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“Cool. He’s a good kid.”
“Yeah, he is. Okay. I’m headin’ out.”
“See ya, Prez.”
Dex hung up and went around the counter and back out into the quiet shop. As he approached the display of antifreeze, de-icer, and rock salt at the window, he saw the headlights of the wrecker approach the corner. Headlights, and a flashing turn signal, were about all he could see; the snow was coming down hard. This storm was becoming a full-on blizzard.
He left his window watch and went back to the service bays. They’d closed all the overheads when they’d decided to shut down service work for the day; now he hit the switch to bring the door up on an empty bay.
JJ pulled in and parked, and he and Christian hopped out. Christian was a soggy mess; obviously, and not surprisingly, JJ had made the prospect hang off the back and spread the salt.
“Hey, Sarge,” JJ said as they ambled across the bays.
Even now, years out of the military, Dex was still Sarge. In some ways the shift from Marine Raider to MC SAA had been little more than a change in uniform. “Hey. Everything go okay?”
“Sure. Don’t know how much good it did, way it’s comin’ down, but we cleared the usual ground.”
“Good. Keep the shop open until seven at least. Then Eight wants you both in the clubhouse tonight. We got some girls who want to stay here till the storm’s clear.”
JJ groaned, and muttered, “Aw,man! Really?”
But Christian perked up. “Roxy?”
“I got no idea who. You’ll see for yourself. I’m headin’ out. You need anything before I go?”
“We’re good, Sarge,” JJ said.
“Alright, I’m out.” He nodded at the front window, where a few inches of snow had piled up since the guys had taken the wrecker out. “The pumps need to get cleared again, too.”
Christian sighed. “Yeah, okay. Fuck, it’s cold out there.”
“Warm up, then get back out there. And quit bitchin’, prospect.”
~oOo~
Between the heavy sheets of wet snow continuing to fall and the crap coming up off the snow-packed streets, the drive from the station was slow going, even with four-wheel drive. Dex hunched over the wheel, watching the road as closely as he could. All around him, people were fishtailing and skidding—or driving so slowly they were a hazard, or far too fast for the conditions. He was trained to keep aware of his entire active area, so he watched out and navigated through the mess.
Until he approached an intersection as a yellow light shifted to red, and he watched the little blue Kia right in front of him slam on its brakes and immediately fishtail. It slid sideways through the intersection, just missing an SUV going through it with the right of way, and kept skidding until it jumped a snow-drifted curb and slammed into a transformer box.
Waiting at the red, Dex watched that car. With the skid and jumping the curb, the impact had been at the front of the car, and hard enough to activate the airbag. He guessed as much, at least; the visibility wasn’t good enough to see inside a car fifty feet or more away.
But nobody seemed to be moving inside. Certainly no one had gotten out.
When the light turned green, he drove through and parked where he estimated the curb was, and a few feet behind the wreck.
He got out, and then he could see the deployed airbag and a woman in the passenger seat. Not moving. The impact had been moderate at best; the car was small, but most of it seemed undamaged.
Best guess: the airbag had knocked her out.
Hunched into his Sinclair coat, which was not nearly warm enough for extended time in this weather, Dex did a quick perimeter around the car, made sure no fluids were leaking and no smoke rose from anywhere. Then he tried the driver’s door. It was locked.
Wiping the window and peering in, he saw a middle-aged woman in a pink knitted beanie, a matching pink scarf, and a dark down-filled coat. Her nose bled freely, soaking her scarf. Yep. The airbag had deployed and bashed her face in.
She was alive, at least; the impact had killed the engine, and her breath was already beginning to steam the windows. But when he knocked on the glass, she didn’t react at all.
Pulling his phone out, he dialed 911 and called it in. The dispatcher asked questions about the woman’s physical condition he couldn’t answer, and that tweaked his conscience a little. He hadn’t done enough to help her. So after that call was done, he went back to his truck and got an auto-glass hammer out of his tool box.
He broke the window on the passenger side, away from the woman, and got that door open. Leaning in, he brushed the nuggets of bluish glass from the seat, pulled one glove off, and found the woman’s pulse point on her right wrist. A bit too fast, but rhythmic.
