‘‘You’re right, Mama.’’ Taking the hat, Adrik tossed it into the high branches of a tall pine.
Zorana walked toward the van. ‘‘Come on, my sons. Let’s go home.’’
Chapter Nine
Doug Black was the first responder on the scene, and all he knew was that a mother and her two kids had missed the curve passing Shoalwater State Park and rolled their SUV.
As he drove up, he caught a glimpse of the late-model GMC Denali half-hidden a good two hundred feet down a slope and in the woods. Branches and moss were tossed everywhere, the rhododendrons had been ripped to shreds, and the forest floor was plowed down past the needles to the dirt.
Yeah, they’d rolled it, all right.
The witness on the scene, a middle-aged white female, ran up to his car as soon as he parked in the lot. He opened the door and caught the scent of blood on the cold air.
Someone was badly hurt.
The witness started talking, and talking fast. ‘‘I bought a doughnut and coffee in Rocky Cliffs and stopped in the parking lot for breakfast. It’s empty this time of year. Quiet. I like that. I watched her come up the road. Speeding. She was speeding. Driving too fast.’’
As Doug pulled his emergency kit from his trunk, he appraised his witness. She looked shocky herself, pale and sweaty, kept upright only by her need to report what she’d seen.
‘‘I know her. Ashley Applebaum. Poor thing. I saw her look back. She missed the curve, rolled three times. My God, it was awful. I’ve never seen anything like that. Not in real life, I mean.’’ The witness stood shaking in cold and fear.
‘‘You’re Mrs. Shaw? You called it in?’’ He strode out of the parking lot and into the woods, toward the wisp of steam and smoke that rose through the trees like a campfire.
Mrs. Shaw followed him, still talking fast. ‘‘Yes, yes, I called at once, then I went over to help. Ashley’s hurt . . . really badly.’’
Suddenly Mrs. Shaw wasn’t behind him.
He glanced back.
She leaned one hand against a tree and vomited.
He jumped over some rocks, got his first clear glimpse of the wrecked vehicle, and appraised it with a practiced eye. Bark and needles from the shaken tree still sifted out of the sky, trying to cover the accident. All the windows were broken. The metal had crumpled like aluminum foil.
Yeah. They’d be lucky if no one was killed.
Then Mrs. Shaw was behind him again. ‘‘Ashley told me to get the kids out. I tried to, but I can’t figure out how to work the child restraints. I’m sorry. So sorry!’’ She gave a sob that would have made him feel sorry for her if he hadn’t been so focused on his job.
‘‘It’s okay, Mrs. Shaw. I’ll do it.’’ Thank God the children had been restrained, or they would never have survived in that crumpled mess of a vehicle.
‘‘Will it blow up? Do you think it will blow up?’’
‘‘It might.’’ For sure, they were headed for a car fire.
‘‘I couldn’t stand it if—’’
He interrupted her self-recriminations. ‘‘Are the kids okay?’’
‘‘In pretty good shape.’’
‘‘How old?’’
‘‘The boy’s seven, I think. The baby’s three months. She won’t stop crying, but except for some glass cuts, she looks okay. The little boy is in worse shape. I think maybe his hand is broken, but—’’ Mrs. Shaw broke off and started the whole story again. ‘‘She was driving too fast. I saw her look back. She missed the curve. She looked back. Why did she look back?’’
‘‘She must have been talking to the kids.’’ He stopped Mrs. Shaw in a sheltered spot in the trees. ‘‘Stay here. I’ll bring them to you.’’
Mrs. Shaw kept talking as he walked away. ‘‘I don’t think she was talking to the kids. That’s not what it looked like. It looked like she was scared, like she was watching the road behind her.’’
He opened the back door. The scent of blood grew stronger. He leaned in.
‘‘I didn’t even know she could drive,’’ Mrs. Shaw called.
The baby was strapped into her car seat and crying, a low, despairing, weary wail.
The black-haired boy was silent, cradling his arm and watching everything with wide, dark eyes.
Mrs. Shaw was right. They weren’t badly hurt.
In the front seat, the mother stared straight in front of her, her head tilted at an odd angle, her shoulders drawn up in pain. ‘‘It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay, baby. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.’’ She spoke softly, saying the same thing over and over again.
She was the source of the blood. Blood spattered across the dash, across the ceiling, and into her dark hair.
‘‘Mrs. Applebaum, this is State Patrolman Doug Black,’’ he said.
She stopped speaking.
‘‘I’m going to get your children out now.’’
‘‘Hurry,’’ she said.
‘‘I will.’’ As he pulled the baby seat free of the restraints, he nodded to the boy. ‘‘Hi, there.’’ He turned to place the seat on the ground, and Mrs. Shaw was there, taking the baby from him and heading back up the hill.
Frightened to death and still doing what she thought was right. Thank God for people like her.
He leaned back into the car and across the seat, and smiled at the boy. ‘‘I’m Officer Doug. I’m here to help you.’’ He frowned at the seat belt. The impact had smashed the door against the boy’s cushion, and the cushion now covered the connection. No wonder Mrs. Shaw couldn’t get him out. ‘‘What’s your name?’’ Doug asked.
‘‘Andrew.’’
‘‘Andrew, I’m going to have to cut you free.’’ Doug opened his emergency kit and pulled out his knife.
Andrew flinched back, turning so pale that his dark eyes looked like two black holes in white snow, watching the shiny blade. ‘‘I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry at all. I’m sorry about my wrist. Please don’t—’’
‘‘Don’t you hurt him!’’ Ashley Applebaum’s voice rose, and she looked as if she were trying to wrench herself around. ‘‘You bastard, don’t you hurt him!’’
Doug slid the knife under the belt and cut Andrew free. ‘‘I didn’t hurt him, Mrs. Applebaum.’’ He dropped the blade onto the ground, and he offered his hand. ‘‘Come out, Andrew. I need you to help Mrs. Shaw with the baby.’’
Andrew looked at Doug’s broad palm and long fingers, then eased from the seat and inched across to the open door.
Doug stepped back and let him maneuver his way out. Better that than trying to wrestle the frightened child free.
When Andrew stood beside the car, Doug pointed to Mrs. Shaw, up the hill and kneeling beside the baby seat. ‘‘That’s Mrs. Shaw. Can you go help her take care of your sister?’’
The boy looked at him. Just looked at him.
‘‘I’m going in after your mother next,’’ Doug told him.
‘‘Is she going to live?’’ Andrew was far too solemn, far too knowledgeable.
‘‘I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve looked at her. Go on, quickly. Ask Mrs. Shaw to make you a splint for your wrist.’’
Andrew went at once, as if the one question was all he dared ask.
Doug tried the front passenger-side door, but it wouldn’t open, so he crawled in the back, dragged his emergency kit behind him, placed it on the seat, and crawled over the bloody front seat to Ashley Applebaum.
The smell of death rolled off her in waves.
The steering column had pierced her below the ribs and impaled her liver and intestines. Glass had ripped a face already gaunt and worried. She was dying. Inexorably, she was dying.
‘‘I got the kids out. They’re going to be fine.’’ He took his handkerchief from his pocket. ‘‘I’m just going to tie this on your forehead to keep the blood out of your eyes.’’ He did, and asked, ‘‘Is that better?’’
‘‘It doesn’t hurt so bad.’’ She took long, deep breaths impeded by internal bleeding. ‘‘Listen. No ma
tter what happens, you won’t let their father have my babies?’’
He knew why she begged so pathetically. He’d heard Mrs. Shaw call her ‘‘Poor Ashley,’’ seen Andrew cringe at the sight of his knife, heard the boy beg as if he feared for his life.
Their father abused them. Hurt them.
‘‘Where is their father?’’ he asked.
‘‘At the house. I hit him. With the fireplace poker. He’s unconscious. . . .’’ Ashley Applebaum gasped, a dying animal. Then she gripped Doug’s wrist. ‘‘Don’t go after him. He sells bombs.’’
‘‘Shit.’’ Doug pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed his chief, Yamashita, and gave him the information.
Ashley continued, ‘‘Bill sells the bombs to the white men, the ones who hate the Jews and the blacks and the Mexicans. And I . . . I fixed it so that when he got up from the floor, all the bombs would go off.’’
‘‘Where do you live?’’ He waited with his phone in his hand, ready to pass the information to Yamashita.
‘‘Off Highway Six.’’ She sagged as consciousness slipped away from her.
He gave Yamashita his report, and when he was done, Ashley was back, awake, but barely.
‘‘He branded her. Just like he branded me.’’
‘‘Branded you?’’
‘‘With his ring. He heats it up and . . . it hurts so bad.’’ She jerked and shuddered in anguished memory.
Doug felt the familiar, helpless horror tighten his muscles, but he pulled out a wet towelette and gently wiped her face. ‘‘It’s okay,’’ he said in the same soothing tone she’d used for her children.
‘‘He could do that to me. I was worthless . . . but not her. She’s just a baby. . . .’’ Ashley Applebaum’s breath came irregularly. ‘‘Don’t let him get her. She’s such a sweet thing . . . and Andrew . . . he doesn’t know what real life is like. . . .’’ As if she could see him, she turned her face toward Doug. ‘‘Don’t let him have them.’’
He wanted to promise her he would accede to her dying wish.
Yet the courts didn’t care. They would keep the nuclear family intact. They would give the children to their father.
She knew what the reality was. Painfully, she turned her head toward him, her eyes almost blind with oncoming death. ‘‘If God is just, Bill will blow himself to kingdom come before anyone has the chance to rescue him.’’
Yet Doug knew justice wasn’t so clean. ‘‘If he doesn’t get the kids, they’ll go to an orphanage, to a foster home.’’
‘‘Anything will be better than staying with him.’’ Tears slipped from beneath the handkerchief over her eyes.
‘‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’’ He had never meant anything so much in his life.
‘‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’’ Each breath was irregular, a pain in her chest. ‘‘Pray that I killed him. Pray . . .’’
A muffled explosion blasted the air. The ground shook, rattling the SUV.
She smiled, a bare, ghastly grimace of justified pleasure. ‘‘There it is. There it is. I’ve only done one thing right in my life, and that’s it. He’s gone.’’
Ashley Applebaum died right before Doug’s eyes.
The Denali was smoking, and he needed to be out of here. Yet he cupped her eyes with the palm of his hand and closed them, cherishing her lost life for one last moment.
Then he leaned over the seat, slipped into the back, grabbed his kit, and was out the door. He ran up the hill, away from the impending car fire and toward the small group—the baby, the boy, Mrs. Shaw— huddled on the hill.
He heard the sirens in the distance. The sheriff, the state police, the EMTs—they were all on their way. Kneeling beside Andrew, Doug hugged his shoulders.
‘‘My mother . . . ?’’ Andrew saw the answer in Doug’s face. He gave a convulsive sob. ‘‘My mother . . .’’
Doug held the boy as he cried.
Mrs. Shaw looked up grimly. ‘‘Look what Andrew showed me.’’ She peeled back the baby’s onesie and displayed the little girl’s shoulder. A brutal red burn had ripped a mark like a lion’s face into the smooth, clear pale skin. ‘‘That bastard Applebaum branded the baby, the same as he did to Ashley on their wedding night.’’
‘‘That explosion?’’ Doug looked meaningfully at Mrs. Shaw. ‘‘She finished him.’’
‘‘It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,’’ Mrs. Shaw said sarcastically.
The ambulance and the county sheriff ripped into the parking lot, sirens blaring.
Andrew grabbed Doug’s arm and dug his fingers into the flesh. ‘‘The baby girl doesn’t matter, right? Girls are possessions. Just possessions. We have to show them who owns them.’’ The boy repeated his father’s credo as if it were gospel, but still he cried, big, childish tears at odds with his cruel sentiments.
Doug looked into his eyes. ‘‘Girls are people. They should be cherished. They should never be hurt. That’s not right. That’s never right.’’
‘‘Really?’’ Andrew looked into Doug’s eyes and sagged with relief. ‘‘You mean it?’’
‘‘No man has the right to hurt a woman. Never. Never.’’ Doug had never meant anything so much in his life.
Looking up at the branches waving in the early-morning light, he remembered his first glimpse of Firebird after more than two and a half years. He’d used tax records to track her to Szarvas Artist Studio, where she worked. Sitting outside the big compound, he’d waited and told himself that it wouldn’t matter, that she wouldn’t be as pretty as he remembered.
And she wasn’t.
She was beautiful, and she had taken his breath away.
Maturity had given her a depth and a glow that no cosmetics could produce. Then he’d tried to follow her home and couldn’t, stopped by a capricious mountain fog that enclosed her like a prison.
So he’d come back the next day, intending to confront her, but one of her big hulking brothers drove her, delivering her right to the door and following her in as if she couldn’t be trusted to go by herself. After that, Doug had watched, and he recognized the signs—the domineering men, the mother he never saw, the sister who went nowhere except to work and back, and half the time her brother drove her. . . .
The bright, outgoing girl he’d remembered was now held prisoner by the family she had been so careful not to discuss.
That explained so much—why she hadn’t trusted him, why she had abandoned and hurt him.
The EMTs and the sheriff surrounded him, wanting a report, needing him to help calm Andrew so they could take the baby for examination. He did his job, all the while steeled in resolve.
No matter that he’d suffered from Firebird’s rejection, by her lack of confidence in him, he had to save Firebird from the family that abused her.
Someday she would thank him.
Someday.
Chapter Ten
At nine in the morning, Firebird drove along the Pacific Coast Highway, winding through dense groves of Sitka spruce, past Shoalwater State Park, where she caught a glimpse of police and ambulance lights in the parking lot, and at last pulled into the scenic overlook above the town.
Cliffs framed either side of the half-moon bay. The old town nestled down by the water, while, in search of the view, old and new homes spread up the surrounding hills. The Internet said Rocky Cliffs boasted a thousand permanent residents, and that the town swelled to five times that during the summer tourist season.
She drove slowly down the terminally quaint Main Street, with a clothing store that featured bathing suits and coverups, a diner that featured hot coffee and world-famous napoleons, and a remodeled, early-twentieth-century hotel. Down on the pier, the windows of a souvenir shop proudly displayed sea-shell treasure chests and Japanese fans. A sign for the restaurant at the top of the cliff boasted fresh Dungeness crab and smoked salmon.
Rocky Cliffs didn’t seem like Douglas’s kind of place at all.
Her car surprised her by tu
rning into the When You Are Wicked Diner. Even as she walked in and sat at one of the tables, she scolded herself. She knew what Douglas did here, and where he lived. She had decided on the way she wanted to handle the confrontation. So why was she stalling now?
Because he was going to be angry, and rightfully so. If she’d realized . . . Well, it was far too late for recriminations.
‘‘What can I get you?’’ The middle-aged waitress stood beside her, a name tag that said she was Gloria on the downward slope of her right breast.
‘‘Bacon, crisp, a Denver omelet, wheat toast, a large orange juice, a large coffee, black, and one of your world-famous napoleons.’’
The waitress grinned as she scribbled down the order. ‘‘I pegged you as one of those women who eat nothing but plain yogurt and herb tea. That’ll teach me to make assumptions.’’
‘‘I like to eat,’’ Firebird assured her. ‘‘And I’ve been on the road for four hours.’’
Gloria disappeared to put the order in, and returned with the coffeepot. ‘‘Where’d you come from?’’
‘‘North of Seattle.’’ Before Gloria could press for more information, Firebird dug the address out of her purse. ‘‘I’m looking for Three Twenty-three Seaview Road.’’
Gloria’s eyes sharpened as she poured. ‘‘That’s the old Quackenbush place.’’
‘‘Quackenbush? Really?’’ Firebird smiled. ‘‘I don’t know about that. I’m looking for Douglas Black. He and I are friends.’’ That was an understatement.
‘‘Doug Black? He’s only been here a couple of months.’’ Gloria viewed Firebird sharply. ‘‘We were starting to wonder if he had any friends.’’
‘‘It takes him a while to warm up, but once he does, he’s really a lot of fun.’’ An unexpected flush warmed Firebird’s cheeks.
‘‘First time I saw him, I thought that myself,’’ Gloria said with bawdy good humor.
‘‘I didn’t mean it like that.’’
‘‘Built like a brick outhouse, that boy is. Not that I’ve ever seen him with a single button undone. He’s young, but he’s everything you expect from a state trooper. For sure not what I’d call the life of the party.’’ Gloria whisked off, then returned with Firebird’s order. ‘‘Is he expecting you?’’