“Is someone in the car?” Truman asked.
The woman gave him a terrified look and shrugged, shaking her head.
“Does anyone know if someone is in there?” he shouted at the other observers. Flames licked at the wheel wells and burst out of the grille. The voluminous smoke turned black.
No one spoke up. Some held up their hands in an I-don’t-know gesture.
“Crap,” Truman mumbled. He glanced at Officer Madero. She was young, one of the newest recruits on the force, and she had her focus on him, looking for guidance.
“What do we do?” she asked in a low voice.
“Get everyone farther away from the car. Our priority is to keep everyone safe.”
An ear-piercing shriek made him spin around. A gray-haired woman ran full steam at the car, screaming in Spanish. A man grabbed her around the waist as she tore by. She beat him with her fists, but he didn’t let go.
“She says her daughter is in the car!” Officer Madero sprinted toward it.
“Madero!” Truman shouted. He took two steps after the other officer and halted, unable to think straight. What can I do? The flames at the front end of the car had multiplied and the amount of dense black smoke stunned him. Fire extinguisher. Truman dashed to his trunk, hoping he’d made the right decision.
The crowd let out a series of shouts.
Truman’s blood froze as he glanced back.
A young woman in the rear seat leaned her face against the car glass, her mouth wide open, her eyes terrified. Her face was pressed against the glass as if she couldn’t support herself, and Truman instantly knew her hands were tied behind her back. The mother’s shrieks intensified. The man holding her back met Truman’s gaze, questioning if he should let her run toward the car. Truman shook his head.
Madero grabbed the handle of the rear car door and tugged. “It’s locked!” she shouted. The black smoke billowed around her head and shoulders, briefly shrouding her.
A few of the crowd rushed forward to check the other doors.
Truman grabbed his extinguisher and glass puncher to break the window. With one in each hand, he tore toward the car. The flames intensified and people backed away, their hands and arms shielding their faces from the heat.
Madero didn’t leave. She hammered frantically at the window with her small flashlight. The woman in the car locked eyes with Truman, and he pumped his legs harder.
The car exploded.
An outline of Madero flashed in the blast as a wall of heat and power threw Truman backward.
His head hit the concrete.
Truman rubbed his hands under the icy water in the bathroom and grabbed a paper towel, then doused it under the stream and wiped it across his face.
The shudders stopped.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror. I should have pulled Madero away instead of getting the fire extinguisher. He could still see Madero’s silhouette in the bright light. And the face of the woman in the car. Over and over and over. His heart pounded in his chest.
Count five things you can touch.
He placed one hand on the cold metal spigot of the sink and let the stream run over his other hand, concentrating on the sensation of running water. Then he ran a wet hand over his spiky hair, touched the rough fabric of his sleeve, and deliberately banged a knee into the white sink, welcoming the small pain.
Count four things you can see.
He focused on the small scar on his chin. One. The other injuries to his face had healed and nearly vanished, but he knew where they lurked. A faint line here, a pale divot there. Two, three, four. His breathing slowed.
Count three things you can hear.
Scratchy music through the single ceiling speaker. The water in the sink. The murmur of voices from the bar.
Count two things you can smell.
He ended the mental recitation. By the end of the third step out of the five the psychiatrist had taught him for handling panic attacks, his heart rate had slowed and his sweats were gone. He took a quick inventory of his feelings. All calm; I’m grounded. He mentally stepped back and took an unemotional look at what else he’d locked away in his memories.
After two days, Officer Selena Madero had died from her burns.
The woman in the car had been tied up by her boyfriend and deliberately left in the burning car because she’d broken up with him. She’d been dead when the paramedics arrived.
Truman had been released from the hospital and had taken medical leave, spending time with the department’s psychiatrist. His vest had protected him from most of the flying, burning debris, but he still had two burns on his thighs. After a year they were still sensitive to the touch and itched and burned at random moments.
Constant reminders.
The victim’s moments of terror before the explosion ate at his gut and brain and heart.