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27
A few seconds later the van screeched around the turn, the driver nearly losing control before he managed to straighten the van. He didn’t slow, didn’t see the side road, and roared ahead down the hill.
Kirra pulled back onto the road, saw the van racing ahead of her. The driver thought she was still in front of him, but he would realize very soon she wasn’t. She hit the gas. The driver saw her only the second before she slammed into the back of the van. His rear wheels went into a skid, and she saw him twist the steering wheel hard the wrong way, turning the skid into a spin, the tires squealing as the van lurched toward the edge of the road. She heard him scream as the van tilted up on two wheels and went hurtling over the edge into a narrow gulley, ripping through bushes, flipping over on its mad fall to the bottom.
Kirra pulled the RAV close to the edge of the road and jumped out. She was shaking, adrenaline flooding her. She ran to the edge of the road and looked down. The van had crashed into a gigantic old oak at the bottom of the gulley. It lay on its side, smoke billowing up from its smashed engine. The driver’s-side door shoved out and a man rolled out of the van onto the rocky ground. He lay on his back, unmoving.
Kirra called 911, texted Jeter, even though she knew telling him a man had tried to kill her would make him wonder if she was Eliot Ness. There was no hope for it. Was it Ryman Grissom lying motionless on the ground beside the accordioned van? She took off her heels and slipped on the sneakers in her gym bag. She made her way slowly down, holding on to bushes to keep from skidding and falling.
He was hugging his chest, panting and groaning. It wasn’t Ryman Grissom, it was a young man she didn’t recognize. His chinos were ripped, showing a gash in what looked like a broken leg. No need for a tourniquet, the gash was only oozing blood. She didn’t see any other obvious wounds. She went down on her knees beside him. His eyes sharpened on her face. He whispered, “How’d you do that?”
“A race car driver taught me how to take care of any clacker who tried to take me on. I’ve got to say, too, that only a clacker would take on a RAV on that road in a clunky van.”
“What’s a clacker?”
“Haven’t said that in a long time. Let’s say a clacker refers to your rear end, and not in a good way. I’ve called 911. They’ll be here soon.” She studied his face. “You must have come really cheap since you’re not even voting age yet.”
He gasped out, “I can vote! You weren’t supposed to go off on this road like you did, you were supposed to go home where I could put you down fast and easy.” He turned his face away from her, hugged his ribs, and moaned.
He didn’t look good. His face was bone-white, his eyes blurred with pain. “Hang in there.” She sat back on her heels, stared down at a man who hadn’t yet reached his twenty-fifth year. He had thick tangled blond hair flecked with blood and light-colored eyes nearly blind with pain. She saw acne scars on his cheeks. She knew he was in a bad way but there was nothing she could do for him. She leaned down. “I thought the man trying to kill me was Ryman Grissom, but I got you instead. Did he hire you? Or Khan Oliveras? Elson Grissom?”
She saw he recognized the names. “He’ll get you. You’re dead.” He tried to spit at her, but his spittle landed on his shoulder.
“I’ve got to say you were pretty easy. I don’t understand why they sent a rookie like you. Did they pluck you out of a schoolyard?”
He was breathing faster now, harder. “I ain’t no rookie! I’m twenty-three and I’m really good. You weren’t supposed to go off on this stupid road. You’re only a girl, you shouldn’t be driving like that.” He clutched his ribs. Tears seeped beneath his lashes, ran in rivulets down his cheeks.
Kirra leaned close. “Tell me your name.”
He was fading fast, she saw it. He whispered, “You were just lucky, that’s all. My van’s totaled.”
Again, she asked, “What’s your name?”
He gave her a pain-filled death stare. She took his hand, squeezed it. He was shaking now uncontrollably and she was helpless. There was nothing she could do for him, nothing. Blood flecked his mouth. He whispered, “Mama,” and his eyes rolled back. From one moment to the next he was gone.
Kirra sat back on her heels. He stared up at her unseeing. He was twenty-three years old, just starting life, and he was dead. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”
She realized she was shocky, and fought to keep her focus. She saw a Beretta stuffed inside his belt, didn’t touch it. As he’d said, he’d expected her to go home, where he would have slipped into her condo and shot her with it. She slipped her hand into his pockets. No ID, nothing but a twenty-dollar bill and some breath mints. She wondered if he’d killed before or if she was his first, wondered what his mother would say when she found out her son was killed trying to commit murder, and yet, he’d thought of her when he was dying.
Kirra rose, pulled out her cell, took photos of him, the car, his path down the cliff. She emailed the photos to Jeter. She took off her suit jacket and laid it over him.
She walked around the white van. The driver’s-side door was nearly ripped off its hinges. She looked inside and did a double take. On the floorboard lay a Sig Sauer pistol with a suppressor attached, a SIG 551 assault rifle beside it. It was the assault rifle that got to her. She knew it could blow a hole through you the size of a baseball. She swallowed bile. She looked back at him. He was twenty-three, and in the moment before he died she felt terribly sorry for him, she’d held his hand, tried to give him comfort. She was only three years older than he was and he’d come to kill her.
She knew she could easily be the one lying there dead. There would have been no one around. She would have died alone. Kirra gulped, felt a moment of nausea, swallowed.
It seemed like forever until she heard sirens.
After Kirra gave her statement to the responding officers, she and Jeter watched the EMTs slowly and carefully gurney up the young man who’d tried to kill her. One of them waved.
Jeter called out, “Hey, Atina.”
A tall lanky woman with her signature cornrows, Atina Cooper had seen just about everything in her thirty-eight years. Jeter had known her ever since she’d passed her exams fifteen years before. She walked over, nodded at Kirra. She stared toward the cliff edge of the road, shook her head. “I haven’t seen a little killer boy like him in well-nigh five years, and he wasn’t loaded down with weapons like this one. You’re Kirra Mandarian, right? A prosecutor?” At Kirra’s nod, Atina said, “Like you told Robbie, no wallet, no ID. I gotta say, girl, I saw what he did to your RAV’s rear end, and I’m impressed it’s still up here on the road. You’ve got to be some driver.”
“He wanted to kill me with that van.”
“Well, he didn’t, did he? We’ll see what the ME has to say, whether he had any drugs on board. I’m off. Hear you’ve got a new girlfriend, Jeter. You sure can pick ’em—a federal prosecutor?” Atina saluted him, climbed into the back of the ambulance, and called out, “Jeter, you take care of that pretty little girl. I don’t want to be hauling her to the ME, like this one.”
Jeter and Kirra watched the ambulance carefully make its way past the police tape and the two black-and-whites down the frontage road back toward town. Jeter’s cell buzzed a message. He said, “Savich. He said he’s loaded down with another case, can’t come out, but to keep him in the loop. He’s sending Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith.” Jeter texted back an okay and shoved his cell back into his pants pocket.
