Fogel nodded. She wore a pair of latex gloves and had a department-issue Nikon hanging around her neck. “Follow me. Horton’s inside.”
Brownsville Road looked like a war zone, the pavement covered in bits of burnt debris—everything from chairs and tables to pieces of silverware, plates, and roofing material. The windows on all the surrounding cars and buildings had blown out, shards of glass crunched under his shoes. Krendal’s was the worst, though. The diner was gone, replaced by a black, smoking cave carved out of the old brick building.
Faustino recognized an odor in the air, one he hadn’t smelled since the war, and hoped he never would again. Burnt flesh.
Fogel smelled it, too. She pulled a small jar of petroleum jelly from her pocket and smeared some beneath her nose, then offered the jar to him. He shook his head. She dropped the jar back in her pocket. “We’ve got six bodies inside, two more on the sidewalk.”
Horton stood just inside what was once the front of the diner, the metal frame of the window, now bent and jagged, jutting out over the sidewalk. He waited for Faustino and Fogel to maneuver through the debris, then nodded toward what was left of a man in a booth near the front. “Meet Henry Crocket.”
Crocket’s hair was gone, his skin black and cracked. He was lying facedown on the table, part of his head missing, his back riddled with bullet holes.
Faustino looked around the diner, spotted three of the six bodies, two of them already in black bags.
He turned back to the narcotics detective. “What the hell happened here?”
Horton told him everything they had pieced together.
5
I woke to a dark room.
I woke to beeping machines and distant people and the sound of my own breathing beneath a plastic mask.
My head ached.
My eyes attempted to adjust to the light.
I reached up and pulled off the mask.
Krendal’s.
Explosion.
Dunk, Krendal, Lurline.
Oh, God, Gerdy.
I tried to sit, fell back into a soft pillow, my head pounding with ache.
“I’m sorry about your friend.”
I turned.
An outline of a man, sitting in a chair to the right of me. The detective, Faustino Brier.
“Where?” My mouth was dry, my voice didn’t sound right.
I sat up again, fighting past the nausea, the dizziness.
Detective Brier stood, filled a cup from a plastic pitcher on the table beside me, and held it to my lips. I wrapped both of my shaky hands around the sides and drank. The water was warm, but it still helped. When I was done, I handed the cup back to him, and he set it on the table.
“Where am I?” I repeated.
“The paramedics sedated you. You were…hysterical. They needed to get a handle on your injuries. You could have hurt yourself. They brought you to Mercy for treatment and observation.”
Brier crossed the room. “I’m going to turn on a light. Sometimes, after exposure to fire, particularly exposure to an explosion, the eyes can becomes extremely sensitive. Probably best you close them and open them again slowly, give them a chance to adjust.”
I nodded and closed my eyes. The black turned to deep red beneath my eyelids. I opened them, blinked. There was an empty hospital bed between me and the detective, now standing near the door.
