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“I was down there. I thought I’d watch from the street. God. Fuck. It’s like hell.”
Mace turned to Jacinta. “Stay with Jay.”
He went for the door, but Jay caught his arm. “They won’t let you out. There are cops on the door already.”
He pulled away. He only got as far as the lift and Jacinta was in the corridor. “You don’t want to see this.”
Jay held the door to the apartment and called her back, but she ignored both of them. She stabbed the lift button repeatedly. “Jay’s right. They’re not going to let us out there anyway.”
“So go back inside.”
She gave him the barest glance and got in the open lift door. “Do you have any first aid training?” She was calm, assessing the situation, gathering her resources, not a hint of panic in her, outside the excessively deep breaths she took.
He followed her in. He had nothing but the basics, but there had to be something he could do. “Do you?”
She shook her head grimly. “We’re going to be in the way.”
They didn’t even get the chance to do that. A cop stopped them at the door. Jacinta got in his face. “We can help. Let us out to help.”
She was five foot nothing, slender and girlish in her short dress and flatties and the cop was easy six four, thick with protective padding and riot gear, but he took a step back from her directness. “You need to stay off the street, miss.”
“You can use my apartment for the wounded, for relief for rescuers, whatever you need.”
The cop paused, looked down at the swipe key Jacinta was trying to press into his hand. “Miss, step back. We have it covered. Go back inside and let us do our job.”
Mace reached for her hand. “We should go.” She snatched it away, but ducked back inside the door.
Neither of them spoke on the way back to her apartment. But just before the doors opened on her floor she reached for his hand. He folded it in his and squeezed it. He had trouble swallowing over the tightness in his throat and she was so pale her tulip petal skin looked like it could tear. Almost directly outside the door were several bodies with tarps over them. She had to have seen them too.
Jay was standing by the TV but he turned when they came in, his eyes flicking to their joined hands. “There’s coffee.” He gestured over his shoulder to the kitchen. “I took the pan off the heat. It was a bomb, deliberately set. They don’t know if there’s a connection to the gas explosion last night. They’re locking down this part of the city. A twenty-four hour curfew. No one is to be on the street or leave their homes.”
On the screen a uniformed officer was using words like manhunt and calling for the cooperation of the public. They were flashing up phone numbers: a victim’s hotline, another for information, a map showing the extent of the lockdown, street by street.
All over again this was like a scene from a movie; a lockdown, a curfew—that stuff didn’t happen here. Jay put a stainless steel mug in his hand. The smell of the coffee made his stomach flip. He had to eat.
Beside him Jacinta coughed, then put her hand over her mouth. She was going to be sick. She made it to the sink. She had nothing in her to throw up, but she kept retching. Jay beside her stroking her back.
“Why didn’t you stop her going down there?” he barked.
“She can make her own decisions.”
“Not fucking good enough. Who are you anyway?”
“No one. I’d be gone except...” God knows when he could be gone. A phone rang. Not his but it galvanised him.
“There’s been ringing on and off since you left,” said Jay.
Jacinta straightened up, she looked grey. She pushed past Jay and went down the corridor to the ringing.
Mace fished out his mobile, five missed calls, two from Buster, four percent battery. He rang her room. It rang out. He rang the switch at St Ags and asked someone to track her down. His phone went dead before they did. He flung it at the sofa and looked up to see Jay watching him.
“I guess you’ll be sticking around then.”
“Not much choice.” Though maybe he could bargain his way past the cops. They’d let the race crowd disperse, what was one more guy?
“She’s important to me.”
“I gathered.”
