Her Last Day (Jessie Cole #1)
T.R. Ragan
PROLOGUE
Ten Years Ago
He awoke to the smell of burned flesh. The acrid fumes filled his lungs. The crackling roar of fire was deafening, the smoke thick.
He was trapped within the passenger seat of a car, hanging upside down, a mangled piece of plastic and metal pressed against his stomach. He couldn’t see the bottom part of his legs, but he felt a fiery heat around his feet and ankles.
The car teetered back and forth, precariously, as if at any moment it might roll into the black abyss he saw through the broken windshield. Every muscle tensed. He had no idea how steep the fall would be if the vehicle lost its bearings.
His lungs burned.
He coughed, tried to breathe, then jerked backward when an arm fell limply through the flames and landed on the middle console. Charred fingers, skin melting from bone.
The driver was engulfed in flames.
They were both going to die if he didn’t find a way out.
Trying to move his legs felt like wasted effort. They were pinned tight and wouldn’t budge. He reached for the buckle, touched searing-hot metal, and let out a shattering scream. Excruciating pain ripped through his body, sending jolts of electricity pulsing through his veins. Yanking his hand back, he watched blisters immediately form on his fingertips as flames licked at his pants from beneath the crushed console.
He held his breath and began desperately banging his elbow against the glass, again and again. The window finally cracked, then shattered.
Throat and lungs parched, he leaned that way, gasping for breath.
Thick plumes of smoke escaped through the jagged hole he’d made and then disappeared into a dark, starless night.
The smell was haunting, the pain intense.
He was running out of time.
Again he grabbed for the buckle. He had no choice. He shouted obscenities through gritted teeth as his fingers clasped tightly to both sides of the metal, his thumb pushing the “Release” button. This time when he smelled burned flesh, he knew it was his.
Click.
He dropped, headfirst, to the ceiling. His right leg came loose, while the other remained pinned above him. Flames were everywhere now, red-hot tongues licking every part of him as he clutched the window frame spiked with shards of glass. Numb with pain, he held tight, every muscle straining as he used his freed leg to push off and yank his other leg free.
Scrambling, he pulled his way through the shattered window and out of the burning death trap. Broken glass ripped through his clothes and cut into flesh as he dragged himself from the wreckage. The pain shooting through his body was nothing compared to the blistering heat. No sooner had he pulled himself free than he was rolling downhill, past a boulder, arms thrashing, fingers grasping for a hold of grass and thorny weeds. Bam! He slammed into the trunk of a tree, his head jolting back with so much force he thought he might have broken his neck.
Seconds passed before he lifted his head, relieved to be away from the smoky wreckage at the top of the hill. He looked the other way. Had he rolled another five feet down the slope, he would have disappeared off a steep embankment and into a gully.
He lay still on grass and dirt, drinking in fresh, cool air as he stared back at the flames that still hissed and popped, sending sparks into the air.
The smell of gas made him think of the driver. Was it too late for the driver to escape?
On his belly, he clawed at the dirt, making his way back up the hill.
With only one good leg, he made it just a few feet before an explosion left his ears ringing. The car burst into flames, sending debris into the sky. He ducked at the sight of metal coming at him. A car door flew past and nearly took off the top of his skull.
A loud, prolonged squeak coming from the wreckage prompted him to lift his head in time to watch the burning metal slowly tilt his way.
Shit!
A hulk of burning rubber and metal came crashing down the hill after him. Putting his weight into his knees, he lunged for the nearest boulder, plastered his body flat into dirt and grass, and waited for the flaming mass to sweep him to his death.
The earth rumbled beneath him. The air was hot, the smell haunting. A whoosh of movement stirred the air above as the mass swept overhead. Another explosion erupted, creating a wall of heat behind him. He pried his face from the dirt and looked down at the wreckage now wrapped around the tree he’d left only moments ago. Whoever had been inside the car could not have survived.
He used his forearms to push himself over so that he was lying on his back, staring up at a dark sky. The kaleidoscope of pain arising from cuts and bruises, broken bones, and blistering skin stopped him from moving again.
Just as well.
He needed to shut his eyes, if only for a moment, before he attempted to claw his way back up the hill. It felt good to close his eyes, even peaceful despite the fire burning a few feet away—a blaze that now sounded like the crackling flames you might hear coming from a fire pit at a campground.
He wondered about the driver then. Was it a he or she? And why didn’t he know? Where had they been going? Each question brought another, but he drew a blank when it came to the answers.
The thing that worried him most, though, had nothing to do with the driver and everything to do with himself.
Dizzy and short of breath, he realized he had no memory of where he’d come from. He didn’t know if he was single or married. No recollection of any children, friends, or family.
Who was he?
ONE
Sacramento, California—Present Day
Jessie Cole, private investigator, had been detained inside a small room at the Sacramento Police Department for thirty minutes now as Detective Aaron Roth lectured her. Another police officer stood in the corner.
She zeroed in on Detective Roth’s mouth as he talked. It was a habit she couldn’t seem to break. In grammar school she’d had a friend who was deaf. Twice a week Jessie had attended speech-reading class with her, not only for fun but because they were inseparable. She also knew American Sign Language (ASL). In eighth grade her friend had moved away, but Jessie never lost her ability to read lips or sign.
In his midforties, Aaron Roth was five foot eleven and had a cleanly shaved head and a thick mustache. As he rambled on—lecturing, reading her rights—she thought about the first time she’d met the detective ten years ago. The eagerness she remembered seeing in his eyes appeared to have been replaced with annoyance and resentment.
“Did you hear a word I just said?” he asked.
“Yes.”
His brows drew together. “And?”
Although his mustache covered half his upper lip, she could still see that his lips were pale. Redness in color was said to indicate better cardiorespiratory fitness but also meant a higher estrogen level. She couldn’t remember where she’d read that useless tidbit, but it had something to do with being able to distinguish male from female based solely on the lips. She glanced at the clock. “I need to go, Detective. I was supposed to pick up my niece ten minutes ago.”
“Oh,” he said, angling his head just so. “You have to go? Well, that’s too bad.” He jabbed a finger in the air. “You’re a piece of work. You shot someone. And not for the first time. You’re not going anywhere.”
A shiver of anxiety crawled up her spine. “I did nothing wrong,” she said, stiffening. “I understand the laws regarding use of deadly force. I was defending myself and others against a forcible and atrocious crime.”
“And yet after everything you went through a few years ago, you shot the man anyhow.”
“My life was in imminent danger.” She tapped a finger on the table for emphasis. “I saved ‘innocent bystanders from unavoidable danger of death.’”
The detective frowned. Clearly he was not impressed by the fact she’d memorized parts of the California laws concerning self-defense.