Authors: Pamela Browning
Snapshots
Pamela Browning
Thanks to Neill for “Joey” and the music, Melanie for
Low Country lore and Bethany for chai tea latte and the
prom (though like my heroine, she was never allowed to
stay at the hotel all night, either). I love y'all!
This book is for Cameron, in happy anticipation of our
snapshots together in the coming years.
2004
T
o say that their marriage was in trouble was a classic understatement. Sure, he and Martine had their problems like any other couple. They'd managed, though. In the past they'd congratulated themselves on their strength under pressure, their determination to make the relationship work. But this time was different.
An unwelcome guest had hitched a ride earlier when he stopped to pick up Martine at work, and it began to whine in the vicinity of Rick's ear. He swatted at the mosquito, and the hum stopped, then resumed. He slapped at it again, harder this time, and the noise ceased.
Martine glanced out of the corner of her eye, still defiant but incredibly beautiful. “Bet you wish that was me,” she said. “Bet you'd like to squash me flat.”
“Stop it, Martine,” he said, keeping his voice even.
She turned her head away, her pale hair glimmering in the headlights from oncoming cars. “
If
you insist on going to this stupid party for Shorty, I have to stop by the house to get a wrap,” she said. The early-January breeze blew in on the promise of a cool night, more than welcome in Miami any time of year.
“Attendance is mandatory,” Rick said. “All the guys areâ”
She cut him off midsentence. “Just don't talk to me while we're there, okay?”
“Fine,” he said curtly. It's not as though he really had anything to say to Martine, except
Why?
“At least we're doing something together,” Martine said. “For once you don't have to work late.” She didn't even attempt to conceal her resentment.
Gunning the car's engine as he rounded the corner onto their peaceful palm-lined street, Rick spotted the white Impala immediately. It stood out in this manicured Kendall neighborhood; one rear window was broken out, and a spreading rust stain marred the trunk. At any other time, he might have paid more attention.
“I'll be right back,” Martine said, reaching for the door handle.
“It's a surprise party,” Rick reminded her. “We don't want to be late.”
As she slammed the car door, Martine cast a scathing glance back over her shoulder. Under normal circumstances, Rick would have accompanied her, maybe changed out of his jacket, shirt and tie into more comfortable clothes, but he needed time to recoup. She disappeared into the house, a typical south Florida ranch with a red barrel-tile roof.
Rick drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Ten years of marriage. Ten wasted years, and how long since he'd realized he'd made a terrible mistake? Seven years? Five? He'd wanted kids; Martine hadn't. His paralyzing discovery of those love notes in Martine's bottom dresser drawer, which he had opened innocently enough last night, had made so many things clear. All the nights she'd said she had to work late, the Saturday-afternoon shopping trips when she returned with no purchases, the cell-phone bills he never saw, not to mention the general air of secretiveness that he hadn't recognized for what it was. And all he'd had in mind when he opened that drawer was to check her bra size so he could buy her a sexy birthday present for the purpose of inspiring their almost nonexistent sex life.
He felt a sting on his left earâthat damn mosquito again. He opened the car window, figuring that maybe the insect would do them both a favor and escape into the night. While the window was down, he spared the derelict white car at the curb a cursory assessment. A car parked there was by no means unusual, since the teenage girl next door often entertained boyfriends who left their vehicles at the edge of Rick's property. Out of habit, Rick attempted to pick out the numbers on the license tag, but it was hidden in shadows from the surrounding shrubbery.
He punched the button to bring the window all the way up and massaged his eyelids for a long moment. It had been a quiet day in Homicide, affording him time to catch up on paperwork and mull over the situation with Martine. He'd never dreamed she was capable of betrayal. They'd been childhood friends, college buddies. Which proved that you really never knew another person, no matter how close the relationship.
Minutes ticked past, punctuated by the shrilling of crickets. What was taking Martine so long? Rick checked his watch. It had been half an hour since he'd picked her up at the law office where she worked, twenty hours since he'd read the incriminating letters. Last night she'd cried, he'd accused, she'd admitted everything. No, that wasn't quite true. Not everythingâat least, according to a terrible suspicion that he'd never voiced and never would.
He sure as hell wouldn't be going to a party for his boss tonight if Shorty hadn't encouraged him and promised a promotion to chief detective before long. All Rick wanted, really, was to lick his wounds in private. To hunker down somewhere far from here and figure out whether he was capable of living without Martine. Or maybe he should be considering whether he could still live
with
her. Tappany Island, yeah, that was the place. Tomorrow he'd ask for a week off, depart on a road trip to South Carolina and just hang for a while.
The front door of their house swung open abruptly. Rick, expecting Martine to hurry out, waited impatiently for her to emerge into the yellow glare of the bug bulb in the porch light. Then, in the shadows inside the house, he saw the stocky dark-clad figure pressing a knife to Martine's throat, muscular arms gripping her in an awkward embrace. Instinctively, Rick reached for his weapon, a .38 semiautomatic tucked away in the shoulder holster under his jacket. He leaped from the car.
At this point, the action sped into fast-forward. Martine let out a small involuntary squeak at Rick's sudden movement. Lightning quick, the knife slit a shallow cut across the creamy skin at the base of her throat. Beads of blood appeared, dark red and out of place as they slid toward the scoop neckline of Martine's pale green dress.
“Stay away,” warned her captor in an agitated voice, his accent guttural and Hispanic. “Unless you want your wife to become fish food at the bottom of a canal.” The man seemed electric, wired, jittery, like an out-of-control marionette.
Rick recoiled, held himself back when all he wanted to do was to rush the man and blow his head off. Martine, who must have known his inclination, sent him a look of such dire pleading that it rocked him back on his heels.
All thought of their previous argument and of last night's discovery faded in the force of Rick's sudden, gut-wrenching comprehension. He recognized the man as Jorgé Padrón, an illegal immigrant who had been convicted on Rick's testimony some years ago. Padrón had created a fracas in the courtroom before they led him away, kicking over a chair and yelling in broken English that he'd get even with Rick McCulloch, no matter how long it took. Since Padrón was sentenced to ten years for armed robbery and aggravated assault, Rick had known he would eventually be back on the street, but he hadn't taken the threat seriously. The newly convicted often issued impassioned threats before being led away to serve their time.
“Drop your gun,” Padrón commanded.
Rick hesitated, bile rising in his throat. It tasted metallic, coppery.
“Rickâ” Martine gasped, her eyes begging him.
“Shut up,” Padrón said, tightening his grip so that she winced. “Drop it,” he said to Rick. “Unless you want me to add a few more red beads to this pretty necklace I gave your wife.”
Bloodstains now covered the bodice of Martine's dress. Feeling a sense of futility, Rick dropped the .38. It landed with a thud on the grass.
“Hands up where I can see them.”
Slowly, Rick raised his hands above his shoulders.
Padrón maneuvered Martine between him and Rick as he propelled her toward the white car at the curb. “No talk from you,” he warned Rick. “I'll kill her without thinking twice.”
“Take me, instead,” Rick said urgently. “Let her go.”
“You? You're no use to me.
Comprende?
”
Rick
comprend
ed, all right. The man was a convicted sex offender who had robbed a convenience store and raped the owner's wife. He'd carved the woman's face into ribbons for good measure.
“Open the door,” Padrón ordered Martine as they approached the driver's side of the white car.
“Do it!”
Martine's hand, the one with his wedding ring on the third finger, inched out. Rick watched, alert for any lapse on Padrón's part, any chance he might be able to jump the man before he reached the car. The steel skin of the .38 gleamed in the moonlight a few feet from his right foot.
“Hurry up!” Padrón said.
Martine pulled at the door; it opened. Padrón slid inside under the steering wheel and yanked Martine in after him.
“Padrón, let's talk about this,” Rick said, refusing to panic. “We can solve your problems some other way. Let her go. Take me. I can help you.”
“Like when you sent me off to Raiford Prison? Yeah, right.” To Martine he said, “Turn the key. Start the car. You and me, we go for a ride.” He tightened his choke hold around her neck.
Martine did as he said. The car's engine clunked to life, and a cloud of black exhaust spewed from the tailpipe. Rick hoped some of the neighbors would notice, but all the nearby houses were dark.
“Now put it in drive. No surprises, Mrs. McCulloch, and you will be okay.”
Rage flickered up past the fear in Rick's throat, wrapped itself around his brain and squeezed. Martineâ¦
Martine.
The white car began to roll slowly toward the intersection.
“Don't call police,” was Padrón's parting command. “Anyone follows me, she dies.”
This warning notwithstanding, Rick grabbed his gun and was behind the wheel of his Taurus sedan before the Impala rounded the corner. He grappled with his cell phone and managed to alert the police department, relieved to learn that his friend Wally was working the desk.
Rick did his best to explain, and Wally was no dummy. He knew who Padrón was. Wally had worked the case with Rick shortly after Rick had joined the force.
“Don't worry, Rick,” Wally said, but by that time Rick was straining to keep track of the Impala, which was darting in and out of cars ahead. He almost lost it in the traffic on busy Kendall Boulevard.
Rick sped through traffic lights and ignored stop signs as the Impala bobbed and weaved, nearly running up on the sidewalk at one point, speeding up the ramp to the Palmetto Expressway. From what he could tell about the car's occupants, Padrón stayed pressed close to Martine, and he could only imagine her state of mind at present. His wife wasn't the most stable of women even in the best of times; in the past few months she'd been seeing a counselor for depression.
Hang in there, Martine,
he muttered. Despite their difficulties, she would expect him to do everything in his power to save her. Rick wouldn't disappoint herâthe consequences were unthinkable.
The expressway was its usual tangle of passenger cars and semis, with macho guys jockeying for every inch as they dodged from lane to lane, women laughing into cell phones pressed to their ears. Packs of commuters were scurrying home to outlying subdivisions. Overhead a 747 banked low, preparing to land at Miami International. Graffiti rushed by, spray painted on the metal guardrail in the median: SNOWBIRDS GO HOME. DOLPHINS ROCK. JULIO + ANA (TRULY).
The white Impala picked up speed, almost sideswiping a Mack truck. Rick jammed his foot down on the accelerator, raced past a school bus, barked out his location to Wally on the phone.
What happened next went down fast. The Impala, traveling an estimated hundred miles an hour in the passing lane, swerved to the right for a few seconds, almost clipping a red Mustang. When the Impala arced back into the passing lane, it skidded left into the grassy median.
Steer into the skid,
Rick thought. He had a moment of jubilation when Martine appeared to be doing just that, but before he could draw another breath, the Impala's tires bounced off the pavement so that the car slewed sideways into the median again. Miraculously, it straightened. Then it struck the metal barrier, sending up a plume of sparks.
For one heart-stopping, surreal moment, the Impala seemed frozen in midair, no longer a car but a graceful white wingless flying machine. Rick's brain struggled to make sense of the scene as the car with his wife inside proceeded to land on its roof with a deafening crash, immediately bursting into flames.
Rick ran toward the twisted wreckage, heart thudding against his ribs. Other motorists stopped, and cars slowed on the highway as drivers craned their heads in curiosity. The blaze made it impossible to see anything but the outline of the car, and the heat drove him backward. Then he spotted a patch of pale green in his peripheral vision, Martine's dress, and he changed direction, dreading what he would find when he reached her.
He knelt beside her, appalled by all the blood. Soon, sirens were keening all around as pulsing multicolored lights illuminated a nightmare scene of fire engines and police cars. Martine was unconscious, but she was alive. He let the paramedics push him aside, their brief, urgent words mere babble in his ears as they strapped Martine onto a stretcher and slid it into the ambulance.