4th of July

Chapter 6

MY HEART WAS BOOMING almost audibly, and now I was furious. Unless Dr. Cabot was Doogie Howser’s age, he wasn’t in this car. These kids were idiots or speed freaks or car thieves—or maybe all three.

I kept my gun pointed at the driver’s-side window.

“Put your hands in the air. That’s it. Touch the ceiling. Both of you.”

Tears were cascading down the driver’s face, and with a shock, I realized it was a girl. She had a short pink-tipped haircut, no makeup, no face piercings: a Seventeen magazine version of punk that she hadn’t quite pulled off. When she lifted her hands, I saw glass shards dusting her black T-shirt. Her name hung from a chain around her neck.

I admit I yelled at her. We’d just been through a chase that could have killed us all.

“What the hell did you think you were doing, Sara?”

“I’m sorrrry,” she wailed. “It’s just—I only have a learner’s permit. What are you going to do to me?”

I was incredulous. “You ran from the police because you don’t have a driver’s license? Are you insane?”

“He’s going to kill us,” said the other kid, a lanky young boy hanging sideways from the over-the-shoulder seatbelt holding him into the passenger seat.

The boy had huge brown eyes and blond hair falling across them. His nose was bleeding, probably broken from the slam he’d taken from the airbag. Tears dribbled down his cheeks.

“Please don’t tell. Just say the car was stolen or something and let us go home. Please. Our dad’s going to really kill us.”

“Why is that?” Jacobi asked sarcastically. “He won’t like the new hood ornament on his sixty-thousand-dollar car? Keep your hands where we can see them and get out real slow.”

“I can’t. I’m stuh-uh-uck,” cried the boy. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his face. Then he threw up on the console.

Jacobi muttered, “Aw, shit,” as our instincts to render aid took over. We holstered our weapons. It took our combined strength to wrench open the ruined driver’s-side door. I reached in and shut off the ignition, and after that we eased the kids out of the vehicle and onto their feet.

“Let’s see that learner’s permit, Sara,” I said. I was wondering if her father was Dr. Cabot and if the kids were afraid of him for good reason.

“It’s here,” Sara said. “In my wallet.”

Jacobi was calling for an ambulance when the young girl reached into her inside jacket pocket and pulled out an object so unexpected and so chilling my blood froze.

I yelled, “GUN!” a split second before she shot me.