Falling into step with him, Cole grunted in mock disappointment. “You make me feel so appreciated.”
After a glance at a pair of uniformed officers, engrossed in their own conversation and cigarettes, Razor raised a brow. “How do I know whether you’re right…or should I say, how do I know whether you’re dead right or dead wrong?”
Cole grinned. They were making progress.
Inside, a group including uniformed officers and a pair of public defenders also waited for the elevator. To avoid one of them intruding into his space, Cole walked up the wall until abreast of the doors’ top. Razor started, then pulled off his glasses and concentrated on polishing them on his tie.
Cole strolled on up to the ceiling. “Look, Razor, I’m Dracula.” He grabbed the edges of his suit coat and wrapped it around him as though folding bat wings.
Razor polished his glasses harder.
The elevator doors opened. Cole hurried inside, keeping against the overhead panels. Razor put his glasses back on and stared at his feet.
When the doors opened on the Bureau floor, however, Razor lifted his head. Hamada stood outside. Cole reached down to walk his fingers across Razor’s neck. “The gods are kind today.” He slipped out of the elevator.
Razor followed, halting beside Hamada. “I was just coming back to see you.”
Hamada’s gaze searched him. “To talk about computers freaking you out?”
Razor flushed. “To let you know about an interesting call from an informant. If you’re headed down to have the warrants signed, let me walk along and tell you on the way.”
The down elevator looked crowded. Cole opted for the stairs and rejoined Razor as he and Hamada walked around to the judges’ chambers. They halted outside Judge Barbour’s door. A good choice. Barbour wanted the ducks lined up and she could smell creative probable cause from across the room, but she tended to give officers the benefit of the doubt on iffy points.
“Interesting,” Hamada said when Razor finished, “but…don’t you reckon Dunavan would have heard any rumors about the sister? He never said anything to you, did he?”
Razor hesitated. “No. But a buddy of mine in the LAPD ix faxing me a list of Carrasco’s known associates. Even though he never gave up the name of his accomplice, I’m thinking maybe a former pal will tell us if it was Carrasco’s wife.”
Hamada grunted skeptically. “We’ll see. It doesn’t sound like there’s any more evidence of her involvement in the burglaries, though, than there is for Flaxx.” He knocked on the chamber door.
It opened almost immediately. Judge Barbour smiled at them, a rawboned horse of a woman that rumor liked to whisper had been born male, despite three children proving the contrary. “Come in, Inspectors.”
Just Hamada went.
Razor leaned against the wall outside to wait. “How can I tell whether she packed or someone else did?”
He had a point, Cole realized. Like Sherrie, Sara must have favorite clothes for trips. But only someone who knew her well would recognize whether the “right” clothes were gone.
“Kenisha Hayes might be able to tell,” Cole said. “I’ll go on to the apartment and see if I can spot anything that will justify you suggesting Hayes have a look. Catch you there.”
16
After two tries, he managed to ziptrip to the street outside Sara’s building again. Hunting a reason to bring in Hayes frustrated him, however. How did he make Hamada care about which clothes had been packed. As far as he could tell, the choices were appropriate for a warm climate. The shoe racks had gaps in the section of casual shoes and sandals. One of the partially open drawers still held a few shorts, t-shirts, and tank tops.
Cole leaned on the dresser, drumming his fingers while he peered around. There must be
A woman’s distant scream broke into the thought. A scream that kept repeating.
He rushed into the front room and through the window to where he could see down the street. A block and a half away, people gathered in the street. The posture of one indicated she was screaming. Smoke rose into the air.
For a moment it took him back to 1989, settling in to watch the World Series at Razor’s apartment while Sherrie and Razor’s first wife Jessie fussed over the five-week-old twins. Only to have the world suddenly wrench beneath them. As the boards and cinder-block bookcase collapsed, dishes spilled from the kitchen cupboard, and beer cans toppled over on the coffee table, they stared at each other, sharing the same terrified thought: was this the Big One? With no memory of having moved, he found himself in the street, leaning against a parked car for support, an arm around Sherrie and each of them holding one twin. The ground continued its spasms for what seemed an eternity. When it went still, for a few moments the world felt eerily silent. Then he heard screams and saw smoke rising into the afternoon sky. Exchanging one glance with Razor, he had thrust Travis at Jessie and the two of them ran toward the screams.
Reflex set Cole running toward today’s screams, too…angling down to the street.
As he came nearer, the screaming resolved into a man’s name. “Steve! Steve! No! Come back!”
The smoke poured from the doorway and a second floor window of a three-story apartment building. This Steve must be playing hero, going back inside to rescue something.
“Has anyone called 911?” Cole shouted.
Distant sirens, one paired with the air horn of a fire truck, answered that question. Moments later a man staggered out of the smoke with a yowling pet carrier. Bleeding scratches covered his hands. In the middle of the street he set down the carrier and collapsed to his knees, coughing.
The woman went down beside him, bursting into tears as she embraced both him and the carrier. “That was crazy!”
“Is anyone else still inside?” Cole called toward the bystanders. He thought he heard pounding and a faint voice.
He ran to the door, straining to hear. He did hear someone inside. A thumping came from an upper floor along with a muffled cry for help. He hesitated, staring into the smoke, then laughed at himself. What was he afraid of? Smoke inhalation? Burning to death?
He charged through the smoke into the hallway and up the stairs two at a time toward the second floor. The pounding and cries for help sounded higher, on the third floor. A woman’s voice. Flames ate at the upper steps and the hallway carpet. Shaking away the reflex that said to run away from fire, he plunged into it.
And halted in amazement. With flames surrounding him, a tremendous surge of energy filled him…even more than a vehicle running through him. Simultaneously, the flames died in the space he occupied…as if he had sucked them in.
A faint cry upstairs abruptly reminded Cole of the reason he came in. He raced to the third floor stairs. Maybe he could use the fire suppression thing to help the woman.
Or not. Smoke filled the hall.
The pounding came from a spot toward the rear of the building. Cole passed through the wall by the sound and found himself in a bathroom. An elderly woman with one arm in a cast used her good arm to slap the handle of a toilet plunger against the wall in time with her calls for help. Wet towels filled the gap under the door. She had filled the bathtub and soaked herself in it. Water dripped from her slacks, blouse, and hair. After preparing herself to run for safety, had the smoke grown too thick for her to brave, or the fire had reached the stairs? Now she was trapped. The bathroom had no window.
Her only hope was to leave her sanctuary and go to the front window, where she could be seen by the firefighters on the trucks he heard arriving. Could he make her hear him so he could give her instructions?
Passing into the bedroom, however, he found it full of smoke, too. To stay under it and reach the front window, she needed to belly crawl. Could she manage that?
“Hello. Hello in there!” Oh for the ability to knock on the door! So much energy filled him, he felt he should
