Sizzle (2 page)

Seconds later, the van screeched to a halt in front of them, and Murphy leapt out to help get Alec inside. While Sam applied pressure to Alec’s wound to stem the flow of blood, Murphy threw the van in gear and sped away from the fire, stopping at the end of the street to summon an ambulance.

Sirens screamed in the night, and within minutes two paramedics were transferring Alec into the ambulance. He had been stabbed in the back, just above the right kidney. They worked quickly to stabilize him. Sam rode with them to the hospital, and though it was only a couple of miles away, it seemed to take forever to get there.

“How’s he doing?” Sam asked once they were well on their way.

“He’s stable,” the female paramedic said, “but he’s lost a lot of blood.” She looked over at Sam and added, “It looks like you’re wearing most of it.” Sam sat back. The adrenaline was still racing through his veins, and it was difficult for him to sit still. He could feel the sticky wetness of the blood on his shirt.

The other paramedic was adjusting Alec’s IV when he noticed blood dripping from Sam’s arm. He reached out and pushed the sleeve up to expose shards of glass embedded in Sam’s skin.

“You’ve got to get that cleaned out and stitched.”

Unconcerned, Sam tugged the sleeve down. He saw the lights and the emergency entrance sign and felt immediate relief.

As Alec was being rolled into surgery minutes later, Sam called his superior, Special Agent in Charge Coleman, and told him what had happened. Coleman had already heard some of the details from Agent Murphy and had called the Chicago FBI to notify Alec’s boss, Special Agent Margaret Pittman. She would make the dreaded calls to Alec’s wife and family.

“I should be at the hospital soon,” Coleman said. “Buchanan’s partner, Agent MacAlister, has already been located, and he’s on his way there, too.” Sam disconnected the call, then went into the emergency room. It was a surprisingly slow night in the D.C. trauma center. He had to wait only an hour for one of the physicians on duty to take a look at his arm. After he’d been sewn back together and the injury was wrapped, he headed up to the surgical waiting room.

Sam had never met Alec Buchanan before tonight, but he wasn’t going to leave the hospital until he knew the agent was going to make it.

When Sam stepped off the elevator on the surgical floor, Coleman was standing in front of him. He recognized several agents in the waiting room. Coleman motioned him toward the end of the long hallway to talk in private, and Sam explained everything that had happened from the moment he had entered the van.

The surgeon nearly ran into them as he rounded the corner on his way to the waiting room. He raised both eyebrows when he saw Sam’s blood-soaked shirt. “You were with Agent Buchanan?”

“Yes,” Sam answered.

He nodded. “Thought as much. Agent Buchanan came through the surgery just fine, and I expect him to make a full recovery.” After a few words on what Alec could expect in the upcoming weeks, the surgeon shook their hands and left them.

The adrenaline long gone, Sam was suddenly exhausted. Thinking he wasn’t needed at the hospital any longer, he headed downstairs. Agent Murphy met him at the emergency room entrance. He reached up and patted Sam on the shoulder. “Good job, sir,” he said and then offered to drive him home.

The second his apartment door closed behind him, Sam stripped out of his clothes and headed to his shower. Following the doctor’s orders to keep his bandage dry, he held his arm outside the shower curtain while he washed away the blood and grime of his day.

Minutes later he was sprawled on his sofa sound asleep with the BBC blaring on the television.

He didn’t wake until seven the following morning. His first order of business was to call the hospital to get a report on Alec. He knew that complications after surgery were routine, and he wanted to make certain Alec was still alive. When he was told the patient’s condition was good, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Sam didn’t know anything about Alec Buchanan, but he felt a professional bond with the fellow agent and a sense of responsibility to check on his progress. He planned to stop by the hospital that afternoon just to look in on him to make sure he was out of danger.

He certainly didn’t plan to stay.

Agent Jack MacAlister had other ideas.

Sam had just gotten dressed in a pair of old jeans and a navy blue T-shirt when he heard someone pounding on his door. His gun was clipped to his waist, and he flipped the snap holding the gun in the holster in case the man telling him to open the damn door was a nutcase.

The visitor turned out to be Buchanan’s partner, Agent MacAlister, and Sam’s first impression was that he was a nutcase.

As soon as Sam opened the door, MacAlister shoved a Starbucks coffee and a pineapple Danish at him.

“Come on, let’s go.”

The two men were the same height and stood eye to eye. Sam backed up so MacAlister could come inside. From the FBI-issue gun he was wearing, Sam knew he was an agent.

“Okay. Who are you, and where are we going?”

“I’m Jack MacAlister.”

“Buchanan’s partner.”

“That’s right. You can call me Jack, and we’re going to the hospital. Alec wants to see you.”

“He’s talking already?”

Jack nodded. “He’s not only talking, he’s complaining—a sure sign he’s on the mend.

We better hurry. Alec’s wife, Regan, flew in last night, but the rest of the family are going to get to the hospital anytime now, and if you don’t get in and out before they all arrive, you won’t get out of there for a week.”

Sam smiled.

“I’m not joking,” Jack said. “Alec’s got a lot of family, and most of them are on their way here. Are you going to eat that Danish?”

Sam handed the pastry back to him then grabbed his sunglasses and keys and followed him out the door.

ALEC WAS IN A private room and, fortunately, alone. He was sitting up in bed with the television remote in his hand. He looked bad, like vampires had feasted on him, but his eyes were alert.

“You want some company?” Jack asked as he walked in. He tried to shove Sam in front of him, but Sam didn’t budge. He did give Jack an incredulous look, though.

Jack leaned against the window ledge and folded his arms across his chest. He nodded to the IV. “You getting your breakfast?”

Sam approached the side of the bed. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like I got stabbed in the back. You’re Sam Kincaid, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks for getting me out of that house.”

“No problem.”

Alec asked if Sam would mind answering a couple of questions about what everyone was now calling “the event.” It was Jack, however, who asked the most questions. After a half hour or so, Sam could see that Alec was fading.

“You need to get some sleep. I’ll see you around,” Sam said.

He and Jack walked down the hall together. “It’s good to know he’s going to be okay,” Sam said. “From what I’ve heard the other agents say, he’s a good one.”

“The best,” Jack answered, “but don’t let him know I said so. There’d be no living with him.”

Three men who resembled Alec Buchanan were headed toward them. All, Sam noticed, wore guns. A distinguished older man followed them. He had his arm around the shoulder of a pretty young woman.

Jack chuckled. “You’re about to meet some Buchanans. They have a way of making you feel like family. And I should warn you … once you’re in, there’s no getting out.” He wasn’t exaggerating.

Over the next couple of weeks, Sam got to know the family very well, and Alec and Jack did become Sam’s good friends. And friends were supposed to help each other out when needed, right? Like today.

Sam, still standing at the podium, spied the two agents sitting in the back row of the auditorium. He gave Alec and Jack the “get me out of here” look. They didn’t respond.

Either they were oblivious to his distress, or they were so thoroughly enjoying his misery, they were pretending not to notice. He opted for the second choice and decided to get even.

“I see Alec Buchanan is with us,” he announced to the crowd. “Perhaps we could get him up here to say a few words.”

With that, the whole room erupted in wild applause and turned to face Alec.

Alec looked shell-shocked, and Sam responded to his startled expression with a quick nod and a satisfied smile. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he whistled a cheerful tune as he left the podium and strolled out of the auditorium.

TWO

GRANDMOTHER WAS STEALING HOLY WATER AGAIN.

Lyra Prescott didn’t have to guess why Father Henry was calling. As soon as she saw the caller ID, she knew it was about her beloved grandmother, the eccentric woman who had practically raised Lyra.

Her cell phone sat in her hand. She had switched the ringer off, but when she looked down, she saw his name and number. Even if she wanted to talk to the priest—which she didn’t—she couldn’t answer the phone right now. She was in the back of a classroom trying to pay attention while Professor Mahler assigned subjects for the documentary films his students were about to do. He was also sharing his cynical opinions about the people of Los Angeles.

Mahler, a handsome man in his forties, was a noted professor who had published several books about documentary filmmaking, and who had won an award for his exposé of a notorious crime family—a fact he liked to mention in almost every lecture he gave. He was also a left-wing activist who tended to go overboard with his projects and opinions. He had the reputation of being arrogant and difficult, and rumor had it that his wife had walked out on him.

Lyra would have felt sorry for him if he weren’t so egotistical. She couldn’t agree with a word he was saying. The professor invariably made sweeping statements. “No one in this community takes care of what he has. When people get bored with something, they throw it away. Have you seen pictures of the landfills out here? Disgusting,” he muttered. “I hope one of you will choose that topic for your documentary.”

A hand shot up. “I’ll take it.”

Mahler nodded, poured water from his disposable plastic bottle—which Lyra thought was hypocritical—and took a drink before continuing his rant. “Instead of fixing a bicycle or a car, they buy a new one. And it’s not just possessions,” he added, wagging his finger at them. “They destroy homes and then abandon them.”

“How often do you want us to check in with you while we’re working on our documentaries?” a student asked.

“Not this time,” he answered. “There will be no coddling from me.” Several members of the class looked at one another. Some seemed ready to laugh. When had Mahler ever coddled them?

“I don’t want to see what you have when you’re halfway done, and I don’t want to hear about any problems. I want to watch the films when they’re finished, and I want to be surprised, pleased, and—dare I imagine?—dazzled. Yes, you heard me. Dazzled. Now who wants to take on the corrupt mortgage industry?” he asked.

Another hand shot up.

“All right, Peter,” Mahler said. “Put the topic and your name on the sign-up sheet on my desk. You too, Phillip,” he said to the student who wanted landfills.

The professor gestured behind him toward his office. It was connected to the classroom by a door he kept wide open whenever he was teaching.

Without breaking his stride, he continued. “And the malls. Don’t get me started on those structures. They keep building more and more of them, letting the old ones sit empty until someone comes along and tears them down or burns them.”

“I’ll take the malls,” another student called out.

The professor nodded and gave suggestions on how to go about the project.

Lyra wasn’t paying attention to his instructions. She was staring through the open door at a colorful poster hanging on the wall behind the professor’s desk in his office. The words on the poster said, “Paraiso Park. First Annual Festival.” It showed a lovely place that was clean and beautifully landscaped. Next to that poster was another one, a grim, black-and-white photo of industrial smokestacks. There were no words on this poster, and she couldn’t tell where the photo had been taken. What a contradiction in subjects, she thought.

She much preferred to look at the bold colors of Paraiso Park.

She raised her hand.

“Yes, Lyra?” Professor Mahler said.

“What about neighborhood parks? I’d like to take that subject.”

“Excellent,” he replied. “Do you know that most parks have a ten-year lifespan?” She thought his remark ludicrous but didn’t want to antagonize him, so she didn’t argue.

Everyone in his class had learned early in the semester never to disagree. Several students tried to dispute his comments in the beginning, and every time they explained their positions, the professor would rub his chin, pretend to be listening, and say, “Uh hum, uh hum,” and then declare that the students were completely wrong. He never forgot who had argued with him and usually repaid those students with horrid assignments. Lyra was too close to the finish line to get on his bad side.

“No, Professor, I didn’t know that.” Because it isn’t true, she thought.

“The equipment is broken by then. Even the chains holding the swings are gone or rusted out, and picnic tables are destroyed. Vandals and gangs move in and take over.” Lyra was determined to prove him wrong. She chose to do her documentary on beautiful Paraiso Park.

Two weeks later she deeply regretted her choice.

IT WAS AN UNUSUALLY hot and humid afternoon in Los Angeles, and Lyra was knee-deep in garbage that reeked to high heaven. She had just covered her nose and mouth with a scarf when her phone rang. She took one look at the display screen, saw Father Henry’s name, and let the call go to voice mail. Now wasn’t a good time to have yet another lengthy visit with the priest. It had been two weeks since their last conversation, and she had assumed the problem with her grandmother had been solved. If that were the case, however, why would he be calling now? She knew she’d have to talk to him eventually, but Father Henry’s complaints would have to wait. Once Lyra was back inside her air-conditioned apartment and had showered and changed into clean clothes, she would be in better shape to take on the priest.