Assassin's Apprentice: Chapter 4

4.

“What the hell is that?” Harper asked, slowing the car.

Thick white smoke swirled around the road directly in front of them as if some ten-story cloud had dropped down from the sky and was melting all over the place. Harper could barely see the road more than twenty yards ahead. It reminded her of the way old movies portrayed the entrance to heaven.

“There’s his car,” Herb said. He pointed at Jimmy’s patrol car parked at a sloppy angle on the side of the road, the driver’s door left wide open, the mike dangling from the radio. He’d left in a hurry.

“You see him?” Harper asked.

“I can’t see shit,” Herb said.

She honked the horn repeatedly, squinting into the white smoke. The only other sound was Mikey snoring lightly in the back seat.

Herb rubbed his eyes. “Where’s that damned smoke coming from?”

“I don’t know. Better call Judy, have her send Teddy out here with the firetruck. He appreciates any excuse to put that hat on.”

“What about an ambulance?”

Harper nodded. “Just to be safe.” She parked behind Jimmy’s cruiser and got out of the car. On the rear bumper of his car were the shredded remains of a bumper sticker that once said: Cops Have Hard Nightsticks. The first time she’d seen it, she’d made him take it off; she could still see Jimmy’s fingernail trails on the last few scraps he’d tried to scratch away.

Harper could taste the fear on her tongue. She pulled her gun from her holster, holding it at her side and pointing away from her leg like her father had taught her. Finger lightly on the trigger.