by John Lutz
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 second-degree 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 back seat, 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.
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Copyright © 2005, 2011 John Lutz
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-2863-4