girl can really drive.”
Had was pretty sure that Joshua would live to regret that statement. From what he’d seen so far, Nadira hadn’t even begun to show them what she was capable of.
Well, no matter what else happened, at least the drive would be fun.
CHAPTER 4
Sariah clutched at the headrests in front of her with the hand not holding a phone to her ear, trying without success to keep from flying from one end of the cab to the other. The speed of their previous trips with this madwoman had been harrowing. This was something altogether different.
This was psychotic.
Dragging her attention back to her conversation, Sariah yelled into the receiver. “Salazar, this isn’t just conjecture! People could be at real risk.”
The agent’s oily tone came through the line with the crackle of a bad connection. “I haven’t heard a single thing so far that makes me believe that this is anything more than your overactive imagination.”
Once more, the futility of even trying wrapped its tendrils around her neck and began squeezing. The thought of continuing this conversation for even a second longer was anathema to her.
“Whatever,” she heard herself say, and then she began to hang up. Before her finger reached the END button, a hand reached out and snatched the phone from her.
Joshua.
He urged Bella off his lap and onto Sariah’s. Great. Now she had a dog’s hindquarters stuck in her nose. Exactly how she wanted to spend what it felt like might be her last minutes alive on earth.
“Salazar, I get it, man,” Joshua said into the phone, sounding every bit the slacker he had pretended to be with the arrogant agent earlier on. “You don’t want to be the guy who cries wolf.”
There was a pause while he listened, and Sariah wasn’t sure, but it seemed like Joshua rolled his eyes. But when he spoke again, his tone was reasonable, even friendly.
“Yeah, I know. What can I say? She’s a bitch-and-a-half.”
They were talking about her. Fantastic. She tried to pretend she didn’t care, but somehow that statement from the alcoholic former agent rankled.
“Don’t I know it?” Joshua continued, not meeting her eye. “But listen, I think there might be something here. I know, but seriously.”
Joshua glanced at the watch on the dashboard of the taxi. It was stuck in the belly of a dancing hula girl figurine. The time read 1:31, and Joshua’s jaw clenched again.
“Listen, here’s an idea. I’ll make the call and say you authorized it. If something happens, you’re the hero. If not, you deny giving me permission.” There was a burst of language that was audible for a split second. “Thanks, Salazar.” Joshua ended the call.
Holding out his hand, he twitched his fingers. “I need the number, Coop.” She worked her way around Bella, trying to get to the note in her pocket. When she found it, he snatched the note out of her hands and grunted. “Get your head out of your ass.”
Punching in the numbers, Joshua swore as the cab lurched to the side and a loud honk sounded to their left. A red SUV swerved to avoid them, and a middle finger was thrust out of an open window.
“Sorry, passengers,” Nadira said with a grin, glancing over her shoulder at the passengers in the backseat. “We’re experiencing some slight turbulence. Please return to your seats and fasten your belts at this time.”
Sariah wanted to scream at her to watch where she was going, but somehow Bilal’s daughter was navigating her way through the moderate traffic without needing to see where she was going. And if Nadira was telling them they had to get their seatbelts on, they might want to listen to her.
Whipping her seat belt around her, Sariah had a moment where she was trying to figure out how to protect Bella. It wasn’t like the enormous dog would allow herself to be strapped down in a seatbelt.
She wrapped her arms around Bella instead, trying to ignore the dog smell that wafted into her nostrils from her fur that was stuck halfway up Sariah’s nose. Holding on to the dog wouldn’t help her in a crash, but Sariah found that embracing her helped the panic level of being in the car with a madwoman driver subside just a bit.
Joshua, in the meantime, seemed to have managed to contact the lead investigator out at the crime scene. He spoke rapidly into the cell.
“You have to get your team out of there. Now.” There was a moment’s wait while the investigator responded. “No, this is authorized by Agent Salazar.”
Another brief pause, and Joshua’s face turned bleak. “Hello? Hello?” He looked down at the phone. “We lost him. I’ve got no bars.” He hit the redial, but the call didn’t appear to go through.
“We’re almost there,” Nadira called out over her shoulder. “Just around this next corner. She grabbed the wheel in both hands, the only time Sariah had seen her do that to her recollection, and yanked. Hard.
They squealed around the turn, Bella’s butt firmly planted in Sariah’s face, while her sides were pressed in on either side by her contact with Joshua and Reggie. This trip was going to leave her with bruises. And her skin wasn’t such that it bruised easily.
Approaching the school, Nadira’s cab screeched to a halt, and Sariah watched as Joshua sprang out of the taxi, his legs already pumping in his desire to get to the scene. As he ran, a huge explosion rocked the car, the sensation like one that Sariah had experienced once back in Los Angeles during an earthquake. Joshua fell to his knees, his face a mask of grief.
They hadn’t gotten there in time.
* * *
It felt like it was a long time before Joshua could stand back up again.
There was a haze over his perceptions, almost like someone had thrown a length of gauze over his head. Sounds were muffled, objects were out of focus… even his feet on the ground didn’t feel quite planted.
Bella was at his side, nudging him, urging him forward. Toward what?
The whole courtyard area of the school
was nothing more than a pile of rubble. He staggered forward, the background gelling into focus, sounds reemerging into his consciousness. There were screams, crying. He stumbled and almost fell, and as he looked to see what he had tripped over, he saw an arm, ripped off at the shoulder, part of the flesh blackened.
He retched, but kept moving toward the blast sight.
On every side there seemed to be someone else suffering. How many people could be here? It was a crime scene, and a big one, but what were the numbers?
How many of them had died because of him?
He reached down to lift up a young man who didn’t appear to be too badly injured. His limbs were all intact, he was moving without too much difficulty.
It wasn’t until he turned to move out toward the street and the ambulances that would soon come that Joshua saw the truth. The entire side of his face had melted.
The image blurred as a prickling started behind Joshua’s eyes. This was too much. He couldn’t take it.
This was the reason he was never supposed to have been in charge. Bad things happened when he tried to take control.
He wiped a hand across his face, his eyes, realizing after the fact that his hand was covered in soot from the explosion. How had that gotten there?
Maybe the grime would hide some of his guilt.
Moving through the blast zone, Joshua helped where he could, lifting rubble off of those who were in no shape to do it for themselves. Reaching out, giving a hand. Moving, always moving. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.
Because if he stopped, he would be forced to think.
And that was not okay.
* * *
The scene was something out of a nightmare. As Sariah stumbled through the burning aftermath of the explosion, she barely registered the wail of the sirens approaching, was unable to take in the smell of charred flesh, could almost not hear the groans of the dying that wrapped around her, a sick sound blanket that chilled instead of warming her.
She held responsibility.
When Joshua and Had made their decision to go to the school first, she had known it was a bad idea. It had been so clear to her that there was information they needed in the note.
If she had taken charge, led the team… hell, if she’d even just spoken up… the dead and dying would be whole right now. If she thought her conscience had ached before, with one good man’s death hung around her neck like a millstone, she’d not had any idea what real remorse felt like.
It felt like nothing.
She was empty. Not the blissful emptiness of dreamless sleep, nor the light emptiness of a daydream. A dark, cold pit of empty that overwhelmed her senses, leaving her deadened. A concert pianist with gloves super glued on her hands during a performance. Able to hear just how bad her performance was, but unable to do anything to correct it.
“Coop. Agent Cooper. Sariah.”
It was Had. The young officer’s eyes leaked moisture. Why? Were they irritated? What would cause them to be so red and irritated?
And then she remembered, and the hole inside her grew.
“What do you need, Had?” she heard herself ask, from what seemed to be a great distance.
“Are you all right?”
Sariah laughed. She didn’t mean to. It bubbled up from inside her, an uncontrollable force that she couldn’t have held back if she’d wanted to.
The laughter was an elemental force, one that felt like it existed independently from her body. It continued, growing stronger and stronger, and Sariah couldn’t breathe. She gulped air, trying to contain it, but it was a demanding presence that refused her efforts to soothe.
Holding her hands up to her cheeks, Sariah could feel that they were hot and wet. Why were they wet? Where had the moisture come from? Had she been hit by shrapnel? Was she bleeding? But her fingers came away from her face with nothing but un-tinted moisture coating them.
Had was staring at her with concern, and the laughter surged again, choking her. Spots began to form in front of her face, and the world began to tilt. Sariah reached out for support and Had grabbed her around the waist, slinging one of her arms over his shoulder for additional leverage.
So helpful. Had was always so helpful.
She had hired him.
The frenetic mirth subsided. She could breathe again. The spots dissipated, and the background chaos swam into focus once more. Seeing the destruction so clearly, Sariah wished for a moment to go back to her insensate condition.
But the results of her actions had to be faced. She had caused this. Her.
A voice inside her screamed with a quiet voice that it wasn’t so. There could be no responsibility if she wasn’t in charge. And she hadn’t been leading the team since that hotel room with its sole occupant hanging from the ceiling like some kind of sick and twisted fruit.
The arguments of that inner siren reached up to cover her once more with comfortable numbness. She didn’t have to see, to hear, to smell… she didn’t have to lead. All she needed to do was let someone else take control.
They were moving.
Had was taking her somewhere. She hadn’t registered the fact that her feet were taking one step after another, that the blurred out background was shifting from moment to moment. Where were they going? Where was Had taking her?
She swiveled her head on a neck that felt like it had no muscles. Had’s face warped into gradual sharpness, and she could see such sadness there. Had wasn’t sad. Had was happy. He should be happy. She reached out a hand to touch his face.
Had’s attention shifted from their destination… whatever that was… back to her face. A smile did its best to make an appearance, but it died midway through the action, leaving nothing but a grimace in its place.
“You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay,” he murmured, turning his face back towards their goal.
Of course she was going to be okay. She hadn’t been in the explosion. She was going to be just fine.
A barking sound penetrated into her skull. Barking. What did that mean? Where was it coming from? Oh, right. Bella.
And if Bella was coming, then…
“You,” wheezed Joshua.
Sariah swung her head around, an independent appendage on a body that didn’t seem to want to obey her commands one hundred percent. There, standing like the wrath of God incarnate, was Joshua. His face was streaked with black ash, through which tears had carved a path. The expression there seemed carved in granite.
He was crying. Joshua was crying. That fact seemed significant for some reason. Had Sariah ever seen Joshua cry? She must have, but right now she couldn’t think of when that might have been.
“You knew.”
Those two words penetrated the fog her inner voice had spread around her. They entered in where little else was capable of following, landing with the force of the explosion that they’d experienced minutes or hours or days before. How long had it been? Sariah couldn’t say with any sense of certainty.
“What are you talking about, Joshua?” Had said, turning her about so that he was in essence shielding her from the former agent. Why was he doing that? Joshua was her friend, wasn’t he? No, that’s right. He was mad at her. Why was he mad?
“She knew, Had. She knew.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying. What did she know?”
Joshua’s face moved in and out of focus, creating an image that was like a combination between a Picasso and a Van Gogh. With maybe a touch of that one crazy Spanish guy with the moustache. What was his name? Dalí. Joshua was a painting. The laughter threatened again.
“She knew that we were making a mistake,” Joshua snapped out, biting the words as they exited his mouth.
That was mean. He shouldn’t bite his words. They were his. He owned them. Someone else should bite them if they needed to be bitten. Maybe Bella could do that. She was such a good dog. Sariah looked around for the Boxador.
There she was. Bella wasn’t playing right now. Her tail was down and quiet, un
wagging. Sariah couldn’t remember ever seeing Bella like that before. What was the matter with her? She should ask Joshua. He would know. He was her owner.
Everyone was looking at her. Why? Oh, yes. Joshua had said something. He was angry with her. He was always angry. And grumpy. Grangry. A gulp of laughter escaped her lips, but she tried to put it back in.
Had cleared his throat in her ear. That was strange. Why would he clear his throat in her ear? Oh, right. He was propping her up. They’d been going somewhere. Maybe they should go there again. Sariah didn’t want to be here anymore. Joshua was angry, and she didn’t want to have to hear him.
“Joshua, she’s in shock. I need to get her to the paramedics.” Had sounded sad, but there was something else there. Like he was standing up for someone. Good for him.
“I could see it,” Joshua continued, almost as if Had wasn’t there, hadn’t spoken. “In her eyes. She was thinking we were making a mistake, but she didn’t say anything.” He stopped talking to Had and turned his attention to her. “You could have stopped this. All of it.”
Another emotion came up from deep inside her. This one didn’t bubble. There was no laughter in it.
It was anger.
“You are blaming me for this?” she heard someone say. Her. She was saying it.
“You had an instinct that you didn’t share,” he snapped back. “You were supposed to be leading the team, but you couldn’t be bothered to even speak your mind.”
That was wrong. There was something off about what he had just said, but Sariah couldn’t identify what it was. The haze was still strong.
But her anger knew. And it spoke for her without her permission.
“If you saw it, why didn’t you pay attention?”
Joshua took a step back. “What?”
“You say that you saw me doubt you,” the disembodied voice that sounded like hers said. “Then why the hell didn’t you say something?”
“But you--”
“No,” the woman’s voice said, cutting him off. A hand chopped down in a sharp motion. Her hand. “You can’t come in complaining about me not saying anything when you just ignored what you saw.” That woman was making a lot of sense, whoever she was. Sariah wanted to cheer her on, but found that her mouth was otherwise occupied.
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