"The one with the tats was really hearing you," she said. "How can you complain about that?"
"It's not the kids I'm complaining about, Cori. I like them. Yes, indeed, I like them."
Finn's voice dropped a note and Cori knew exactly what he was thinking. Those kids – those high school boys – reminded him of his brother. If Finn hadn't been a self-important, self-indulgent, cocky seventeen-year-old who couldn't tear himself away from the charms of a cheerleader, he would have remembered to pick Alexander up from grammar school. Instead, Alexander was abducted and killed. In all these years, Finn still believed he could have saved the boy but for his own selfishness. Cori, on the other hand, believed that it had been Alexander's time and for some reason Fate wanted Finn to bear the burden of something that was preordained.
"You know, Cori," Finn ventured when the silence stretched too thin for his liking, "maybe the captain is still trying to keep us from joining the rank and file. Maybe that's why he keeps us on the run. I'm thinking he should put us in the bullpen and give the rest of them a chance to forgive and forget."
"It's going to take a lot of time for everyone to forget that you killed a cop," Cori reminded him. "I vote we don't push it."
"That officer was beating a man to death. He almost beat me to death."
Finn's hand went to the scars on his neck and at his jaw. Cori didn't think he was aware of what he was doing or how often he did it. She wanted to take his hand and hold it. Instead she said:
"Knowing that doesn't make the next guy in a uniform feel better when he turns his back on you. Fowler knows what he's doing. He'll move us when the time is right." She crossed her arms, closed her eyes, put her head back on the seat and settled in. "Besides, you're with me. That should be enough for any man."
Finn glanced at his partner and smiled. She had stood by him, stood up for him, transferred from the Westside to partner with him at Wilshire Division when no one else would. He didn't deserve such goodness and she deserved so much more than him.
Her blonde hair – big, bold, sweeping with the tease and curl that a Texas girl thought of as the height of fashion – was spread out across the back of the seat and glittered gold in the sunshine. Under the corner of her sunglasses he could just see a hint of crow's feet at the edge of her eyes and a sparkle of blue shadow. Her lipstick had worn off and her lips were soft, peach colored and full. She was a strong woman, a truly beautiful woman, a…
"Look at me like that a minute longer and I'll file a complaint," she muttered.
Finn laughed. He took the steering wheel with both hands, checked his mirror and merged into the fast lane.
"You are a frightening woman, you are."
Cori opened her eyes and raised her head.
"Yeah, and you're a—"
Cori never finished her thought. She bolted upright, pointed and screamed, "Finn."
"Holy mother of God!"
Finn hit the brakes just as he saw what Cori was seeing: a body hurtling off the bridge ahead of them.
CHAPTER 2
5:42:10 p.m.
110 Freeway
Finn threw his body right and then left as he worked the brakes in split seconds: pumping, pausing, pumping again as he tried to control the spin. He clipped the tail of the Mercedes in front of him. The impact pinged the Crown Vic into the median, sending the heavy car tipping on two wheels so that the chassis grated against the concrete. When they slammed back down onto the asphalt they were still behind the Mercedes.
Ahead and behind, cars crashed into one another in a sickening, uncontrolled chain reaction that compromised cars in the next lane and the lane next to that. Cori and Finn heard the grind and crunch of metal, the despairing, impotent blare of horns, the screech of tires. Only the two far right lanes flowed on, the drivers slowing in horror before speeding ahead to beat the shutdown they knew was coming. An accident – big or small – proved what all Angelenos knew: Samaritans were seldom good when it came to people who found themselves in need on the freeway.
Beside Finn, Cori had been thrown forward. A second later she was slammed back against the seat. Her neck snapped, her brain scrambled and the breath was knocked out of her as the seat belt caught. Their car bucked one last time before Finn brought it to a stop sideways across two lanes of the freeway. The driver side door was dented and the front end of the Crown Vic was rippled.
"Hang on, woman. One more coming."
With his eyes glued on the rearview mirror, he took Cori's hand in anticipation of the coming impact. The car behind them hit hard, pushing them up against the Mercedes so that they came to rest at an angle. On two wheels once more, they were at least balanced.
"I'm good." Cori was out of her seat belt, sliding toward the door as she ordered Finn to 'hold me'.
She turned as far as she could and put her back into him. Finn's arms came around her. His breath was hot on her neck and his hands were clasped under her breasts. Cori grunted and wiggled and maneuvered until her knees were up.
"I need more room."
Finn pulled himself up and back, taking her with him and giving her the room she needed to raise her legs. She put her feet against the door. Once, twice, three times she kicked. When the door swung open, gravity pulled her out of Finn's grasp and she tumbled out of the car. Finn scrambled out after her. Directly behind them the cars were piled upon one another and behind that the traffic was backing up. The line would stretch for miles and shut down the Santa Monica, Harbor and Hollywood freeways for hours.
"Ten, maybe twelve vehicles involved," Finn said before being distracted by the cars cutting into the free lanes, putting themselves and others in danger as the drivers tried to get away. "Asses. They're going to cause more trouble."
He ran toward the mess, throwing himself in front of one car and then the next one, arms out, palms up as if to push the cars back. One got by him. He made sure the next car would have to stop or take him out. Before the driver could decide whether vehicular manslaughter was worth getting to his meeting on time, Cori was there.
"I got this, O'Brien!"
She had one flare lit and others cradled in her arms. Cori tossed the first one onto the ground, lit another and pointed it at the drivers, crisscrossing the lanes until they understood they were going nowhere. Engines shut down, hundreds of people reached for their phones. They called the cops and radio stations to report what was happening; they called their agents to cancel that life-changing audition. One helicopter was already overhead. Paramedics, fire trucks and black and whites were on the way. On the other side of the freeway, southbound traffic had slowed so that everyone could take a gander at the mess on the northbound.
Finn left Cori to her work and ran back to the tangle of cars. He counted eight behind his own vehicle. The drivers at the far end were out, surveying the damage to their cars. The two closest to the Crown Vic were in bad shape: a woman and children were in one and three teenagers in the other. Finn was about to assist when he saw a motorcycle officer weaving through the mess. He flagged him, identified himself and left the officer to deal with what was behind while he went to tackle what was up ahead. The Mercedes was his first stop.
"Police," Finn called and then gave a thumbs-up when the man behind the wheel looked his way. "Okay? Okay?"
The driver nodded and that sent Finn on to the next car and the next as he conducted a cop's triage: a fast look, a quick assessment, a sharp, cold eye that determined who needed help and who only needed comfort. Two people were out of their cars and bleeding. The driver of one was still behind the wheel, slumped over, unconscious. Finn left the driver where he was and got the other two on the ground. The response vehicles were on scene. Help would arrive just in time for these folks, but it might be too late for whoever was in the lead car. That one was crumpled into the overpass pilings, its front end split like a hair lip. Black smoke billowed from the front end. As he got closer, Finn saw a lick of flames and the jumper from the bridge splayed across the hood. One of her legs was i
n the fire. A white bone had punctured her skin above the elbow on one arm; her other arm was beneath her. She had torpedoed through the windshield so that her head and one shoulder rested on the steering wheel that had been pushed forward, pinning the driver.
The woman behind the wheel was so bloodied she appeared to be melting. Her mouth was open to scream but Finn could hear nothing. The smell of burning flesh mixed with that of oil and gas. Knowing there wasn't much time, Finn grabbed hold of the door handle and pulled. It didn't budge. He called through the crack in the window.
"Unlock! Unlock!"
Finn pointed and pounded but the driver couldn't tear her eyes away from the woman who was only inches from her. Finn called again, his voice loud but tempered in the hope that his calm would be contagious. "Unlock there, missus. The door. Come on now."
Having no choice when she didn't respond, he raised his voice.
"Push the damn button, woman!"
The driver turned her head, her mouth still agape, the green of her eyes set off by the red of her own blood. She blinked. A spasm shook her and then Finn heard the click of the lock. He depressed the handle. The door was stuck so he stepped back, put one booted foot against the body of the car and yanked until it opened with a banshee screech of metal-on-metal. When it would go no further, Finn wedged himself into the small space he had cleared.
"She just came through the window. Out of nowhere. I couldn't stop."
The driver's words fought for space in a mouth trying to gulp air through the smoke that was filling the car. She coughed. She sputtered. She touched the blood on her face and then looked away from Finn to the jumper.
"I killed her," she wailed.
"She's not dead," Finn said, knowing God would forgive him if that were a lie. He put out his hand. "I can't help her until you are away. Do you understand? Can you do your belt?"
Her chin rose, but he didn't wait for it to fall in agreement.
"Do it now," he ordered.
She hesitated.
"Do it!" he shouted.
Finn heard the click. The belt retracted.
"Pull out your arm."
"I can't move. The wheel…"
She breathed in but not out. She screamed as the fire flared, engulfing the jumper's leg. Finn ignored the flames. People in distress survived by looking at what was in front of them: one horror in a given minute, one blow against despair, one opportunity for salvation. The jumper wanted to die so she would be last; this one did not and that was why she would be first.
"On your left," Finn directed. "Take hold of the seat control and push it back. Take hold and push back. Back. Back. Not forward. Back."
The woman tried desperately to follow his instructions but in her fear she was moving the electric seat forward, pushing the steering wheel tighter against her body. Finn threw himself across her and she screamed in pain. He stretched but found he couldn't reach the levers that controlled the forward and backward movement of the seat so he pushed the levers he could reach. The seat jolted and fell backward into a steep recline. Having no choice, he pushed the jumper's head aside and thought he heard her moan. The heat inside the car was becoming unbearable. Underneath him, the bloodied driver screamed again.
"We're going to burn; we're going to die."
"No one is going to die," Finn muttered as he scrambled backward, shoving her seat belt aside.
He squeezed through the door, dragged the woman out after him, and threw his arm around her shoulders. Together they ran for the now empty northbound lanes. At the perimeter he twirled her onto the ground.
"Stay put," he ordered but by the time he turned back to the car she was crawling away, sure that there was safer ground to be had.
Finn squeezed into the car once more. Coughing, swiping at his tearing eyes, he knelt on the seat, put one big hand on the jumper's shoulder, the other on the crown of her head and pushed. Her clothes ripped, the skin on her shoulder shredded as he worked her out through the shattered window.
When that was done, Finn scrambled out of the car and reached for her legs intending to swing her toward him only to find his hand stuck to her melted nylon stocking. When the flames surged, he roared against the pain and tightened his grip, hauled her down the sizzling metal, caught her by the waist, and pulled her close. Her exposed bone punched into his ribs and her useless arm felt liquid against his body. Finn tried to run, but he was hobbled by the woman's weight. They didn't get far before he heard the rumble of the greedy flames as they met accelerant.
Knowing time had run out, Finn threw the woman onto the ground and flung himself on top of her, covering her face and burying his own in the crook of her neck. A microsecond later the car blew. Shrapnel and cinders rained down on them and a ball of heat rolled over Finn O'Brien's back. He pushed himself tighter into the woman beneath him: protecting her, shielding her, saving her even though she didn't want to be saved.
When it was over, when behind him the car burned out and the fuel was spent, Finn rolled away. He was near deaf and could not hear the pounding of the firemen's feet as they rushed toward him. He was in shock and could not feel the burn that had blackened his hand. He coughed but he was too weak to pull the air back into his lungs. Through his smoke ravaged eyes, he stared at the bright blue sky. As his vision cleared, Finn found himself looking into the face of a white bearded man high above him and thought that, perhaps, he had died and gone to heaven. Surely, though, it was not God he was looking at. God, the good nuns in his village had assured him when he was a boy, was merciful and kind. God was love, they said. The face of this white-bearded old man was angry and hateful. Finn turned his head and looked into what should have been the dark eyes of the woman next to him. He wanted reassurance that the sisters had not been wrong. He wanted to see that God was merciful and the woman was saved.
She was not.
Those eyes were already faded in death. It was too soon for that, Finn thought. She had jumped no more than fifteen minutes earlier and those lifeless eyes confused him. Yet, if by some miracle her soul had not departed and she could still see, Finn did not want her taking the sight of that angry old man and this hell to her rest.
He put his blackened fingertips on her eyes and closed them.
The Presidential Suite, The Ritz Carlton
Rada checked the time, raised the remote control and turned off the television. He had been watching the news as he often did in the places his work took him. Everywhere in the world had many problems and when he saw news of them he was consoled that his country was no different. People suffered everywhere.
He stood up and took his jacket off the chair where he had hung it so as not to wrinkle the cloth. This chair was covered in white satin and placed at the head of a gleaming glass table. There were eleven more equally beautiful chairs around the table, awaiting twelve guests who would never come. Only one man was expected. That he had not arrived was a problem.
Rada went to the long mirror in the hall where he put his jacket on, buttoned it, and rotated his shoulders until it was comfortable. He tugged at the coat so that it properly covered the holster he wore under one arm. When he was done, Rada looked at his reflection to make sure that everything was as it should be: black suit, white shirt, black tie and polished black shoes. His skin was the color of tar. His hair was cut short, his features were broad and coarse. He did not look like many of his countrymen but that was why he had been chosen for his job. The man in the next room preferred his servants ugly and those who amused him beautiful. If Rada ever wondered which he was, all he need do was look in the mirror.
With one last tug on his jacket, Rada nodded to his image. In this way he gave himself courage. Even after all this time, even though Rada was huge and the man he served small, Rada was afraid. When he was ready he turned precisely, walked across the exquisite living room and paused at the door to the bedroom suite. He knocked. When he did not hear the customary 'come' his heart beat a little faster. Rada knocked again. When there was still no answe
r, he turned the knob and slipped into the bedroom. He did not do this shyly but with caution, ready for whatever he might find.
He found nothing.
The large bed was made, the food on the table was eaten and the man he served was sitting at the desk reading papers, his big satchel next to him on the floor. The man's brow was creased as he concentrated on his important work. Rada waited to be noticed and while he waited, he considered the man.
His suit was very expensive but it did not look well on him. He was too short and round for the length of the jacket; his light brown skin was no compliment to the green fabric, fine as it was. His graying goatee was handsome but his small black eyes glittered in a way that Rada did not like. Rada was careful not to dwell on these thoughts because he believed the man at the desk could read his mind. He was sure of it when the round-faced man looked up and seemed to consider how to reprimand Rada for thinking ill of his suit. The moment passed and he smiled in a manner that seemed friendly but was not. He smiled as if it were sad that Rada was not a better man. Then the man he served looked back at his papers and said:
"Oliver should have been here by now. It is not like him to be late."
"No, sir. Perhaps he has found the thing you are looking for."
"He would have called." The man licked one finger and turned a page. He glanced up. "Perhaps he doesn't know where to look, although he said he did. Where would you hide something so precious, Rada?"
The man he served licked his finger again and turned one more page. This time, though, he peered through half lowered lids at Rada. He looked like a snake.
"I would not know."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't," the man chuckled. Then he sighed and began to stack the papers. "And Oliver. He is quiet, is he not, Rada?"
"Quiet?"
"About important things. There is a word. I don't know it. He never quite tells you the whole truth of a thing does he, Rada?" The man continued to call Rada's name as if he were truly speaking to him, which he was not. He was speaking to himself, considering whether or not Oliver pleased him and whether the man was trustworthy enough. "And Oliver would expect his bag of silver, would he not? If he had found it, Oliver would not be quiet then. He would be loudly saying 'give me my silver, I have done as you wanted'."
Foreign Relations: A Finn O'Brien Thriller (Finn O'Brien Thriller Series Book 2) Page 2
