The radio made a loud squelching sound againas they pulled up to the first window. The pimple-faced teenleaning out to collect their money winced at the noise andinstinctively jerked back. He stayed a safe distance away and stuckout his hand for Roger to pay him. The kid took the money andturned to push the buttons on the register.
Since they were on their dinner shift,Maggie leaned over to turn the radio down a little, but a franticburst of words spattered the airwaves like gunfire before she couldtouch it. She froze as she listened to the rushed words of multiplevictims and ambulances needed. Her stomach rumbled in protest, butbefore the next words came out, she already knew her overcookedburgers were going to have to wait.
“It’s too early in the night for this shit,”Roger muttered as he turned on the lights and siren. The kidsnatched his hand back so fast the money tumbled to the ground.“We’ll be back!” Roger shouted out the window as he expertlywhipped the ambulance around the car idling at the window in frontof them.
Once on the road, vehicles moved out oftheir way the best they could on the crowded Boston streets. Maggiekept alert for anyone who might think it would be fun to race anambulance or run a red light, but thankfully, the other driversdecided to obey the laws. Their luck of not having to dodge anywayward cars didn’t stop her growing certainty this was going to bea bad night.
The first star wasn’t out yet, and alreadythey were getting a call for multiple victims. Roger was right; itwas far too early in the night for this.
Roger turned a corner, and numerous policecars parked at the mouth of an alley came into view. Yellow tapehung across the entrance to the alley, officers gathered at the endof it. They looked unusually subdued as none of them spoke to eachother.
They were the first ambulance to arrive.Roger pulled to the curb and parked it in front of a nondescript,brick building. Plywood covered the windows on the first and secondfloors of this building and the one next to it. Wooden boards werenailed across the front entrance, blocking the metal door behindit.
Why would multiple people gather betweenabandoned buildings?Even as she questioned it, she knew theanswer. Whatever lay beyond that tape was probably the result of adrug deal gone way wrong.
Maggie opened her door and hopped out.Usually, her adrenaline would be pumping to get to their victim andpossibly save a life. She felt none of that normal rush though.Instead, her dread only grew as the officers looked over at them.Their faces were abnormally pale in the flashing lights, and no onecalled or waved a greeting to them.
An intuitive sense they were walking intosomething that might make the Wolfman run grew within her. Insteadof rushing to gather their supplies, her legs locked intoplace.
“You’ll need the stretcher,” one of theofficers called to her after a minute.
His voice snapped her out of the strangeparalysis holding her. She nodded to him before hurrying around toopen the back doors. Roger met her on the other side, and togetherthey removed the stretcher and medical bag. They carried theirequipment over to one of the police officers guarding the alleyway.Maggie recognized Officer Harding immediately.
Harding pulled aside the yellow crime scenetape before they reached it. She and Roger ran into Harding often,and Roger’s bowling team competed against Harding’s. Never had theofficer’s pudgy face been flushed or had she seen him sweat, noteven in August. Now, Harding’s brown eyes held a note of distressshe’d never seen in the middle-aged man before.
She’d assumed Harding had seen it all afternearly thirty years on the force, but whatever he’d seen heretonight bothered him enough that his normally perfect uniform wasmarred by the hat sitting crookedly on his head. Beneath the hat,his usually neatly combed salt-and-pepper hair stuck out on thesides.
“Roger, Mags,” Harding greeted in a voicehoarser than normal. His breath came out in puffs of air as hespoke. “I’m not sure what happened here, but it’s bad.”
“Survivors?” Roger asked.
“Yes, but don’t ask me how.”
Maggie frowned at that response and glancedtoward the alleyway. Blood didn’t bother her; in fact, it hadalways held a strange fascination for her, and she’d never beensqueamish. Both of those things had led her to this career. Shealso liked helping people.
She’d probably still be bouncing from onehated job to the next if she hadn’t witnessed a car hit a woman oneday while walking home. The scene repulsed the other witnesses, butMaggie ignored the blood and the jutting leg bones to care for thewoman until an ambulance arrived.
Roger had been working that ambulance.Impressed with her ability to handle what she’d seen, and to tie atourniquet the best she could based on what she’d watched on TV,he’d given her his number. Roger told her to call him if she everdecided she might like to try her hand at being an EMT.
She’d called him the next day and enrolledin an EMT program the following month. She’d hated school whilegrowing up and vowed never to return after she graduated, but she’dplunged into EMT training. Roger helped her get a job with thiscompany when she finished. He trained her, and when she’d appliedto paramedic school after a year of being on the ambulance withhim, he’d tutored her through it. Never once had she regretted herdecision or been spooked while on a call. She had the unreasonablefeeling that might end tonight.
Glancing nervously at the alleyway, her nosetwitched when she detected the coppery tang of blood and the fainthint of garbage on the air. Alotof blood odor wafted outof that alley.
CHAPTER 5
Maggie stepped forward. Multiple someonesrequired their help, and no matter how crazy the scene might be,she and Roger would do what they’d been trained to do. Harding’svoice halted her before she could go any further.
“I saw the end of what happened in there,and I still don’t believe it. It… it couldn’t have been real,” hemuttered.
He removed his hat to run a hand through hishair. It startled her to see the shine on the top of Harding’shead; she’d never seen him without a hat before. The few timesshe’d gone to watch Roger and some of her other coworkers bowl,Harding had always worn a Red Sox hat. Somehow, seeing him withoutone made him seem vulnerable in an odd way, and made what waitedfor them more unnerving.
Harding shoved his hat back on and assumedhis usual brusque attitude of business. It helped to emboldenher.
“This way,” Harding said in the crisp voiceshe recognized well. “There’s one or two still alive.”
She exchanged a look with Roger, whoshrugged and followed Harding into the alley. Maggie spotted twobodies on the ground, with police officers standing beside them andmore yellow tape marking off the area. Maggie tried to ascertain ifthe victims were alive or not as Harding led them past.
“They’re dead,” Harding said, as if he’dbeen reading her thoughts.
