Serial

3

After the body of Millie Graff had been removed, Quinn walked with Renz through a fine summer drizzle to a diner a few blocks away that was still open despite the late hour. They were in a back-corner booth and were the only customers. The old guy who’d come out from behind the counter to bring their coffee was now at the other end of the place, near the door and the cash register. He was hunched over as if he had a bent spine, reading a newspaper through glasses with heavy black frames.

Renz looked miserable, obviously loathing his role as bearer of bad news. Quinn was surprised to find himself feeling sorry for him. Though they held a mutual respect for each other’s capabilities, the two men weren’t exactly friends. Renz was an unabashed bureaucratic crawler fueled by ambition and unencumbered by any sort of empathy or decency. He’d stepped on plenty of necks to get where he was, and he still wasn’t satisfied. Never would be. Quinn considered Renz to be an insatiable sociopath who would say anything, do anything, or use anyone in order to get what he wanted. Renz considered Quinn to be simply unrealistic.

“I haven’t seen Millie in almost fifteen years,” Quinn said.

“She healed up, grew up, and became a dancer,” Renz said. “Saved her money so she could leave New Jersey and live here in New York. She was gonna break into theater.” He sipped his coffee and made a face as if he’d imbibed poison. “I got all this from her neighbors. She worked in the Theater District, but was waiting tables in a restaurant.” He shrugged. “Show biz.”

“How long’s she been in the city?” Quinn asked.

“Five months.”

Quinn gazed out the window and thought back to when he’d first seen Millie Graff. She’d had metal braces on her teeth and was screaming with her mouth wide open and mashed against the closed window of a burning car.

He’d simply been driving along on Tenth Avenue in his private car, off duty, when traffic had come to a stop and he’d seen smoke up ahead. Quinn had gotten out of his car and jogged toward the smoke. When he got closer to the gathering mass of onlookers he saw that a small SUV was upside down, propped at an angle with its roof against the curb. It was on fire.

The vehicle was not only on fire. Its gas tank was leaking, and the resultant growing puddle of fuel was blazing. The crowd, sensing an explosion any second, was moving well back, occasionally surging forward slightly, pulled by curiosity and repelled by danger. The woman who’d been driving the SUV was upside down with her head at an awkward angle. Quinn figured her neck was broken.

The girl pressing her face against the window and screaming was eight-year-old Millie Graff. She’d apparently gotten her safety belt unbuckled and was trying to crawl out. But the door was jammed shut and the window remained closed. He saw the frantic girl make a motion as if she was trying to open the window, and then shake her head back and forth, desperately trying to tell someone looking on that the window was jammed.

Quinn moved toward the car and felt someone grip his shirtsleeve. A short man with brown eyes popped wide was trying to hold him back. “It’s gonna blow any moment!” he yelled at Quinn. “Smell that gas! You can’t go over there!”

When Quinn drew his big police special revolver from its belt holster the man released him and moved back. That was when Quinn saw the blue uniform over by a shop window. A young PO standing with his back pressed against a wall. Quinn waved for him to come over and help. The man didn’t move. A New York cop, frozen by fear.

Forgetting everything else, Quinn ran to the SUV and began pounding on the window with the butt of his revolver, holding the cylinder tight so it remained on an empty chamber and wouldn’t allow the gun to fire accidentally. The girl inside pressed her hand against the glass and he motioned for her to move back.

She did, and a series of blows rendered with all his strength broke the glass. It didn’t shatter much, but enough so that he could grip the shards and pull them out. He removed his shirt and used it so he wouldn’t cut his hands as he tried to pry the rest of the window out.

The girl caught fire. She began screaming over and over, trying to beat out the flames with her bare hands. Quinn could see the flames spreading across the back of her blouse, reaching for her hair.

The sight gave him strength he didn’t know he had, and what was left of the window popped from the frame.

He reached through the window, grabbed the girl’s arm, and dragged her from the vehicle. Pain made him realize he was on fire, too. Both of them were burning.

That was when Quinn glanced beyond the girl, to the other side of the car. And through his pain and fear he saw a distorted miniature face and waving tiny hands in an infant seat. A screaming child. A baby.

Aware now of more flames in the street around him, more burning gasoline, he slung the wriggling young girl over his shoulder and ran with her across the street. He gave her to reaching arms. Hands slapped at him, and someone threw a shirt over him to smother the flames.

He saw the young cop still frozen against the wall. Quinn screamed around the lump in his throat: “There’s a baby in there, other side, rear, in an infant seat!”

The man didn’t move, only stared straight ahead.

Quinn shoved people away and ran back toward the burning SUV, ignoring the pleas for him to stay away. He was aware of sirens. Fire trucks down the street, a block away. Too far away. The flames inside the car were spreading. The vehicle was filling with smoke.

He glanced back and saw the young girl he’d dragged from the wreck huddled on the sidewalk, surrounded by people. A man was bending over her, maybe a doctor.

Quinn continued running toward the burning SUV.

The explosion knocked him backward. He remembered being airborne, then the back of his head hitting solid concrete.

Then nothing was solid and he was falling.

When he regained consciousness the next day in the hospital, he was told the girl he’d pulled from the SUV had seconddegree burns on her upper back and arms, but she was alive. The driver of the vehicle, a teenage sister, was dead. So was the infant in the backseat, their little brother, ten months old.

Quinn had been proclaimed a hero, and the Times ran a photo of him posing with the family of the dead and their one remaining child-Millicent Graff.

The young officer who’d gone into shock and been unable to help Quinn, and perhaps rescue the infant, was fired from the NYPD for dereliction of duty.

The NYPD had sort of adopted Millie Graff. Renz had used the charming child as a political prop, but that was okay because it was obvious that he also felt genuine affection for her.

And now-

“Quinn.”

Renz, across the diner booth, was talking to Quinn.

“Sorry,” Quinn said. “Lost my concentration for a minute.”

“Where’d you go?” Renz asked, with a sad smile.

He knew where.

Quinn felt the beginnings of another kind of flame, deep in his gut, and knew what it meant. In a way, he welcomed it.

This killer had taken away forever something precious that fifteen years ago Quinn had saved. Now he had to be found. He would be found. Quinn wanted it even more than Renz might imagine.

This was personal.