by Jonas Saul
“I guess I have to kill you myself,” Cole went on. “But I’m willing to make it quick. Think of it as a favor to you. After all, you eliminated Dr. Williams for me. You took care of Roland and Frank. All I have to do is finish this guy and then help you to your meeting with God, and I’d about call us square. Sound good to you?”
Hirst pushed the pillow off and tried to roll over. From under the bed, Sarah watched as Cole dropped to his knees, grabbed the pillow and forced it over Hirst’s face. Hirst squirmed and moaned but the sound was muffled by the pillow. And he didn’t fight back with anything matching Cole’s strength as the bullets in his body had sapped him.
Hirst would die if Sarah stayed where she was. Then she would die. Vivian had gotten her behind the bed, saved her life when bullets sprayed the room. But lying on the floor behind the bed was over. She took a deep breath, pushed off the floor, got her feet under her and dove up and over the edge of the bed.
Cole saw her coming. He released the edge of the pillow with his gun hand, brought the weapon around to aim, but wasn’t fast enough as Sarah landed on him. She came in hard, her shoulder driving into his cheek, slamming his face into the dresser unit that held the TV.
They wrestled over Hirst in a jumble of arms and legs. The gun exploded beside her. She jumped at the sound and then grabbed for the arm that held the weapon to gain control over it. Whether she was hit or not wouldn’t save her life at the moment. She focused on getting that gun to stop spitting death pills.
Cole forced her down, the gun coming with her, slowly getting closer. She redoubled her efforts, now wedged between Hirst and the dresser. She thought back to what Aaron had taught her. About the distribution of weight and using her opponent’s weight against them. She paused a moment longer, until Cole was pushing down with both hands, his shoulders locked, his face intensely screwed up, that ugly burn mark making him look grotesque.
Then she let go of all resistance, twisted sideways so the gun would smash into the carpet, and brought her legs up to wrap around Cole’s waist as he fell forward. Behind his back, her feet wrapped and locked at the ankles and before he recovered, she locked him down in a scissor hold. Then, careful to aim accurately, Sarah pummeled him with her fists about the jawline and below, aiming for the soft spot in his throat.
Cole abandoned the weapon in his defense, bringing his hands up to block the punches all the while trying to catch a breath as his diaphragm was being crushed inward. He pushed up off the dresser, but Sarah came with him, locked to his abdomen. He tried again, pounding at her legs, but she refused to let go. His face reddened, but he fought on. She pushed off the dresser and did a half sit-up, then jabbed three times at his teeth and nose, her legs still firmly planted around him.
It was only a matter of a minute left. He couldn’t hold on breathing the way he was. She had him. She would finally stop him. She only hoped Hirst was still alive. He had heard an explanation of Roland and Frank’s death from the man who tried to kill him. Sarah could move on, free from the dark clouds Cole had brought into her life. But it didn’t look good for Hirst. And there was that other bullet the gun had spit out that she hadn’t accounted for yet.
Cole bucked her, lifted up, bringing Sarah with him, then smashed her back to the floor, rattling her teeth when she hit.
He reached up in a last-ditch attempt to get her off him, grabbed the edge of the TV and pushed it toward her. The TV crashed down and landed on her chest. She brushed it off, but her legs weakened a notch in the effort. Cole brought a hand up, formed a fist and a smile, then brought the fist down into Sarah’s groin. Because of the angle of the scissor hold, the fist smashed just inside her hip bone.
She shrieked, her head back as the pain was instant, sharp and crisp. It felt like a tendon gave up and announced its retirement from all the abuse it had undergone. She screamed again and tried to tighten her grip but her legs wouldn’t respond in the same way, weakened by the blow. Cole dropped his fist again and her scissor hold around his waist loosened, then fell off.
Instead of attacking her, Cole grabbed his gun and got to his feet.
“Stupid bitch,” he gasped. “You need to die.”
He aimed the gun at her face, and pulled the trigger.
It clicked empty. In that second, Sarah froze, sure a bullet would rearrange her features. The empty click propelled her to crawl backwards, roll away and get to her feet. When she turned around, Cole was running from the room.
“Cole!” she yelled, but then he was gone.
She dropped to one knee and checked Hirst’s pulse. It was weak, but she felt it.
“Get,” Hirst said. “Him.” Then he coughed.
Sarah grabbed the phone in the room and hit the zero to get the front desk.
“Safari Inn,” the clerk said. “How can I help you?”
“An LAPD officer is dying from multiple gunshots in room 224. Call everybody. Get someone here. Save his life!” She slammed the phone down.
“They’re on their way, Hirst. I gotta go.”
She thought she detected a nod, but wasn’t sure. Once out the door, she looked both ways. Cole was no longer on the second floor. At the railing, she looked down. He was jumping into the pickup truck directly below. The same one the guy with the beer came in. She remembered the guy was supposed to go back out for more beer.
He wouldn’t leave the keys in the ignition—
The pickup started with a cough and a rumble. It clunked as Cole dropped it into gear.
Without thinking, Sarah used the railing as leverage, hopped and swung her legs over the edge. Then she let go and dropped the twelve feet to the bed of the pickup. Her knees buckled upon landing, her shoulder taking the brunt of the fall as the back of the truck planted a hard kiss on her cheek. The kind that would leave a massive bruise. She opened and closed her mouth to make sure nothing in her face was broken as she flipped over to look in the back window of the cab.
Cole watched her. He smiled. Then he waved.
The engine revved loud. She went to grab onto something, but he released the brake and the pickup shot forward. Sarah tumbled over and over until she passed the edge of the tailgate and dropped the few feet to the cement of the parking lot. In some ways that hurt more than falling into the back of the truck. The cement was hard and unforgiving. It rattled her teeth and made her face feel even more numb.
She spun around and got up on one knee to watch Cole hit the entrance to the parking lot and screech onto Olive Avenue, going left, away from Los Angeles. Her eyes locked on the Harleys, checking for keys. None had them.
The room under hers was still loud. None of the partiers inside noticed their truck just got stolen. The music thumped as Cole drove away.
A leather clad biker stepped outside, walked by without casting a look her way, and grabbed a small leather case from one of his saddlebags.
His keys jangled from a belt loop.
Sarah sprung into action. She stepped closer, grabbed his keys and yanked them forcefully off, ripping the belt loop.
“Hey, what the—”
She stepped into the back of the biker’s knee, then pushed so he fell away from her and the bike.
Without pause, she hopped on the bike, flipped through the few keys on the chain and fired up the Harley. Anxious that Cole was a mile away already, she dropped the Harley in gear and tore from the parking spot just as the inebriated biker was getting to his feet.
She hit Olive and drove into traffic without looking, but at this hour it was light. A wide arc brought her into the right lane, where she opened the bike up, skirting a blue car, then a black Caddy.
Ahead, a light changed to yellow. But she kept the bike going, looking for the pickup truck. People were crossing the road toward a Starbucks on the right. Sarah steered left, then dropped the bike to the right at the last second and slipped between the pedestrians, as they tried to jump away.
The road opened up after that, but Cole could’ve gone anywhere. Any road on either side woul
d facilitate an escape route. He could be long gone and she would never find him again unless Vivian wanted to help, but she’d been almost useless lately.
The wind pulled her hair straight back, massaged the skin on her cheeks. She narrowed her eyes as they watered, staring at the taillights ahead.
Then she saw him.
The same pickup. Stopped at a crosswalk.
What a fucking idiot. Who stops at a crosswalk when they’re on the run?
She slowed the bike enough to maintain control and to get close to the pickup without spooking him. The brake lights dimmed as Cole and the two other vehicles that had stopped started moving again.
All Sarah could do was follow him. She had no weapons, and she couldn’t smash into him with a Harley Davidson. She would ruin the bike and probably kill herself.
Another light was coming up, but it was still green. She watched the back of Cole’s head and waited for him to recognize her.
“Come on Vivian, help me out here. I can’t follow him all night.”
Sarah was close enough to see Cole’s face in the mirror as he leaned up to check it. He must’ve thought he was free and clear. In a stolen pickup he could dump anywhere. The cop was shot and bleeding, probably dying. Sarah had fallen out of the back of the pickup.
“But here I am. Surprise, surprise, asshole.”
The pickup jerked forward as he slammed the gas down. Sarah charged after him.
The light up ahead turned yellow. The pickup dropped a gear and surged forward, racing for the yellow. Then the light flipped to red and Cole was still at least fifty yards away.
Sarah kept up. She wasn’t about to lose him again. At the thirty yard mark she was almost beside him. He jerked the pickup toward her. She anticipated the move and dropped the bike to the side, crossed the center line, but the lanes were empty as the red light ahead had stopped them. She righted the bike as they both came up on the intersection. A glance to her right confirmed he was still with her, watching to see if she would crash the Harley, but after years on her BMW bike, she handled the Harley expertly.
Ahead, the intersection was quiet. But Sarah was out far enough on the left to have the advantage of seeing the large eighteen-wheeler as it entered on the green light, blocking Cole’s path. There was only enough time for her to look over at Cole before she bailed from the bike. Cole still had his eyes on her.
She lifted her leg to avoid it being crushed as she dropped sideways and let the bike slide ahead, out from under her. Cole must’ve realized what she was doing and turned to look ahead. Tires screeched as he hit the brakes. She didn’t have time to look as she slid on her butt under the rig, its hulk rushing above her. She missed the back of the cab’s tires by half a foot. By the time she slid out on the other side, a wicked sounding crush of metal on metal told her that Cole had rammed the back of the rig with the pickup.
Sarah rolled off her butt as it started to burn and came to a stop ten feet past the rig. Gasping for breath at how close that was, she stared up at the large truck. It had stopped and was just settling back after being hit with enough force to tilt it momentarily.
The tires of the pickup were easy to see under the rig, but something was odd about them. The back tires were almost touching the front ones. The pickup had buckled on impact. Steaming liquid squirted out of the pickup, hissing where it touched the pavement. Smoke enveloped the area where the hood once was. People started to gather on the other side of the rig. Two men ran up to her, one asking if she was all right. Sarah overheard someone on the other side of the rig saying, “I saw the whole thing. They were drag racing.”
She got up on her elbows, took a deep, calming breath, and pushed off the pavement to sit up on her knees. The world spun for a moment, her heart still racing. Something made a snapping sound on the pickup side of the rig. Flames emerged from under the hood. People on that side stepped back. Someone yelled that it was going to blow.
The two men who had approached her grabbed an arm each and started to pull her back.
A small explosion rocked the rig back and forth. Then another, and the men holding her stumbled, but they held on. When she looked back, from what little she could see, what was left of the pickup was engulfed in flames. There was no way Cole had gotten out in time. The way the pickup had buckled, the driver’s seat would’ve been smashed into the side wall of the rig.
“Burn, bitch, burn,” Sarah mumbled as the men set her down on the grass beside the road.
“What’s that?” one of them asked.
Sarah lay down and stared up at the stars in the sky. It was over. It was truly over. Cole Lincoln was dead. Her nightmare memories from the past could have closure. They could be put away now, healed.
Vivian’s memories that had haunted her seemed to have cleared up as well. It felt like a fresh start.
As long as Hirst stayed alive, though. Hirst was her get-out-of-jail-free card because he heard everything Cole had said. He heard how Roland and Frank were working for Cole and how they were sent to kill her. Hirst would corroborate everything.
Her eyes closed. It felt good to rest. To just lie under the stars and not move. Everything seemed to ache and protest. She was getting older in a young person’s business.
At the sound of sirens, she forced herself to sit up. Police cars roared in, followed by a firetruck and paramedics. She craned her neck to look at the pickup. It was engulfed in yellow and orange flames.
She felt sadistic with pleasure, but the bastard deserved to die by fire.
“It’s called Karma and it’s pronounced, eat shit. The asshole, the asshole, the asshole is on fire. Let the motherfucker burn.”
“What’s that?” someone said beside her.
The briefcase in the motel room.
She forgot about the briefcase. If a careless cop walked in room 224 and opened the case, it could blow the room up with Hirst in it.
She had to get back to the Safari Inn.
She braced herself to get up and stood on wobbly legs.
“Where do you think you’re going, Miss?”
Sarah turned to look at who was talking to her. Two police officers had stepped up behind her.
“I have to get back to the hotel.”
“You won’t be going anywhere right now, Miss. You need to see a paramedic and we need to talk to you about what happened here.”
She leaned in close to one of the officers. “If we don’t go back to the Safari Inn right now, people could die. There’s a bomb in room 224. Call the bomb squad. Have them remove it, then. But call it in. Deal with it.”
The other officer stepped up, pointing his finger. “Hey, I recognize you. You’re that girl who helped with the priest killings. Sarah something.”
“Sarah Roberts, and you have to listen to me. Detective David Hirst will die if that bomb goes off. He’s been shot three times and he’s in the room that asshole,” she pointed at the burning pickup, “left a bomb in.”
The cop who knew her name pulled out a cell phone. “What hotel again?”
“The Safari Inn. Hurry!”
He dialed out. “The one just down here, on Olive.”
“The same.”
The explosion in the distance made everyone duck even though the Safari Inn was quite a few blocks away. Sarah hobbled around the cab of the large rig. The fireball was huge, like an F-16 had dropped a guided missile in the center of Burbank.
Hirst was dead. And many other innocent lives as well. Cole would get the last laugh, after all. It was over. She had no idea how she would be able to talk herself out of this mess now that the only person who could help explain what had happened with the missing cops just died in a ball of flames.
She looked skyward, her eyes watering.
Thanks for this, Vivian. You’ve been a real sport.
The street sign caught her eye. She was standing at the intersection of Olive Avenue and Victory Boulevard.
Victory Boulevard.
How ironic.
Chapter
34
Interview Room Seven, or IR7 as the detectives referred to it, was rather splendid compared to other interrogation rooms Sarah had frequented in the past. After six hours, four coffees, two sandwiches and lots of water, she had offered the men and women investigating the hotel, chase and car accident incidents her statement, telling her side twice. No one asked her about the disappearance of Roland or Frank, which she was thankful for but was beginning to worry about. Why wouldn’t they? When Hirst was following her after using Roland’s cell, chasing her with cruisers in tow, why not question her on why she had Roland’s phone? Unless Hirst had kept that to himself. And who was the guy she had been chasing? They weren’t very interested. All they wanted was her version of the events and when the questioning strayed off the events of the Safari Inn and the crash at Victory Boulevard, Margot, the female detective who seemed to be in charge, reined them back in to keep things on track.
