The tires blow out one after the other, back then front, the popping tubes as loud as shotgun blasts, and then the bus sinks a few inches to the ground, shorter now.
The white paint on the sides blackens. Char marks crawling up toward the roof. Blistering the enamel. Little bubbles bulging everywhere.
The passengers all dark shapes behind the windows. Panicking silhouettes. Banging on the glass. Screaming. Their open mouths the one detail he can make out.
A hand on his shoulder brings him back to the conference room. Klootey flinches a little. Startled.
“Sorry, Teej. Didn’t mean to spook you like that,” Bishop says.
Klootey plasters a big, stupid grin on his face and shakes his head.
“Nah, it’s just I’m still a little jacked on adrenaline, you know?”
“I bet, man. Sounds like I missed out on all the excitement.” Bishop glances around the room. “So what was it like?”
It takes a moment for Klootey to find the right words. To do it justice.
“Absolute fucking chaos.”
Bishop nods, and Klootey practically has to bite a chunk out of his cheek to keep from laughing. Even his own damn partner has no idea. Not a fucking clue.
Isn’t it grand that no one cares? That you’re invisible? Isn’t it a fucking delight to walk around in a world that cannot see who you really are?
The giggles crawl up his throat again, but he stops them there. Clears his throat a couple times, which somehow squelches the laughter just shy of his tongue.
Someone flips on a flat screen TV mounted on the wall at the front of the room. Big yellow letters glow against a black background at the bottom of the screen: Forest Fire. And the news shows aerial shots of the blazing forest. Dramatic camera work. Sweeping visuals that give a sense of the scale.
It looks like an expensive shot from a disaster movie. The camera rolling on and on, hill after hill, dip after dip. Everything on fire for as far as you can see.
A few houses burn among the trees. Rich fucks saying goodbye to their fortresses up in the hills. Watching their dreams melt.
And he wonders if the liquid remains of these mansions will ultimately drain down that grate at the center of Los Angeles. All the scum flows through there, one way or another. Always a matter of time.
Bishop turns away from the TV, swiveling back to face him.
“You seen Camacho and Murphy?”
Not taking his eyes from the screen, Klootey waves a hand in the air. “Yeah, they’re around here somewhere.”
Bishop says something about heading out to find them, raps his knuckles against the tabletop as a farewell gesture, but Klootey hardly notices.
The newscaster yammers away on the TV, but he can’t focus on her words. He just watches her teeth while she talks. Big white teeth. Big fish lips flapping up and down over those big ol’ choppers.
And he wishes for the feed to cut back to his fire. His legacy. Aches to see it. To stare into the flames for as long as he can, let that trance take hold of him and carry him away. His desire for those images of the burning woods is so intense it borders on sexual.
He realizes that he is breathing too loud. Hot breath heaving in and out of his mouth. And he coughs to cover it. Fist clenched in front of his lips, shaking just a little. Phlegmy sounding hacks emitting from him.
Someone slides him a plastic cup of water. And he takes it and drinks. Croaks out a thanks. Hand massaging at his throat.
The news cuts back to the fire. Same loop of shots as before, but he’s glad for it nevertheless. The camera gets so high up and shoots straight down, a true bird’s eye shot. He wonders if it’s from a drone.
Then another uniformed body elbows through the door. The Chief. He plants himself right in front of the TV, raises a hand to get everyone’s attention.
The room goes quiet. Klootey tries to see around the Chief to watch his fire.
“Listen up, all. We just got word a moment ago. Everyone got out,” he says.
The small crowd gathered in the room erupts into jubilant noise, but the Chief holds up his hand again, looking to finish his statement.
“It was a nick of time type of deal, OK? The wooden bridge went up, but all the buses, vans, and cruisers are accounted for. The hospital is clear. We did it, people. Rose to the occasion. You saved a bunch of lives tonight, OK? So give yourselves a round of applause.”
The crowd is louder on the second upheaval. Raucous.
Klootey’s arms go numb, the blood draining from his face so quickly he thinks he might pass out or vomit or both, but he manages to slowly clap along with the rest of the room. Wincing inside.
Police from various divisions stand and shake hands, pat each other on the back. There’s a little whooping and the like. Someone offers up cigars, and a big group bustles out to the parking lot to indulge.
Klootey feels like he is going to fall out of his chair. Just slide down under the table and die there in a pile.
It’s impossible. Impossible that they would all get out. He doesn’t understand.
“You feeling OK?”
It’s the podunk policewoman. Captain Beck. She stands near the doorway, hands tucked in the sides of her gun belt, a funny look on her face.
“Oh yeah. All good here. I just… I think the reality of all of this is catching up to me or something.”
She slips into the seat next to him, eyes still locked on him.
“It’s a lot to process. That’s for sure,” she says, scooting her chair back further to make room for her protruding middle.
“Just glad everyone got out,” he says.
He can’t believe he doesn’t projectile vomit before the words get out of his mouth, foam and flecks of food rocketing up from his gullet, spreading over the big conference room table in a puddle the exact shade of Cheez-Its.
For the first time, it occurs to him that he should kill himself. Get out now. Exit stage right. Be done.
He wonders how he’ll do it. Gun? Rope?
No. The fire should take him. That seems right. Feels right. That big forest fire should get one major victim to its name, shouldn’t it?
He pictures driving out into the apocalyptic scene. The earth on fire as far as the eye can see. All the plant life, all the land glowing and smothered in it, shriveling and twisting within the inferno. Everything sizzling and popping.
And the flames will jump for him when he arrives. Elongated tendrils of orange leaping for his car, wrapping him up, writhing over his body like snakes.
Yes, that feels like a Hollywood ending, he thinks. Appropriately dramatic. Appropriately morbid. It fits.
Then one of the detectives on the task force, Brill, rushes to the door, feet thudding over the floor. He sticks his head in, a frantic look about him, lips and eyes twitching in repeating patterns that seem to have their own strange rhythm to them. Once again the room falls silent.
“Heads up. We just got word that someone’s trapped in the fire after all. It’s a single car from what we’re being told,” he says, licking his lips before he finishes. “It’s not confirmed yet, but they think it’s the two federal agents. Luck and Darger.”
Chapter 64
Darger’s breath caught in her throat, fear seeming to afflict her eyes so she couldn’t stop blinking them for a few seconds, tears bulging at the corners.
Trapped. They were trapped here. Walled in by fire on all sides.
No place to go. No way out.
The Lexus rolled to a stop about a hundred feet shy of the flaming bridge, and Luck and Darger just sat there. Motionless. Both of them staring. Watching the orange flicker where the way out should be. Their chests and shoulders kept rising and falling, but nothing else moved inside the car.
“What do we do?” Luck said eventually.
Darger hesitated, unsure. But when she spoke, her voice sounded calm in her ears. Strangely tranquil. Totally disconnected from how she felt inside.
“We go back to the hospital parking lot. T
hat’s a big chunk of asphalt that the fire can’t touch. Eventually they can send someone in to get us.”
Luck muttered a response, seeming to talk more to himself than to her, she thought.
“Right. Right that makes sense.”
The Lexus wheeled around, swerving near the fiery edge of the road, eventually pointing itself the opposite direction.
Luck’s shoulders heaved once. Some breath to reassure himself. And then he stomped on the gas, and the Lexus lurched forward once more.
They rocketed back the way they’d come. Tearing over the asphalt again, that dotted yellow line in the middle of the road going faster and faster, ticking off their progress.
It felt better to be moving again, Darger thought. Momentum. Action. Right now, doing anything was better than doing nothing. Stasis was death, even up against a fire raging out of control.
Luck said nothing. He sat utterly still in the driver’s seat save for the spasms of his breathing, his chest fluttering a little on every inhale, little quakes of the ribcage somehow reminiscent of a baby that can’t quite stop crying.
Darger thought he may be on the verge of panic, which she could understand. She thought about saying something, using some counseling technique to help him calm himself, center himself, at least get that breathing under control. But some instinct told her to hold off for now. Let this play out a little more. Find the right time to reassert a sense of calm. For now, she’d let him process this, give him time to absorb the shock.
The heat encroached now as they advanced deeper into the blaze. The kind of hot that wrapped itself around her throat, her forehead, building steadily in her core. Darger could feel it flushing her face, cheeks red and splotchy and fevered.
She watched beads of sweat form on Luck’s forehead. Little budded jewels seeped out of the pores there, gathering and then slowly draining down toward his brow.
She was just as soaked, her body already leaking out its last defense against the fire. That thought scared her more than anything else. The loss of moisture, of hydration, rapidly underway even now. It was only going to get hotter from here, wasn’t it? The worst was yet to come.
Movement in the woods caught her eye. The fire heaved all at once. Lurching. Careening. Big chunks of it leaping for them.
Her words hissed out of her, a strange whisper that sounded foreign in her ears.
“What the fuck?”
Luck snapped out of his daze. Glanced at her and then out the window. Gasped.
He jerked the steering wheel.
The Lexus swerved, tires screaming beneath them. Shrill and harsh.
A cluster of burning trees crashed to the road beside them, one by one, some domino effect taking down three together, flaming limbs all tangled.
The lumber hit with a force that shook the ground, an incredible thump that Darger felt in her sternum, in her teeth.
Sparks exploded everywhere into the sky. A glowing cloud of them fluttered away like swarming insects, beating back the dark for this one moment with the sheer volume of glittering orange specks.
Embers cracked away and thudded to the ground as the great hulking trees shuddered and came apart. The Lexus fishtailed a little as Luck steered it off the rocky shoulder and back under control.
And then Darger watched the fallen trees in the rearview mirror. Burning shambles growing smaller and smaller as they zoomed away. A strange flickering object in the strip of darkness. Harder and harder to make out.
Darger kept watching even after it was gone. Speechless. Panting for breath.
She and Luck made eye contact. Faces blank. Lips parted.
No words passed between them, and yet much was communicated.
They both sheened with sweat from head to toe now. Glistening. Slicked like fish.
A strange lightness entered Darger’s head. The interior of her skull went hazy, like the heat and smoke were leaking inside. Smearing. Blurring. Obscuring. Like steam fogging a mirror.
And a little distance grew between her and the outside world. A gap of quiet, of peace. Her mind pulled away as though it might be able to protect her from this fucked reality. Like it could keep her safe and sound in the shell of her cranium, blot out the horror and trauma of what was happening by retracting from it like a tortoise.
No. That was shock, and she needed to fight it. Keep her wits. Survive.
She breathed. Sucked in a great lungful of air, the wind dry and hot in her throat. She held the breath for a few seconds, ribcage swollen for this moment, and then she let it out slowly. Counted to ten as she did.
That cleared the fog some. Brought her back to the Lexus. Brought the fire’s hiss back. Brought the fevered feeling back to her cheeks, her throat, her forehead.
She licked her lips.
A crack outside drew both of their eyes ahead and to the right. The sound resonated. A deep splintering of wood.
More ripping movement writhed in the fire there. Towers of flame leaning impossibly. Teetering. Slowly at first and then gravity took hold and tore the cluster of branches and trunks down. Another tangle of four trees came crashing down to the road ahead of them.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Luck slammed on the brakes. Jerked the wheel. Veered out into the left lane. Tried to edge around the tops of the trees.
But this time there was no opening. No way around. No place left to go.
They stopped a few feet short of the burning mess of plant life. Stared at the blocked path before them. Watched the mess of sparks catch on the hot wind going up and up.
Neither of them spoke. They just watched the night on fire, the world burning for as far as they could see.
Chapter 65
Klootey focuses on his breathing. Forearms resting on the lip of the conference table. Eyes staring hard at nothing.
Luck and Darger. Trapped. Helpless. The fire closing in on them now.
Jesus fucking goddamn Christ. It’s perfect. There’s your Hollywood ending, Jimbo. Fear not.
He reaches for the pitcher of water in the center of the table. Pours himself a cup. Drinks. Needs to look normal. Not show this room full of L.A.’s finest that he’s bordering on jizzing himself.
He scans over the faces in this room, making sure to look none in the eyes. Concern draws between the cheeks and noses. Puffs those folds of skin beneath the eyes. They look like lost puppies in here. Bunch of fucksticks.
He thinks back on that vision of driving into the fire. Sacrificing himself to the flame. Orange death surrounding his body. Cooking him like a hot dog on a grill.
Fuck that noise, Jim. I’ll go ahead and do you one better. I’ll offer you Luck and Darger in my stead. Let the fire take them. Raise the stakes or whatever you want to call it.
He pictures Luck’s Lexus going up quick. Smoldering for a few seconds, smoke billowing off it in sheets, and then the fancified Toyota blowing. Coming apart when the gas tank succumbs to the fire. Blown to bits.
He takes another sip of water to stifle the laugh moving for his lips.
These will make his most significant kills to date. Darger is practically a celebrity for God’s sake. The hotshot profiler, swooping around the country to catch the worst of the worst. Not this time, thank you very much. Jim has other plans for you, I’m afraid.
She would have been the most likely to figure him out, too. Smarter than most. Sees humanity a little clearer, maybe. Almost like Jim in a certain sense.
With her out of the picture, he will get away with all of it, especially if he’s smart about it. Shit, if he paces himself, he can carry on for decades. Pop out every six months or so, release the inner Jimbo to burn another church or movie theater or preschool.
His tongue flicks out to lick his lips.
He likes this idea of the future. Likes it very much.
Yes, indeedy.
Trap all the people inside like grasshoppers in a jar and light ‘em up.
Chapter 66
Darger stared at the flaming hulk of the
downed tree blocking the road. They were boxed in. Surrounded on three sides by fire.
Beside her, Luck shuddered in the driver’s seat.
“It’s OK,” she said, sensing his panic. “We’ll go the rest of the way on foot. We can do this.”
She unhooked her seatbelt and reached for her door handle before realizing that Luck hadn’t moved. He still sat with both hands locked on the steering wheel, arms and torso quivering out of time from each other. Jaw clattering as though he were frigid instead of burning up.
“Luck. We have to go. It’s not safe to stay here.”
His eyebrows flicked up a second, but otherwise he showed no sign of hearing her words. It finally dawned on her that he was in shock.
She slapped him.
“Luck,” she said. “You need to take a deep breath, OK? Just focus on your breath, let it bring you back to the now. Take one big breath and count to ten.”
His eyes looked glassy. Dead doll eyes that swiveled the opposite way and then back at her. They held there on hers but maintained that vacant look. At last, his head bobbed once.
He sucked in a big breath. Held it. Blew it out in slow motion, a little whistle accompanying the wind on the way out. That seemed to sharpen the look in his eyes, at least a little. He did it again. Better still.
“You good?” she asked.
His head bobbed again, more decisively this time.
There was a water bottle in the center console of the Lexus. Darger plucked it from the cup holder and shook it. There were a few swallows left. She grabbed Luck’s jacket from the backseat and doused it with some of the water.
She sensed Luck’s eyes on her.
“To filter out the smoke,” she explained, handing him the dampened piece of clothing.
“Does that really work?”
“No idea,” she said. “But it’s gotta be better than nothing.”
She did the same with her own jacket and looked over at him.
“Are you ready?”
He nodded.
“Say it.”
“I’m ready,” he said. “We can do this.”
Violet Darger (Book 6): Night On Fire Page 27