Private: #1 Suspect

CHAPTER 113

People came out of their houses in their pajamas and underwear, kids clung to their parents, cop cars piled up in the cul-de-sac. I knew full well that I was running toward a crashed car, but flashbacks were flooding my mind, sending me back to the worst night of my life.

I was in Afghanistan, transporting troops to base, when a rocket grenade tore through the belly of my CH-46, knocking out the rear rotor assembly and bringing us down.

There’d been a terrifying descent. The aircraft dropped into a black vortex of night. I pulled up on the cyclic, praying that I could land the Phrog upright-and miraculously I did.

As Del Rio and I scrambled out onto the sand, fuel ignited. Ordnance exploded. A column of fire burned and, through my night-vision goggles, became a green wall of flame.

We were out of the aircraft intact, but fourteen US Marines were trapped in the cargo hold where we’d taken a direct hit.

It was an honest-to-God hell on earth.

Men I knew, fought with, loved, were certainly dead, but I had to know for sure that no survivors were burning alive. I ran toward the cargo bay, and as he was doing now, Del Rio shouted at me to stop, screamed that the aircraft was going to blow.

“Jack.”

I turned to Del Rio now and shouted, “I have to know if she’s alive.”

The front end of the Impala had hit the wall head-on and compacted like an accordion.

The driver’s-side door was open and the air bag had deployed and deflated. Gomez was hanging limp from the seat belt. She was bleeding from her mouth, but she was breathing.

I leaned into the doorframe and said to her, “Carmelita. Can you hear me?”

She flicked her eyes toward me.

“Who?”

“I’m Jack Morgan, a special investigator. Did you do it? Did you kill Maurice Bingham? Did you kill Albert Singh?”

Her laugh was a wheeze, maybe an answer with her last breath. But it wasn’t answer enough for me.

“You’re dying, Carmelita. You don’t want to go with this secret.”

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Cruz said, “Candy. Dime la verdad. Pides perdon. ”

She sucked in air and said, “God knows. I killed them. No me necesito maldito perdon, muthafucka. They…got…what they deserved.”

She lifted her hand with great effort and, looking right at me, she gave me the finger. Then her face froze, her eyes went flat, and she died.