We Will Be Crashing Shortly (6 page)

So, yeah, Ash may have been a selfish heartless narcissist, a greedy mean-spirited spineless sea urchin of a man, but he wasn’t a killer. Surely he wouldn’t stand by and allow his stepdaughter—let alone his biological mother—be burned alive in a windowless bathroom alongside the desecrated corpse of a torture victim. Right?

“Don’t kill the dog! We need the dog!” Ash shouted. The dog?
That bastard.

“We don’t need the dog
alive
,” Hackman shouted back. “Once this place burns down we can come back and dig through the rubble and dig it out. I’ll get another one just like it to show the insurance adjuster.”

“Where’s the claim ticket?”

“I thought you had it!” Hackman yelled angrily.

“What the hell?” Flo said, clutching the dog close to her. I could see the anger in her eyes. Perhaps she knew Ash better even than I did. “Ash Manning,” she shouted through the door, “don’t you dare burn us down.”

Ash either ignored her or didn’t hear her, because in that instant, in a loud
whoosh!,
I heard the bedroom ignite in a furious blaze. Oh, Christ, really? How cliché, burning the evidence of a crime scene. I should have known Ash would show zero imagination. I looked around the bathroom to see if there was anything I could use to help us escape.

“We gotta get outta here,” Flo unlocked our door and tried to push it open, only to find that Hackman had lowered the flip lock on the other side. I wasn’t surprised. Obviously this was why the lock was there in the first place, to keep Mr. Colgate locked inside while they held him hostage. How convenient it must have been for Hackman to use it on us. My blood boiled at the thought of him, all smug thinking he’d won one over on us. Flo kicked at the door furiously to no avail. It was solid wood, either a fluke of design for such a cheaply built house or, more chilling, a deliberate reinforcement for the purpose of its recent use. I extracted the handgun from the toilet and futilely tried to fire it against the door. The gun would be useless until the cartridges fully dried, so I put it in my pocket.

“Well, what the hell would MacGyver do?” Flo mused.

It was a legitimate question. Flo and I were both devoted fans of the old
MacGyver
TV series. We’d seen each episode at least four times, and some of our favorites up to ten. It had been our routine to watch two episodes each Wednesday night on Netflix, then quiz each other afterward. Flo in particular had an obsession that bordered on rabid. Long ago she’d tattooed “MacGyver” on her hip, and just this year she bought the actual houseboat that had been used as his home in the television series. She found it on eBay for just $36,000. Right now it’s docked at Grant’s Landing in Vancouver and uninhabitable, but it’s fun to go up there with her every few months or so to help her make repairs in the hopes that one day she may retire there, despite Flo’s adamant proclamation that she’ll retire when she’s dead.

At the thought of Flo dead, I shot into action, quickly rifling through the contents of the medicine cabinet, then looking under the sink. All I could find was four rolls of toilet paper, a 1981 issue of
Playboy
magazine, and a small container of dental floss. Perfect, I thought. I lifted the lid of the toilet and I tossed each roll of toilet paper into the water in order to quickly soak them through. Sodden rolls of toilet paper actually shrink in size but vastly increase in density, so the four of them end-to-end created a nice wet plug in order to keep the smoke and fire from seeping in from under the door. I left an opening about four inches wide directly under the doorknob, then ripped the cover from the magazine and slipped it through so it lay flat on the floor and flush next to the doorjamb, praying that the flames wouldn’t reach it.

Next I retrieved the knife blade that had broken from its handle when Flo stepped on Hackman’s hand earlier. It was a small paring blade, and I allowed myself a single cringe thinking about the agony it must have inflicted on poor Mr. Colgate, then I tied the blade to the end of the dental floss, anchoring the knot around a hole at its base, and slipped it through the crack at the top of the door.

Since this was an interior door there was no insulated stripping along the jamb, and the blade slipped through to the other side easily. I lowered it until I could feel it touch the magazine cover at the bottom. Luckily there was enough floss to traverse the length of the door as well as allow me to keep ahold of it from the other side.

“Flo, can you—gently—pull the magazine cover with the blade on top of it back inside the bathroom?” I directed her. She knew what I was aiming for; the blade served as a weight so we could loop the dental floss out and around the door. She did as I asked, then handed me the magazine cover with the small blade tucked between the breasts of the puffy-haired cover model.

“I think I know her,” Flo’s chuckle ended in a cough. The smoke was getting so thick it was starting to turn the room gray. The door, too, was getting hot. Flo twisted the doorknob in order to keep the tongue from blocking the string, and I wrapped each end of the floss around my hands and jostled the ends up and down the side crack of the doorjamb until I could feel it encounter the flip lock on the other side. A flip lock is only effective because of the tension created when the metal flap is in its down, or locked, position flat against the door. To unlock it you simply have to lift the metal flap to release the tension in its hinges; this allows the metal flap to turn parallel to the doorjamb, leaving the door free to open.

“Here goes nothing,” I said, and yanked up on the thin loop of twine. We heard the flip lock pop up from its hinges and Flo threw open the door.

The conditions were dire. The only area not engulfed in flames was the bathroom where we were standing. I ran back inside, grabbed the handheld shower nozzle, and cranked the water full blast. Flo had taken Mr. Colgate’s jacket from the towel rack and wrapped it around Trixi, holding the shaking bundle under her arm.

“What are we going to do?” she shouted before covering her mouth with the crook of her arm. My mind spun like a top, assessing our situation. We were surrounded by flames, and flames were even beginning to descend through the ceiling vent, which meant the roof was also on fire. The only thing keeping us from turning to charcoal was the flame-resistant ceramic tile in the bathroom and the pathetic spray of water from the shower nozzle.

Flo said something I couldn’t hear. “What?” I yelled back. She said it again. “What?”

She wrapped her free arm around me and buried her face into my neck. “I love you, kid,” she hollered.

I felt the panic well in my throat. Flo is giving up. If Flo is giving up it must be bad. “What’s that?” I asked.

“I said I love you,” she repeated.

“I mean what is that sound? Do you hear that?” I continued to spray the flames with the shower hose, but it was like spitting on a campfire, at best it was barely delaying the inevitable. Then there was the sound again. Was it . . . was that a
car horn
?

Suddenly the Humvee crashed through the wall of the bedroom like a military tank, which, come to think of it, is kind of what a Humvee was. The ceiling collapsed on top of it in a cascade of burning beams and plywood, not making a dent, not even slowing it down as it pulled up flush next to us and the door sprang open.

“Get in!” we heard Ms. Washington scream from behind the wheel.

No need to tell us twice. Flo and I both flew through the open door and barely had time to shut it before the tank ground into reverse and we barreled backward out the opening, over the shrubbery, and into the neighbor’s rosebushes. Ms. Washington shifted into drive and annihilated the rest of the landscaping as we tore out of there. When we passed the blaring fire trucks speeding in the other direction on the way to where we just came, the three of us were screaming at the tops of our lungs—from panic, fear, exhilaration, joy, you name it, we were screaming.

Flo and I both descended into fits of coughing. When we finally recovered, I climbed into the backseat and Flo remained up front. “What the hell are you doing driving this thing?” Flo wiped tears from her eyes and smiled at Ms. Washington. “Where’s Scooter?”

“He was inside Starbucks taking forever,” Ms. Washington said breathlessly. “He left your phone in the car, and you kept sending texts, and I didn’t think you had time to wait for him to get back. The keys were in the ignition so I just took off! When I got there I saw the place was on fire. I couldn’t believe how quickly it spread! I could see the two of you through the bedroom window, on the other side of the flames. There was no fire truck in sight so I just gunned it!”

She swerved to the right a bit and took down a road sign like it was a dried weed. “Oops,” she giggled.

“Ms. Washington,” I laughed, “be careful.”

“My name is Anita.”

We were still punch drunk as she popped a curb and traversed an irrigation ditch to pull into the Starbucks parking lot and screech to a stop next to a frowning Roundtree, who was holding a venti latte and tapping his foot impatiently. “Get in,” Anita hollered at him. Surprisingly he climbed into the backseat without complaint. As he settled himself next to me he sniffed the air with consternation.

“Flo,” he chided, “have you been smoking in my car again?”

“I guess you could say that,” Flo said, and we three collapsed into laughter again, which was brought to another level when Trixi wrestled free from her protective wrapping to spring into Roundtree’s lap, upsetting his treasured beverage.

But the giddiness was short-lived. Soon the gravity of our situation descended back upon us. After explaining what happened at the house, the question of going to the police was raised again. Anita exited at the next off ramp and pulled over.

“Let’s assess our situation,” she said. Did she really say that? (I couldn’t believe she said that.) Roundtree’s radio popped and crackled softly behind her. You’d think he’d have a decent antenna on this thing, I thought. This car probably only cost about a billion dollars. “The dog,” Anita continued. “Why do you think they need the dog?”

“I’ve thought about that,” I said. “Hackman said they didn’t need the dog alive, so maybe he thinks she ate something. I mean, when we walked inside she was in the hall closet, which must have been new because obviously she’d been living on whatever scraps were laying around the house until then, and when those ran out she was resorting to anything chewable—pizza containers, potato-chip bags, mail . . .”

“Maybe she ate an important letter,” Roundtree surmised.

“I doubt it,” Flo responded, lifting Trixi, who wriggled like a darling, yipping little squid. “Look at her, she’s half the size of a hamster. The only reason she didn’t starve is probably because of how little food she needs.”

“Well,” Anita said as she shifted the car back into gear. “Guess we need to feed her some canned pumpkin.”

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Child, seriously, have you not heard of the effects of canned pumpkin on the canine intestinal system? Three bites of this stuff and whatever’s inside that fluffy little mutt will come shooting out like liquid lightning.”

Roundtree groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

Forty-five minutes later we were in the parking lot of the nearest Kroger. Flo and I sat on the Humvee’s open tailgate sucking on popsicles to soothe our smoke-sore throats while Roundtree had found another Starbucks and was off ordering another ridiculous $8 concoction. “I can’t watch this,” he’d grumbled as he left.

Anita was in the backseat gently feeding Trixi another plastic spoonful of canned pumpkin. The poor pup was so starving she hardly needed coaxing. The can was twice as big as she was, but she was halfway through it and still eating when the stuff started coming out the other end. Luckily Flo had thought to buy pee pads and line the seat before Fifi Trixibelle’s feasting began.

“Who wants to dig through the poo?” Anita asked, offering a plastic spoon in our direction. Flo and I looked at each other expectantly. “C’mon, you’re the flight attendant,” I told her. “You dig through crap all the time.”

I was hardly exaggerating. It’s stupefying all the stuff flight attendants are trained to deal with in the course of their professions. Flo alone has encountered enough heart attacks on her flights to fill an ER ward. People were constantly fainting, vomiting, explosive diarrhea-ing, and
dying
onboard planes inflight. Because where did they have to go up there? It’s not like each airplane had an emergency room like they probably should, though recently the airlines had added defibrillators on each of the planes in their fleets and now flight attendants were required to complete annual training on how to use them. I was only bringing this up to demonstrate that Flo had a lot more experience with handling bodily fluids than I did.

“Fine,” Flo grumbled, then snatched the spoon from Anita’s hand and began her task. It didn’t take long before she found something. “Uh, what’s this?” Flo asked, lifting the spoon so Anita could get a better look. Roundtree, who was a few steps within reaching the car on his way back from his Starbucks mission, immediately turned around and began walking in the opposite direction.

“Looks like a piece of a postage stamp,” said Anita. “Dogs like to eat the sticky stuff on the back sometimes.” I smiled in agreement.

“You sure know a lot of trivial stuff,” Flo told her.

“I like surfing the Internet at work so I can look busy while I’m ignoring all the customers in line at the DMV,” Anita said.

“You’d make a good flight attendant,” Flo complimented her. “Ignoring customers is my specialty. I don’t even bother to look busy while I do it.”

Both women laughed while Flo wiped the soiled stamp onto a napkin to set aside and continued her task. “Found something . . . it’s a dime. Ooh, here’s something . . . looks like the ear pad off a set of headphones. Okay, what’s this? I think it’s a button . . . yep, button . . .”

Roundtree had approached and retreated so many times during this interlude that it almost looked like he was walking in circles. His radio continued to crackle softly. I had no idea which station he was playing, but whatever it was I kept thinking I heard my name.