I moved it aside slowly. My eyes focused on the scene in front of me and I had to turn away. And then I started to cry.
…who art all-good and deserving of all my love.
It wasn't Dan.
I covered my eyes with both hands and wept. It wasn't him. Crying made my head hurt more and sobbing made it harder to breathe and I was boiling in that giant coat so I unzipped and let it slide down to the floor like the weight that had just slipped off my shoulders. The cool air that brushed against my damp skin felt like-tasted like-relief and I tried to pull it in in long, deep breaths. It wasn't him.
It was someone in a Majestic uniform. When the spasms stopped, I turned back to the gruesome sight. He was stomach down on the bag belt with his arms draped over either side. His left hand was in front of me, twisted back against the ground, palm up, and I felt some of the weight return because this man had long, slender fingers, fingers that I remembered from the coffee shop, ones that I had held in my own hand just a few hours ago. It was Angelo. I looked for his face, and when I saw it, bile came up the back of my throat, my stomach lurched in a dry heave, and I had to look away again. No wonder there was so much blood. His head was crushed, smashed between the belt and defective safety door that had dropped like a guillotine and cracked open his skull.
I felt it before I heard it. The pressure in the room shifted. The tarps snapped around me. The door slammed shut. By the time the hollow boom had finished caroming off the bare walls, I was on my knees, crouched, listening. The sound of the storm was gone. The tarps were still. It was perfectly quiet, and if I was really lucky, the door had slammed shut all by itself.
I crouched lower, trying to listen with my whole body. And then I heard him coming, not by the sound of his footsteps, but by the sound of his fingers sliding along the tarps. I tried not to panic even though I could barely move. Better to look around for a way out.
There was a door, the door to the terminal, and it wasn't that far away. If I moved now, I could get there before he cleared the last drop cloth. But I had to go… now. I lunged out of the crouch, covering the distance to the door faster than I would have thought possible. I slammed my shoulder into the door-and it didn't move. It had to open. This door was not supposed to lock from this side. It was fire code. I pushed again and then again, but it was solid. I was trapped.
The sound of brushing fingers had stopped. He'd heard me. I imagined his head cocked just like mine, the two of us mirror images reacting to each other. Maybe I could make it to my radio and call for help. Maybe I should hide. Maybe-
"Goddammit, who the hell is in here?"
If the door hadn't been there to catch me, I would have sunk all the way to the floor. My legs turned wobbly and all my bones seemed to dissolve as the tension flowed out. I closed my eyes and called out. "Dan?"
"Boss?"
I pushed toward him, and when I saw him I couldn't keep from wrapping my arms around his neck. Even though he was wet from the storm and ice covered his jacket, all I felt was his warm, living, breathing, completely intact body. He held me until I was ready to let go; then I stepped back so I could see his face. He looked so bewildered it made me laugh. "I thought you were dead."
"I'm not dead."
"Clearly. Where have you been?"
"Out looking for you. I found Angie and, Jesus, I nearly puked all over the place, and then I put my radio down somewhere and I couldn't remember where I'd left it-"
"We have to get out of here." I pushed him toward the door.
"Why?"
"Because the door to the terminal is jammed and I think Little Pete did it and there's no other way out. Come on, come on, let's go."
He didn't budge. "Dan…"
"You can't go out there like that. Don't you have a coat?"
He was right. I went back for the coat, trying not to look at the body as I slipped it on. When we were both bundled up, we stood at the door preparing to go back out to the ramp and meet the storm's fury.
"Ready?" His voice was muted by the thick muffler twisted around his neck.
I pushed in close behind him and gave him a nudge. He leaned into the door, and the second it was open, the wind seemed to catch it and pull it out of his hands. The blast of air that hit me was so cold, it burned my eyes shut and I was blind. I heard a loud crack, my head snapped back, and I fell backward, landing hard on my tailbone. Something landed on my chest and stayed there, something heavy enough to crush the air out of my lungs. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. The bag room was spinning. I tried to throw off the weight.
"Jesus fucking Christ. Jesus Christ-"
The weight on my chest was Dan. He was on top of me trying to get up, and I was trying to get out from under him. My forehead was throbbing, the coat felt like a straitjacket, and I couldn't think straight. I couldn't think at all. The door slammed and it was quiet. Dan rolled off and I sat up. When my vision finally cleared, my brain unscrambled, and the fog lifted, I was staring up, way up, into the face of Little Pete Dwyer.
"You people," he said, shaking his head, "you goddamned people. You just couldn't leave it alone."
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Dan made it to his feet before I did, then reached down and offered his hand to help me up. If he'd been a few inches shorter, he would have broken my nose when our heads collided. As it was, he'd cracked me pretty good in the forehead. I reached up and touched the throbbing, tender welt that was forming there.
Little Pete was like a mountain in front of the door. Dan was a foot and a half shorter and gave up at least fifty pounds to the guy, but that didn't faze him. "Get the fuck out of the way," he demanded.
The bigger man glanced down. "What are you gonna do if I don't? Write me up? Put a letter in my personnel file?"
He sounded calm, bemused even, but the scar above his eye was fresh and angry. He'd just come in from a raging storm, and I found it very disturbing that he wasn't wearing a coat. All he had on was his winter uniform over a T-shirt. The long sleeves were rolled up, the better to display those club-like forearms. He wasn't shivering. I didn't see any goose bumps. Whatever was burning inside him tonight seemed to be keeping him plenty warm-but it was making me shiver.
Dan made a sudden move toward the door. Little Pete raised one arm, putting his fingers on Dan's chest and stopping him cold. "Take a step back," he warned with a quiet resolve that I would have expected from his father but not from him. "Take a step back," he said, more slowly this time, "and give me your radio."
"Go fuck yourself, Junior."
I felt a warning tremor inside as Little Pete moved out of the doorway, pushing Dan in front of him. As he did, he turned slightly and my tremors escalated to a full-blown temblor. He had a gun. It was black and flat and stuffed down into the back of his pants. The handle was smooth, and though it looked very large to me, the weapon seemed like a toy against the broad expanse of his back.
"He doesn't have a radio," I said quickly, shifting to auto-rational. "Take mine." I fumbled the heavy unit from my pocket and offered it to him.
Little Pete was still staring at Dan. "I know he had a radio. I heard him using it."
"It's lost in here somewhere. We don't know where it is." I pushed my radio toward him again. "Here's mine."
When he turned to face me squarely, I saw the dark stains on the front of his shirt-dark and wet. While I was staring at the blood, Angelo's blood, he took the radio from my hand and, with what seemed like a casual flick of the wrist, sent it rocketing across the room and exploding against the only cement wall that wasn't blocked by plastic. I stared at the ruined pieces on the ground, and then I was staring at the red stains on my own shoes. We both had Angelo's blood on us.