Don’t Blink

Then I was ru

Like someone’s life depended on it.

Chapter 65

I WAS NOW the designated madman on the street, the guy covered in white powder, with smoldering clothes and charred skin, with singed hair and desperate eyes.

With each frantic step I kept looking around me, hoping that I’d spot Phalen.

Was that Derrick over there by the fire hydrant?

No.

Was that him on the stoop?

Dammit! No again.

I kept banging into people, forcing my way across the street. It was a block party of lookie-loos, my burning car at the center of it, me as the other story of interest.

I reached the front of Phalen’s brownstone and bounded up the steps, my arms pumping. The front door was locked – shit! – so I turned to the column of buzzers off to the side. I dug into my pocket for his apartment number. I remembered I’d written it on the back of his business card.

3C!

I pounded my fist against the buzzer. The seconds took forever as I waited for a response. Plausible scenarios zoomed through my head. Derrick was in the shower. Taking a nap. Not home yet. Anything but what I feared.

I kept stabbing the buzzer, when the front door suddenly opened. A man in a bathrobe was coming to see about the commotion on the street.

“Hey, what’s your problem?” he said as I nearly knocked him over to get inside.

The stairwell was straight ahead. Two by two I took the steps, turning the corner to the second floor, then the third. The man in the bathrobe was still yelling at me, threatening to call the cops.

I sca

It was locked. Of course it was.

I hammered on the door, calling out Derrick’s name. Please be there!

The more I pounded, the less hope I had, though.

I turned around, searching for something to help break down the damn door. Then I figured out what I needed. Hell, I was practically wearing the answer.

But there was no fire extinguisher in the hallway on Derrick’s floor.

I dashed up to the fourth floor. Yes! Near the top of the stairs was a large canister, polished red and silver. I ripped it from the wall. Then I raced back downstairs to Phalen’s door, smashing it as hard as I could over and over, definitely looking like a madman now.

Finally the door splintered. I was able to get at the locks. Then the door flew open. I was just about to call out Derrick’s name.

Instead I fell to my knees. I was staring into what had once been Derrick Phalen’s eyes.

Part Four. BURDEN OF PROOF

Chapter 66

I FOUND MYSELF back down on the street again, talking to detectives from the local precinct, when I spotted somebody arriving on the scene, somebody who I really didn’t want to talk to right now, or even see.

Officially, the Manhattan DA was out of his jurisdiction up here in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Unofficially, he didn’t seem to care.

Nor did the two detectives who were interviewing me. Receiving nothing more than a nod from Sorren, they both backed away.

Sorren lit a cigarette and gave me a quick head to toe. First things first: “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think so.”

In that case…

Sorren took a step forward, getting in my face. “Then what were you thinking?”

I rose from the bumper of the ambulance to stand closer to him, toe to toe. I’d never felt more drained and upset, but I wasn’t about to be pushed around by him, or anybody else at the crime scene. I was one of the victims here, wasn’t I? Sure I was.

“I told you what I was thinking in your office. Remember? You told me I had no evidence. You insinuated I should try and find some.”

Sorren swatted his hand in the air incredulously. “So you go to the OCTF and bullshit a prosecutor about your writing an article?”

“How’d you hear that?” I asked.

“I spoke to Phalen’s boss, a man named Ian LaGrange, on the way over here. He said you lied to both of them.”

“He’s right, I did lie. That’s why Phalen wanted nothing to do with me,” I said. “I was here to try and change his mind. That’s all.”

Sorren smirked. I’m sure he knew that probably wasn’t true – not with Phalen murdered and me narrowly escaping the same fate. “Listen to me, Nick,” he said, his tone sharpening to an edge. “The time to protect Phalen was when he was still alive.”

Whoa. That stung. I was already beating myself up over getting Derrick involved in this mess. The self-inflicted guilt was bad enough. The Sorren-inflicted guilt just made it that much worse.

But he was right. Suddenly I was reminded that Sorren was a very bright guy and that I needed him, possibly just to stay alive.

“Derrick Phalen was helping me,” I admitted. “He told me he’d discovered something big and that it would blow my mind.”

“All right. That’s good. So what was it?”

“He was supposed to share it with me tonight. That’s why I came here. I’m telling the truth, David. I’m totally leveling with you.”

“You have no idea what it might be?” asked Sorren. “Don’t try and have it both ways, Nick.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I have no idea. None.”

“Fuck.”

“You’ve got that right.”

Sorren took a last desperate drag off his cigarette, throwing it at the ground. I watched as he gave it an angry twist with his heel.

Of course, if I’d been looking up instead of down, I would’ve seen the man who was charging straight for me, his fist cocked, his nose just about blowing steam.

But it was like everything else that had happened that terrible night.

I never saw it coming.

Chapter 67

MY RIGHT CHEEK imploded, the pain so quick and fierce I thought I’d been hit by a crosstown bus.

In a way I had. Ian LaGrange, all six feet four inches and nearly three hundred pounds of him, had stormed right past Sorren to sucker punch me square in the face, and as I fell helplessly back against the ambulance behind me, I could hear him screaming at the top of his fire-breathing lungs.

“LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE, YOU SON OF A BITCH! LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE!”

And he was far from done himself.

He lunged for me again, his long and powerful arms flailing in the air. Were it not for Sorren stepping in to block him, he would’ve probably knocked me out cold, then smashed my face into pieces. As it was, I was seeing stars and a variety of bright colors that weren’t in my usual palette.

“Stop it! Calm down!” barked Sorren, pushing him back – or at least trying to. LaGrange outweighed Sorren by a hundred pounds easy, and he wasn’t about to be denied another crack at me.

That is, until Sorren tried a different tact. While LaGrange continued shouting about me being the reason Derrick Phalen had been murdered, Sorren reminded the guy that we weren’t alone.

Uh, hello? Did you not see the news vans?

“Look around you, LaGrange!” said Sorren through clenched teeth. “This isn’t the place.”

That did the trick for some reason or another. LaGrange’s rage was trumped only by his desire not to be fodder for every news outlet in the city, not to mention his becoming the latest sensation on YouTube. With reporters and their cameramen literally sprinting toward us, LaGrange immediately backed off.

“Nothing to see here, folks!” a

Reluctantly, they took his word for it.

Sorren waited impatiently until it was just the three of us again. He turned to LaGrange.

“Do me a favor, Ian,” he said calmly. “I need you to give the detectives whatever personal information you can on Phalen – next of kin, exact title with the Task Force, et cetera… Nothing that they can run with.”