Chapter 1
Chapter one
I blinked hard, coming back to myself, face down in a puddle of funny-flavored water. My eyes stung and burned. My brain was fuzzy like it was full of wet sand. Every time I tried to focus on anything, the dimness worsened. My eyes could only see nonsense and lights, and my mind couldn’t translate the nonsense. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, scents of burning filled my nose and mouth. There were funny-tasting bubbles in my mouth.
The last thing I could recall was the brilliant, bright heat wave coming to engulf me, and that it lifted me off my feet, tossing me in the air.
I tried to lift my face out the puddle, but it was a million pounds. It was like I had a whale on my head. Where in the world did a whale come from? Blinking hard, I couldn’t ignore the headache any longer. It had been lingering on the edge of my consciousness, just waiting for me to acknowledge it. Now, it was pounding hard.
My car!
My car had exploded. The explosion, my car.
Sheer willpower flipped my body over because my muscles were not responding with the amount of pain rocking through every inch of me. It was imperative that I got out of the puddle, for some reason. I felt like I was drowning in the water. I hit the ground with a solid thud, any remaining oxygen left my body in a rush. Like a fish out of water, I stared up at the sky, or whatever it was.
The stars seemed to flicker against the darkness, not really making sense. I closed my eyes and rested for a moment before opening them again. The flickering danced around before settling and I realized that I was looking at a streetlight. My streetlight. The one that was literally right in front of my little duplex apartment.
Beyond the streetlight, the night sky was dark, telling me that I had been unconscious for a while. My last memory was of the mostly dark sky, the sun had disappeared behind the mountains off in the distance. Full darkness had fallen.
Distantly, I wondered where the emergency services were. As far I could remember, when an explosion happened in suburbia even poor suburbia like where I lived, they were there quickly.
Time felt a bit fluid and I really wasn’t sure how long it had been.
Abruptly, everything had sound again.
Crying out, I grabbed at my head with one arm. The other one was not working for some reason. It was probably broken. Everything was so loud. I turned my head back and forth, trying to block out the overload of input.
The raging fire of what was left of my car wasn’t that far from me. I was close enough to feel the heat from the flames or I was on fire. I couldn’t tell, everything hurt. There were sirens in the mix of loudness, but I couldn’t tell how far away they were.
My car!
My car was gone. Someone had blown up my car. It wasn’t a great car, but it got me where I needed to go without fail. The radio had worked well. I got all the good stations. At least all the stations that I wanted. The pink fuzzy dice were gone. They had been so fuzzy, and soft. I had really liked them. Lizzy had bought them for me for my birthday. I couldn’t recall when my birthday had been, at the moment, but I really liked them. It had been the perfect gift from a woman didn’t have to like me but seemed to. She was going to be mad at me for losing them. Tears filled my eyes and seemed to roll down my cheeks, but I could only feel it at the distance. I needed to call Lizzy. I didn’t want her to be upset with me. She would understand that I hadn’t purposefully lost them, hopefully.
“Where is my phone?”
“Ma’am, don’t move, the ambulance is on its way.” A floating voice said from somewhere above.
“What?” I asked, confusion. I couldn’t seem to find the owner of the voice.
“Don’t move, you might be hurt.”
“I have to call Lizzy.”
“Who?” The floating voice asked.
Ignoring them, I reached down with my working arm, trying to feel if my phone was in my pocket. I couldn’t remember if I had put it in there. My right pocket was empty.
“Crap, where is my phone?”
My left arm was still not moving, so I had to reach across to check the other pocket. Crying out when I felt the little box shape. It was still in my pocket. Fishing it out of my pocket, took some crazy maneuvering.
Despite batting a thousand, I was hoping that the little plastic box was unbroken. The lady, Candy, or Candice, something like that, had said the bit of technology was as durable as they came. And I had a lot of talent with breaking them.
I was pleased to see the little screen light up when I pressed one of the buttons, getting it out of my pocket. Using my thumb, I flipped the little device open. It lit up in the ugly green color, a sob wretched out of me. It still worked!
“What is Lizzy’s number again?” I muttered to the person hovering outside my line of sight. I stared blankly at the screen. “Dang. Wait, Joe!”
I held down the number two button. Joe was always my number two; I always preprogrammed his number immediately into each new phone. He was the only one preprogrammed into my phone.
The sound of ringing was loud even before I moved the device to my ear. Something on my ear stung as I pressed the plastic to it, and I flinched, but held it still. It rang so many times, I thought for a second, he wasn’t going to answer. I was never going to get to tell Lizzy that I lost the fuzzy dice.
I liked those dice. I liked my car. It was a good little ugly car. It got me to places I needed to go.
“Maverick!” A deep voice came over the phone, startling me. I blanked for a moment, trying to remember who I called. “Kit?” the voice called out.
“Oh, hey Capt.”
“Kit? What’s wrong? You sound weird. What’s going on there?”
I frowned, “Do I sound weird?”
“Yes. Where are you?”
I looked around. Where was I? Laying on the ground, in a funky smelling puddle. There was so much heat, but I was so cold. I shifted around, my eyes traced over the familiar surroundings.
“Kit? Where are you?” The man on the phone asked again. Clearly, I had forgotten something.
“Oum.” My voice sounded rough, but my eyes landed on the fireball. It took my fuzzy mind precious seconds to figure out what it was I was looking at. Bright like a light bulb lighting up suddenly, it dawned on me what it was. The remainder of my car. The explosion. Flying without wings. The fuzzy pink dice. Lizzy. “I need to talk to Lizzy.”
“What? Why?”
“I need to tell her that I lost the fuzzy pink dice.”
“What? Kit, you aren’t making any sense.”
“My car exploded.”
“What?”
“Yea, my car exploded.” I frowned. “I liked my car. Capt., why did someone blow up my car?” There was a ringing in the background of everything that was getting louder, in time with the sirens that were getting louder. “Crap! Shit. Capt, I was on my way to meet with Vicky Peters’ mother? What was her name? I can’t remember.” I shook my head, trying to clear it, and immediately regretted that choice. There were rocks in my head, that slammed against the skull, or at least it felt like it. I groaned softly, I laid my head back in the puddle.
“….you need to wait. Don’t move.” I caught the tail end of whatever Capt. was saying.
“What?”
“Don’t worry about the meeting, right now?” He repeated. I closed my eyes and just rested for a moment, before images shot through my mind, reminding what I had forgotten.
“No, I have to go,” I said, “Capt., she said she would only meet with me. We have to know what she knows.” I breathed out before trying to sit up but didn’t have the strength “What was her name? Capt, why can’t I remember her name?”
“Kit?”
I grimaced and tried to push myself to a stand, but my body wasn’t cooperating. The sirens were getting louder. “I think someone tried to blow me up, Joe. They succeeded on blowing up my car.” Tears filled my eyes, “I liked my car.” Everything was going all funny again. “Why my car? It never did anything to anyone?” I slid back down onto my back, in the puddle.
“Kit, stay with me.” He sounded really far away.
“I’m here.” I blinked hard. “Just getting a little fuzzy. I need to go to the meeting. She said she would only meet with me today. What was her name?”
“Stay where you are, I’m coming to you. Where are you at?”
“Outside my house.” I muttered, “Stupid people could have blown up my house.” I pushed at my body, demanding that it do what I asked of it. I just wanted to sit up. Using the slowly building anger, my body slowly moved upwards.
“Kit, I hear you grunting and groaning. Please stay still. You know you could have spinal damage.”
“No, I’m fine. I just need to get up.” I got all the way up, my entire body complaining loudly at me for moving. “And I need to remember her name.” Annoyed that I couldn’t remember, I looked around. The fire seemed self-contained to my car, or what was left it only. There were so many people, so many bystanders who just stood there doing nothing. It was just like civilians to stand to the side. It was a group mentality.
“Kit, wait. I am on my way. We can go together.”
“Wait, you’re the captain. You don’t do field work anymore. Not since last year.”
“Yes, I know. But being as I am in charge. I am allowed to get out of my office once and a while.” He said as I heard a car door slam. The sirens of the ambulances were on top of me, their lights were blinding. “Kit?”
I blinked hard. I seemed to have lost some time, because there was a lady in a blue uniform kneeling in front of me. I could only stare at her, trying to figure where she came from. She reached out with a hand to touch my face, and I flinched. I shook my head, which made the pain worse, and the fuzziness take over a bit more.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
“Kit, who is that?” the lady and Joe asked at the same time.
“Ma’am who is on the phone?”
I looked at her blankly for a second. “Wait, I’m a detective; my badge is in my back pocket.” When I started to reach for it, she stopped me.
“It’s alright, you can show me in a little while. Right now, I need to know who is on the line. Is it your husband?”
“Who?” I finally asked.
“The man on the phone. I can hear him talking,” the lady said, pointing at the phone.
“Kit, who is that?” Capt. was asking.
“Joe?”
“Yea?” Capt. responded.
“Yes, is that your husband?” the lady said. They were talking over each out, confusing my fuzzy brain even more.
“Stop talking, both of you,” I demanded.
Blessedly they both stopped, and I could breathe a little.
“Renee, Renee Peters.” The name came to me suddenly as my mind started to clear.
“What?” the lady asked.
“That’s her name.”
“Kit,” Capt. said.
“Ok, what is your husband’s name?” the lady asked, nodding.
“What? Who?”
“Your husband.”
“Joe?” I asked, “Joe’s not my husband, he is my partner.” I stopped and thought about that for a moment. “That’s not right. He isn’t my partner, not anymore. He is my boss.”
“Can I talk to him?” Without waiting for me to figure out the answer, she took the phone away from me. “These guys are going to get you loaded up. Just sit still.” She walked away with my phone.
“Hey!” I said, calling out to her. “Bring my phone back. I was still talking to Joe!”
“It’s ok, miss. Look here.”
My attention flitted from the lady with my phone to the young men standing on either side of me.
“Let’s lie back down, shall we?” the man on the right said. They both were wearing those dark navy shirts, that universally seemed to mean EMS, but it did help my fuzzy brain to see the big white EMS letters across their wide chests. Suddenly, I was being lowered back down into the puddle. I didn’t want to be in the puddle anymore.
“Hey, I don’t, there is a puddle. I think there is gasoline in it.”
“It’s okay. Even if it is gasoline, the firefighters will take care of it. We need to take care of you.”
Glancing in between the two, they both looked really tall from my angle. “Any chance you could help me up?” I held up a hand, really wanting to get out the puddle.
“Not yet, honey. Just stay still. We are going to get this neck brace on.” The rich sepia skin of the first partner said, moving towards me with the neck contraption.
“Nope, you aren’t putting that thing on me.” I waved him off, “I am fine. I just want to stand up.”
“Ma’am, you might have spinal damage.” The smooth ebony of his gorgeous skin seemed to reflect starlight as he stared down at me.
“I’m fine.”
“Ma’am, you need to work with us.” Partner B said.
“I don’t like you as much. Your partner is nicer.”
“You hear that, Andrews? She says I’m nicer than you,” Partner A said with a big smile. “But, honey, unfortunately, I am going to have to agree with my partner. You need to wear the neck brace. I also think your wrist might be broken.” “Seriously, I am ok. I promise. Let me sign that form, you know the one. I take responsibility for myself.” They both shook their heads. “I am Detective Kit Callaghan, and I need to stand up. Now!” Agitated, I wanted up out of the puddle. “Someone tried to blow me up, I don’t need to be coddled by a couple of cute EMTs. I’m fine.”
“You think we are cute?” Andrews asked. I turned towards him. He was so close. His pretty chocolate eyes stared down at me.Abruptly my neck was being pinched in the neck brace.
“You tricked me!” I growled at Andrews.
“Yep, sure did.
“Detective?” The lady walked back over to stand over me. “Captain Maverick would like to talk to you, again. No, don’t reach for it. I will bring it to you.” She placed the device into my hand without me having to really move.
“Kit.” Joe said my name. And just like that, the agitation faded, and I felt calmer.
“Joe. They won’t let me up. I need to get up.”
“Let them look at you.” He paused, and I could hear an engine start in the background. “I am on my way to you now. I will meet you at the hospital.”
“Look, I am fine.” I wanted to get up.
“Please?” he said, and I froze. It was the one word that I had never heard out his mouth. “Please. I’m on my way. Let them do their jobs.”
“You better hurry, Joe. You know patience is not my strong suit.”
“I am.”
“Don’t run any red lights.”
“Kit!” The word was accompanied by a deep growl.
“Joe, I am so telling Erickson that you said the word,” I laughed, waving to the EMS to continue. “And you said it twice. He is going to owe me a hundred bucks.”
“Kit!”
I shut the phone, not waiting for any more responses. “Alright guys, you win. But you better make it fast. I can’t promise that I will play nice for too long.”
“No worries, detective. We can be very fast.” Partner A said with a flirty smile.
“Dumbass, you do realize you just told a chick that you can be fast. No girl wants to hear that.” Andrews said.
“Dumbass is a good name, but you know calling a woman a chick isn’t much better.” I said with a half-smile, holding still as they loaded me onto the backboard thing. I was already feeling trapped and wanted out. As they started to strap me in, I panicked. “Wait, wait. I won’t move. Please don’t!”
“Detective!” The lady said, her voice sharp.
“Hey, hey. It’s ok.” Partner A said as he was snapped other little machines onto my chest and my fingers. “Hey, we have you. All joking aside, breathe. Look my partner’s name is Ralph Andrews, and I’m Mick Pena. We have you! Can you take some calmer breaths for me?” Breathing through my nose, I tried to focus on the chocolate eyes of Andrews. In and out, in and out. My nostrils burned something fierce.
“Talk to me,” I whispered.
“What?” the other guy, Pena asked.
“Talk to me, and you can strap me in. You have to, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then talk to me, tell me a story. Anything.”
The two men glanced at each other, and then to the lady who nodded. Something passed between them, but I didn’t know what it was.
“Guys?”
“Pena and I grew up together.” Andrews finally said after a few seconds.
“Yea?” The first strapped went across legs, and my heart rate jumped.
“We were foster brothers together.” Pena answered, as he hooked another one.
“We both ended up in this house, a wretched cranky old man, at the same time,” Andrews said.
“How he got qualified to have foster kids, I will never know,” Pena said, laughing. “So anyways, this old man, whose name was Pa. That was the only name anyone knew him by. Pa was the cantankerous SOB who drank moonshine and smoked Marlboro red cigarettes.” Suddenly I was completely strapped down, and I panicked.
“Wait, wait, don’t freak out. Pa would have hated seeing you freak out,” Andrews said.
“Why?” I asked, calming a little.
“Pa would have told you that beautiful girls like you should never cry,” Pena said. “Of course, Pa would have then grumbled that women should stay home and have babies. That the biggest fall of society was when women stopped being wives. Pa was a veteran of the Vietnam war. He had some very old school ideas, which was why he only took teenage boys.”
“Angry ones.” Andrews said laughing. We were moving, but I wasn’t. Everyone else was.
Abruptly, I realized that we were in the ambulance, and it was moving. In my panic I hadn’t realized that they had gotten me moved into the vehicle. Pena was driving and I couldn’t see him from where I was strapped down. The bonds were bothering me, but the panic had lessened to bearable amount. It was silly that a couple of nylon straps could mess me up as much.
“Pa sounds like he was a bit sexist,” I said softly, as the lady was wrapping my wrist. There was distant pain there, but it had nothing on the ringing and throbbing of my head. I studied her a little bit, her uniform was different than the guys.
“I agree,” the lady said. “What does this story have to do with anything?”
“Well, Pa being Pa, was not well liked by anyone, but that never seemed to bother him. He came to every sporting event we had. He would sit there in the front row,” Pena spoke loudly.
“This old white man would sit in the front row of any event any of his foster kids had, with a unlit cigarette in his mouth, and an straight dead look on his face. It was like he was daring any of the staff to kick him out,” Andrews said, while he pressed a bandage into my forehead, taping a wound I had there. The pressure of his hand made a spot ache that I didn’t know was injured. Hissing through my teeth, I glared at the man above me. “Don’t glare at me, Detective.”
“Finish the story,” the lady said. I still hadn’t gotten her name, and that was annoying.
“Geez, Reynolds!” Rena called from the front seat.
“Do you want anything for the pain?” Reynolds asked, ignoring the two men’s ribbings.
I shook my head but immediately regretted the movement. “No, I am fine.”
“Are you sure?” Reynolds asked, frowning down at me.
“No one is asking you to be brave,” Andrews said.
“No pain meds, please. I am transmundane.” There was a risk telling them, I knew that, but I couldn’t risk anyone giving me pain meds. That would not end well, not for anyone.
There was a moment, everyone froze, and I waited. Just as suddenly, everyone seemed to take a deep breath and released it.
“Anyways, so the last game of a tournament, Pa was sitting in the front row. The volleyball game was a tough one,” Andrews continued.
“A stomach bug had hit and wiped out like half of the team,” Pena called. “So, we had no alternatives. We fought hard but we were losing. It was so bad.”
“Pa sat there in the front row, with that bushy beard of his, staring at the game.” Andrews leaned back.
“Guys, we are almost out time. Finish the story. The hospital is just around the corner,” Reynolds muttered.
“Sheesh, Reynolds, way to kill the mood,” Pena whined.
She gave me an eye roll before smiling. There was an almost sibling love in her eyes. I envied her that relationship, a little.
“Pena got to serve the ball. You rotate positions in volleyball. At least that’s how our high school did it.”
“I was so bad at serving,” Pena chuckled.
“You really were.” Andrews agreed. “Well, there was this woman. Her son was on the other team.She was one of those moms, you know the ones who kept yelling out rude things all game. Calling the ref horrible names when the man-made calls against her son.”
“Pa was sitting there with that look on his face, it was the same look he had all the time. Half grump, a quarter annoyance and quarter love, but you had to know what his love looked like,” Pena called.
“Well Pena served and missed. Then he served again, and by some miracle, he got it over the net.”
“And straight into the rude mother’s son’s face,” Pena laughed. “I broke his nose.”
“There was so much blood. The mother lost her mind. She ran out on the court, making it to her son before the coach or referee could,” Andrews said. “But instead of comforting her boy, she went straight for Pena.”
“What happened?” I asked softly.
“Before she could get to Pena, Pa seemed to appear like magic in between them. The woman froze and stared at this little wizened old man who was shorter than she was. It took her about a minute to overcome her surprise.”
“She started yelling profanities and slurs at me,” Pena said. His voice went softer than it had been before. Those taunts and slurs had hurt him. I could almost feel his pain over my own.
“What did Pa do?”
“Whispered something to her, that I couldn’t hear. She went white as snow and walked off,” Pena said.
“Just like that?” Reynolds asked softly. The ambulance pulled into the parking lot, it rocked back and forth as we went over a speed bump.
“Just like that,” Andrews said, smiling.
Reynolds climbed out the back, before helping Andrews unload me. I was not entirely happy with being a package, but there was no panic. Yet.
They wheeled me into the emergency room. The florescent lights were blinding, flashing as we rolled down the hallway. The pounded in my head made a comeback, as the storytelling had stopped.
“Kit!” Someone called my name, but I couldn’t turn towards the sound. It was too fascinating to watch the painful flickering.
“Bring her in here,” another voice called. We slid into a room with pink walls. The soft color was meant to be soothing, but it was more annoying. “Sir you will have to wait in the waiting room.”
“I’m about done with all this, guys,” I announced. “Let me out of the restraints.”
“Hold on, ma’am. We are going to you transferred to the hospital bed, then we will unhook you.” The nurse said. I assumed it was the nurse. She had on fancy blue scrubs and a stethoscope around her neck. Her light-colored hair was pulling back into the stereotypical ‘all my fs are gone’ hair style on the top of her head.
“Let me out. I want to get up!” I demanded, struggling against the bonds that held me. All the panic that I had been mostly pushing down, flared back with a vengeance.
“Detective, hold still.” Pena called.
“Kit!” The voice called again, it sounded familiar, but panic was blocking everything.
“Ma’am!” The nurse’s voice was the loudest. “Enough! Stop it! You are not helping yourself right now. Stop acting like a baby. You are fine!”
The tone she used irritated me, allowing to push the panic back.
“DO NOT talk to me like that!” I said, but my struggling ceased.
“There you are!” The nurse smiled. “My name is Trisha Knox. You can call me Trisha.”
“Kit Callaghan,” I responded, automatically. “I would shake your hand, but you know.”
“Kit, you are going to be fine,” she smiled.
