Burning Time

78

The blast blew out the front wall of the garage apartment, causing the collapse of half the roof. Fire raged out of the jagged opening. A large piece of crumpled aluminum siding fell on the driveway in front of the garage door. Shattered glass littered front lawns and sidewalks all up and down the block.

The stakeout cop who had been tinkering with the car had seen Mike and April go into the garage. He’d followed to provide backup. He hadn’t had time to make it up the stairs. The house shook with a deafening bang. April, Sanchez, and the woman hostage were blown out the door and propelled down the stairs, knocking the stakeout cop over.

Choking on smoke and plaster dust, all four struggled for air. Three of them had landed in a tangled heap on the cement floor. Emma lay curled motionless on her side. April sprawled over her legs. Sanchez’s full weight came to rest on April’s twisted ankle. The stakeout cop smashed against the wall, where two lawn chairs crashed on top of him. From upstairs came the powerful smell of charcoal, burning electric wires, and charred flesh.

Better get out of here. April was the first to move. Her ankle throbbed. Her eyes stung with smoke and dust. She couldn’t see anything. She put her hand out to Emma. “You all right?” Of course she wasn’t all right. April had crashed down on her hard. The woman had no clothes on. April could feel the black soot and plaster dust that clung to her sticky skin. Emma’s fingers touched hers. She groaned, but didn’t say anything.

Sanchez was a dead weight.

“Mike?” April cried. “Mike—”

“Uh.” He grabbed the back of the blackened car, struggled to his feet. The heat in there was intense. He held out his hand to April, jerked her up. “We got to get out.”

The stakeout cop untangled himself from the lawn chairs, cursing. “Come on,” he said. He stepped forward and fell on his face. “Shit,” he muttered. “Shit.”

“Mrs. Frank.” April leaned over her. “Mrs. Frank, can you stand up?”

“I don’t know.” Emma’s voice was hoarse and panicked.

“It’s okay, we’ll get you out.” She put her arm around Emma and helped her up, though she could hardly stand herself. Her jacket and pants were peppered with cuts and burns. Her hands and face, too. Her whole body felt scorched and bruised. She ignored it. She figured Emma felt a lot worse. Sanchez supported her other side.

April nodded at him to start moving, and saw that the fire had singed off his mustache and eyebrows. His upper lip was red.

Emma looked from one to the other. “He was going to—” Her blue eyes filled with tears.

“Yeah, but he didn’t get to.”

Soot covered the drawings on Emma Chapman’s face. April could hardly see her through the stinging smoke. It looked like Emma had a clay mask on. That was all right, the woman probably had mud packs all the time. It looked as if her features were still perfect. They hadn’t been damaged. April put a hand to Emma’s hair. It was matted and dirty, but at least she still had it.

“I shot him,” she told April. She was in shock.

April nodded. “Probably saved your life. Come on.”

The stakeout cop was on his feet. The four of them slowly started moving. Only minutes had passed since the explosion. Three firemen in hats and rubber coats came into the garage to help them out. Outside, people were already gawking at the devastation, and the ferocity of the fire. Fire engines and police sirens wailed.

Fire equipment, police cars, three ambulances with their lights flashing were already on the scene. With the help of a fireman twice her size, April hobbled out into the chaos. The first thing she saw was a kitchen sink and part of its cabinet crashed onto the hood of a car in the street. The unmarked car from the Two-O was rubble.

It was dusk. In the fading light, people drawn out of their houses by the blast were complaining, pointing at the fire, shaking their heads. One woman with her hair in curlers rushed toward them shrieking, “Help me. Oh, God. He had a heart attack. He’s in the house. He won’t get up—” A black female fire fighter went to help her.

“Oh, God,” April muttered. It was a mess. What would her mother say about her job now? Never mind the cuts and burns on her hands and feet, or the sprained ankle—if she was lucky. Sai Woo would look on dark side. She wouldn’t say her daughter big hero for saving Noblewoman Trapped in Cave. She would say her daughter strong enough to blow up whole neighborhood. And still not married. Pah.

“I’m fine,” she protested to the fireman, who wanted to deposit her in an ambulance. She wasn’t getting into any ambulance. She turned back to Emma.

Emma’s fireman had put his coat on her and carried her out because she had no shoes.

Sanchez touched her arm. “You okay?”

April nodded. “What about you?”

“Fine.” He nodded, too.

She knew he wasn’t fine. She could see the blood from many small cuts through the holes in his clothes. His face looked burned and one of his ears was the color of raw hamburger. Well, her ankle hurt like hell and was beginning to swell. It was his fault for falling on top of her, but she didn’t want to mention it now. Maybe some day she’d tell him he wasn’t good in close.

“Thanks,” was what she said now.

“Yeah, what for?”

“Everything.” She saw a car from the Two-O and turned away to help clear the street for the ambulance that was coming in for Emma.

The fireman stood there holding onto her. “Could you put me down? I need to call my husband.” Emma still looked stunned.

“No, you’ll cut your feet.” The fireman cocked his head at the ambulance driver, a guy with a ponytail and a thick gold hoop in one ear.

The ambulance stopped and a white-jacketed medic jumped out of the front seat. “Who’s first?”

“She is,” April indicated Emma.

“Can she stand?”

“Not without any shoes, she can’t. Hurry it up, will you. I got things to do.” The fireman looked back at the fire.

The medic opened the back doors and held out some white cotton blankets to wrap Emma in so he could give the fireman back his coat.

“My husband’s a doctor. I can’t go to a hospital. Call him. I want to go home.” Emma resisted being put in the ambulance.

“Got to get in, lady. It’s the rules.”

“Don’t worry,” April said quickly. “I know where he is.”

Emma stared at her.

“I called him. He’s on his way. He’s the one who helped us locate you. He’s a great guy.”

Emma started to cry again.

“Come on, it’s okay. In you go, and then I’ll find him for you.”

April helped the two paramedics put Emma into the ambulance. When they exchanged the coat for the cotton blankets, no one commented on the artwork on the woman’s body.

April could hear the shouts of police and fire fighters, yelling at curious people not to cross the lines, not to try to go back to their houses yet. April got out of the ambulance.

Sanchez stood with Sergeants Joyce and Aspiranti, describing what happened, by the look of it. Down the block near the diner, Jason Frank was trying to argue his way past a roadblock.

April hobbled down the street toward him. “She’s over here,” she shouted to Jason. “He’s a doctor, let him through,” she ordered, flashing her ID.

Jason pushed through the uniforms, his face white with fear. “Where is she?”

“She’s in that ambulance.” April pointed at it. She tried to reach out and stop him, so she could tell him what to expect, what happened to Emma and what she looked like. But he didn’t stop. He wanted to get to his wife and didn’t hesitate, not for a second. April stood there on one foot, staring after him until Sanchez came to get her.