Inherent Danger

by Matt Lincoln

  As I drove, I brought up the reason that Eve was here in Miami. “So, on retainer from Chicago. You must think that this case is going somewhere. Or am I reading too much into your visit here?”

  “No, you’re correct,” she confirmed. “I read the brief on it, and I’ve been researching the case if it goes forward. It’s dicey, Jake. There’s a lot of evidence against Verity’s firm, and George knows how serious it could become. The forgery and theft claim against them are… certified. It's just a matter of time before the police make arrests.” Eve glanced over at me while I was driving us through Miami night traffic. It was a good thing we didn’t have anywhere to be on time. It was very slow going tonight.

  I listened to her, wondering if there was anything that I could do to help any of them. That whole world was out of my league, but I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t care about the outcome. “Verity has worked there for only a few months. Surely any competent investigator will see that, right? She wouldn’t have had time to fabricate fake art pieces, would she have?”

  “No, most likely not,” she replied, “but that will all come out afterward. It’s the company they are investigating. That means every employee. They have to find out everything they can before they can rule suspects out.” Eve seemed extremely tired as she explained this to me. It must have been a lot to sort through.

  “I was going to see if you wanted to go out for dinner tonight,” I offered, “but you sound like you could use some rest. Just tell me where to drop you off, and I’ll make tonight’s date a raincheck instead.” I said the last part playfully and with a little hope.

  Eve only smiled at me and gave me the name of her hotel. She leaned back and closed her eyes. “I would definitely like to go on another date with you, Jake, so please don’t forget. And don’t let me forget it, either. Just no burning cars this time, okay?”

  I laughed at that. The first time she and I had gone out here in Miami, the Yabut had set my car on fire, or more accurately, George’s car that I had borrowed from him for the night.

  “I will do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen. This time.” As I pulled up to the hotel’s lobby, I reached over and kissed Eve on the cheek. I heard the engine of the car sputter, and I knew that soon, I was going to be in for an expensive trip to a mechanic. “Get some rest. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Eve slipped out of the vehicle with her briefcase. “Not if I call you first. Good night, Jake.”

  As I watched her enter the building and disappear from my eyes, I thought about how lucky I was to get a second chance with that woman. I had to make it count, more than I had the first time.

  9

  Jake

  As I pulled away from the hotel and signaled to get back into the traffic, all the lights on the dashboard flickered a few times. The check engine light came on, and there were several tones and chimes that all went off simultaneously. I had already committed to this lane of traffic, so I decided to turn on my hazard lights and try to pull off somewhere safely as soon as I could.

  But the steering wheel and column refused to respond. It had locked up tight and, try as I might, nothing was moving. I took note of all the vehicles nearby. There was a white transport bus in front, a procession of small passenger cars to my left, and a moving van on my right. I checked my speed and removed my foot from the gas. My speed didn’t change at first, but then it started to slow.

  Numerous horns blared at me as I kept trying to get the steering to work. The dash indicators flickered again, and the headlights cut out entirely. That was when I knew I was in trouble.

  The honking all around me continued as I cruised to a slow crawl. I heard and saw vehicles swerving to miss not only me but other automobiles now forced to correct and drive defensively just to keep from hitting me. I knew better than to panic, but I wasn’t those other drivers. There was no telling what any of them would do now.

  Without warning, something slammed into the back of my Mercedes, thrusting me forward. It wasn’t enough of an impact to deploy the airbag, fortunately, but it was exactly what I’d been worried about. In the few moments that it took for me to recognize what was going on, the vehicle that had hit me actually sped up, propelling me faster and further ahead.

  I tapped my brakes, knowing that a full lead foot could cause me to spin out with no control over the vehicle. I didn’t want to risk that. I had to keep calm and make sure no one else would become endangered if I could help it. But I wasn’t slowing down. And with the steering not answering, it was going to get bad quickly.

  Glancing at the rearview, I could barely make out the driver of the car behind me. He was wearing a ski-like mask, which was pretty clever. I couldn’t even see the color of his hair. All that told me was that this was no accident, and that I was a target here. The vehicle wasn’t “having a bad day.” Someone had tampered with it.

  The honking and swerving of the surrounding traffic had increased as a few drivers could see what was going on and pulled over, off, or at the very least, slowed down. However, I was moving increasingly close to an armored truck. That was not going to end well for me. I had to think fast and act faster.

  I grabbed for the emergency brake and pulled up hard. I heard screeching, along with a deep, heavy thud as something went even more wrong. With no lights, no steering, and apparently no brakes, my chances of turning the situation around just tumbled down almost to zero. I laid on my horn to alert anyone still unaware of my condition. I could see the driver behind me start to turn the wheel, and I knew what was coming.

  He was positioning himself to cause me to crash. I kept trying the brake and my wheel, just on the off chance something clicked on, even for a second. The traffic had thinned considerably, and I thought I saw some flashing lights far behind me. If the police got near enough, maybe my attacker back there would take off for fear of getting caught.

  The armored truck was getting closer every moment, and I wondered why they hadn’t pulled over, sped up, changed lanes, or did something to get out of the way. The idea crossed my mind that maybe they were in on this, too. It might have been the overall plan to smash my vehicle into the truck to injure me, if not kill me. I really didn’t want to go out like that.

  The flashing lights were indeed getting closer, and I could barely hear sirens over the honking horns. The car behind me hit the brakes all of a sudden, and then, with his fender just askew enough, he revved into my bumper, sending me into a forced tailspin. I watched the traffic, cars, and lights spin around me in what felt like slowed time. Then I heard the crunch of metal, and a blast of wind forced itself against my face and torso.

  I knew that the Mercedes had been crushed at least partly into the armored truck. The sounds of tires squealing, horns blasting, and metal twisting filled my ears. I had my eyes closed. I knew that. My seatbelt had kept me in place, and the airbag had deployed. I tasted blood in my mouth, probably from a broken nose or teeth getting knocked out.

  The next thing I remembered was people yelling. I also heard some people giving orders and some talking in what may have been whispers. I opened my eyes to see the blackness of the night sky. I was on my back on a not too comfortable inclined bed, or probably a gurney. Lights flashed, blinked, and twirled all around me. My head hurt, so I blinked a few times to clear my sight.

  “Hey, he’s awake!” Someone to my right called out. Then there was a pair of people looking down at me and touching me. One took my pulse, while the other shined yet another light into my eyes.

  “I don’t have a concussion,” I argued, knowing full well what they were looking for.

  “I’ll be the judge of that, sir.” It was a female’s voice, and once the light stopped, I could see a very attractive middle-aged lady staring down into my eyes with a smile on her lips. “Can you tell me your name? Or how you are feeling? Do you have any tingling in your extremities?”

  “No.” I flexed the only thing I could think of at the moment, my fingers. They hurt, and they felt sticky. That was p
robably blood. “How bad off am I? And did anyone else get hurt?” Then I realized that I hadn’t told her my name yet. “I’m Jake Header, sorry.”

  The lady smiled a little more and shook her head. “That’s okay, and no sir, you were the only one that got hurt. But you’re not too banged up. The airbag did its job, and you should be just fine in a couple of days.” Her Florida drawl was pleasant to listen to. I wouldn’t have minded hearing it some more.

  “So then, do I have a concussion?” I asked because if I could walk away from this, I was sure going to try to.

  The other person, another EMT that had been checking my pulse, finally spoke up. “We need to get you to a hospital, sir, to have that and a few other things checked out.” He had a high-pitched voice and almost sounded like a teenager.

  “Do I have to? I’d rather just call someone to come and get me if it’s all the same to you two.” I figured it was worth a shot, although I knew an actual hospital was the best place for me right now. “Hey, did the police get the driver that did this to me?”

  “I can’t answer that, sir,” the woman replied. “I’m sure that the officers will be speaking to you about it soon enough, though.” Before I could argue anymore, I was being placed into the back of an ambulance. She rode with me, checked my stats, and talked to me about nothing for the first few minutes.

  That told me all I needed to know. She wanted me to stay awake and alert, so there was a suspected head injury there. That was really going to complicate the dives I needed to do for the Speirs case. Now I wasn’t going to have a choice but to wait for Doc to return.

  I decided to focus on what I could control at the moment, though.

  “Not to be a nuisance, but I don’t happen to have my phone with me, do I?” I inquired of my EMT escort.

  “I’m afraid that I don’t know, sir. Was it on your person before the incident?” She asked me kindly in a soft, soothing voice.

  I tried to remember back, but I was drawing a blank. I knew that I’d had it on me when I left George’s. It had been in my back pocket if I remembered correctly. “I may be laying on it. If I rolled over just a little, would you mind looking for me? I need to let some people know what happened and where I’m headed.”

  “You really shouldn’t move too much, sir. Not until the doctors have checked you out and made sure that you’re not in any further danger. I’m sure the nurses will help you to contact anyone you need once they assess you.” She smiled over at me again, and I guessed that even begging her would have been futile at that point.

  I sighed and tried to relax, as well as anyone could in the back of an ambulance on their way to a hospital right after a car crash. I tried to evaluate my own injuries as I lay there. My body as a whole was throbbing a bit, and my joints were all suffering from varying degrees of pain and soreness. My head still hurt like hell.

  My arms felt heavy, but that was most likely due to the pain medication they had given me. I could smell my own blood on my skin and on my clothing. I didn’t feel anything wet, though, which perhaps meant that the EMTs had already patched me up.

  I could feel my eyes getting heavy, and I had to fight the urge to fall asleep. The EMT saw this and started to make me talk. First about what I did for a living, then about my hobbies, if I had a girlfriend or boyfriend, or what I had planned for the coming weekend.

  If I answered her, I didn’t know. I closed my eyes to sleep and didn’t open them again for a while. When I did, I saw a tall, brown-haired man with extra gray hair starting in at his temples. He was sitting next to me in a chair, smiling down at his phone. There was a wetness in his eyes that he wiped away with the back of his hand.

  That was when he saw that I was looking at him. Doc smiled even wider at me, and that meant more than I could express at that moment.

  10

  Jake

  Doc looked thrilled to see me awake, and I was glad to see him, too, despite the circumstances. I decided to play a little trick on him, though—kind of as a “welcome back” prank.

  “Who are you?” I asked in a pretend feeble and confused voice. “Where… where am I?”

  Doc eyed me for a second and then leaned forward. He had put his phone down, and his attention focused entirely on me. “I’m the cab driver that brought you here. You owe me two hundred bucks.” He never broke into a smile. It was completely deadpan.

  I didn’t keep it going as there wasn’t a point to it now. He knew that I was only kidding.

  “So, how have you been, Doc?” I asked in my full and slightly scratchy voice.

  “Well, I wasn’t hit by a car, so I’d say that I’m doing fairly well, thank you very much.” He was still leaning close to me and watching my reactions. “But overall, I’m glad to be back in Miami and among the team again. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen you all. Or it feels like a long time to me, anyway.” There was a tiredness to his voice, a weariness that I didn’t remember from before he’d left. There must have been a lot going on around him.

  “I’m glad that you’re back, Doc. It hasn’t been the same without you here.” I grinned, wanting to bolster him. “But I’m sure that you’ve already been told that.”

  “I have,” he answered, “but not by you. Thank you.” He sighed and leaned back into the chair he was in. “They have you on some light pain medication. You had a dislocated shoulder and only a slight concussion. Not much to worry about. I informed them that you’d had several in your past, and while that did worry them a bit, they didn’t find anything too concerning about your condition.”

  “I guess that’s good.” I tried to sit up, but the IV tubes made that difficult. The room was boring and clean, as most hospital rooms were and should be. There was a tv up on the wall and several monitors and machines nearby, feeding me extra fluids and reading my stats. It was a little on the colder side, but that may have been because I wasn’t wearing much, except for the medical gown.

  “Are Rosa and Xavier around?” I asked. “I’d like to talk to all three of you if that’s a possibility.”

  “No, they aren’t.” Doc cleared his throat and rubbed his face, contemplating what to say about it. “They are watching Zaid for me presently. On Xavier’s yacht. It was a safe and neutral place, the only one where I felt comfortable enough to leave him.” There was a powerful tone of trepidation there. I could hear it plainly as he talked.

  I wasn’t sure what I should say to that, but I knew that the burden of conversation was on me now. “So, a grandson? That had to be a shock, huh?” I might as well just jump right into it.

  Doc chuckled, but his smile left his face quickly. “It was. Still is. It’s changed everything about my life. Both the good and the bad.” He shook his head, not wanting me to get the wrong impression of his words. “I’m honored and pleased to have this responsibility. It’s just that… I realized that I know nothing about children.” He smirked slightly, but it didn’t last. “I’m clueless when it comes to being a father, Header. I have no navigational beacons, and no heading or course to take me where I need to go. It’s terrifying.”

  I knew that this had to be increasingly hard on him. I didn’t have any reference points about raising a kid either, but I still wanted to help him out if I could. I started out small. “What Zaid like? How old is he? I don’t think you told us in the email.” He hadn’t. I knew that because I’d read the thing ten times, probably.

  “He’s five. He’ll be six in four months.” Doc answered me solemnly. “He’s a very quiet child, but that is most likely because he just lost his only parent. And now, I’ve removed him from all that he’s ever known, and I’m leaving him with strangers on a boat.” His tone sounded more than a little desperate.

  And yeah, it sounded pretty bad when he put it that way, sure.

  “No, Doc, you left him with your family,” I reassured him. “Rosa and Xavier may be strangers now, but they’re going to become important to Zaid for the rest of his life. We all are.”

  Doc did actually
smile at that. “I can’t tell you how glad that makes me to hear you say that, Header. Once I found out that I would be raising Zaid, I thought about leaving the team. It seemed like the only way to make it easiest on everyone, but I… frankly, I didn’t know what else I would do with myself.”

  I had wondered about that, too. What if Doc had maybe thought about retiring from us and moving on to a different lifestyle?

  “I’m incredibly happy that you chose not to do that,” I assured him. “There’s no way that we could replace you, Doc. And we wouldn’t want to.”

  “Thank you for that, as well,” he replied. “Alright, enough of the self-wallowing bit, let me tell you something about my grandson. He’s a marvel, in the best way.” Doc had a genuine smile on that face now. “He loves to fish, so I’m going to have to learn more about that hobby. His favorite color is black, but he’s scared of the dark. He’s allergic to seed fruit, such as strawberries and raspberries, those sorts of foods.”

  “That ought to be fun,” I teased. I wasn’t trying to be mean, but living in Florida was going to be a task for them, then, what with the abundance of fresh fruits and produce in nearly every diet and meal. I didn’t mind it, but the kid might have a hard time.

  “Indeed.” Doc must have considered that, too. “He’s fascinated by water. He’ll sit and watch the ocean for hours at a time, but that could be a coping mechanism. The trauma of losing his mother is still manifesting itself.”

  I’d forgotten how knowledgeable Doc was on psychology as well as physiology.

  “You sound pretty in-the-know for how to deal with him, then, if you don’t mind me saying,” I replied. “Even if you didn’t intend to be a parent or a grandparent, maybe you’re better equipped for this than you think you are.”