Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(75)

And it was why Foxx didn’t want to tell me—until it was done.

The van landed with a horrific thud on its side, crashing into the far guardrail, before flipping over on its roof. What remained of all four tires were still spinning amid a cloud of smoke and dust as we started running toward it, guns drawn. The cruiser, bringing up the distant rear the whole way, nearly hit us as it slammed on its brakes. The two cops had barely opened their doors when Foxx tossed one of them his ID.

“Two ambulances,” he said. “Call it in.”

I was pissed at Foxx. Not because he might have just gotten Sadira killed or that he’d kept me in the dark leading up to it. No. I was pissed because I knew he was right and there was nothing I could do about it. He did what had to be done.

Whoever wanted Sadira wasn’t one of us. And if she wasn’t in our hands, she couldn’t be in anyone else’s. It was as simple—and cutthroat—as that.

“I’ve got the driver,” I told Foxx.

He nodded, sidestepping to the passenger side of the van as I hung by the taillight for a moment in case he needed backup. “Unconscious. Pulse, though,” he called out.

I edged up to the driver’s side door, what remained of it. The van had landed so hard upside down, the door was half collapsed against the road. Bending down, I could still see behind the wheel. Only there was nothing to see.

“Over here!” came a voice behind me.

It was one of the cops from the cruiser. Before I even turned around I knew what he’d found. The driver.

Foxx stayed with the van as I went over to look. The driver had been thrown. More like launched. He was on his back. No pulse. No face either. The impact and his sliding across the asphalt rendered the front of him a bloody mess of ripped flesh and exposed bone.

“Jesus,” muttered the second cop, joining us. He quickly looked away while gagging.

“I need your cuffs,” I told the first cop.

I hustled over to Foxx. He’d just pulled out the guy from the passenger seat and was giving him a quick frisk as he lay on the ground. He was now conscious, moaning. I could barely hear him, though, over the backdrop of honking horns. We’d turned the Henry Hudson Parkway into a parking lot. Right in time for rush hour.

“You recognize him?” asked Foxx, taking the cuffs.

“Not a clue,” I said.

“What about his partner?”

“His own mother couldn’t recognize him now.”

“Any ID on him?”

But by then I was already on the move again.

There had been no thinking when Foxx and I first approached the van. Only training. First things first, eliminate any threat.

With one guy wearing cuffs and the other about to be fitted with a toe tag, I could think of only one thing now. The back of the van.

Sadira.

What would I find when I opened the door?





CHAPTER 107


IF I could open the door.

It was jammed shut, the hinges buckled and wedged against the frame. I tucked my gun and pulled as hard as I could on the handle, but nothing was budging.

Sadira had been bound and gagged when they loaded her into the van. All I wanted was some sort of signal from her. Any sound would do. I pounded my fist against the door. “Sadira? Can you hear me?”

Only I couldn’t even hear myself. The car horns had been joined by a chorus of sirens off in the distance.

“What?” I said to Foxx.

He was still alongside the van. I couldn’t make out what he’d said. He tried for a second time, yelling. “We need to get out of here!”

I heard him. Sort of. The words went in my ears, except they didn’t register. I was only focused on Sadira.

Again, I pounded while calling her name. Was she conscious? Was she even alive? I pressed my ear hard against the door, desperately trying to listen. I was about to keep pounding when suddenly I heard it. Her. Ever so faintly. The muffled sound of her trying to say something through whatever they’d used to gag her. It was one word. “Help.”

I called out to Foxx. Maybe the two of us pulling could open the door. “Get over here!”

“No, you come here!” he said.

I stepped around to the side of the van to see him lifting the guy he’d pulled out. Foxx was putting him over his shoulder. He didn’t have to explain why.

The smoke billowing up had turned into flames. The engine was on fire.

Cars only explode in the movies if the flames reach the gas tank, and it’s near empty. Fire plus fuel plus compressed air equals boom.

“Go ahead, get him out of here,” I said. “Get yourself out of here.”

“Where’s Sadira?” he asked.

“Still inside.”

Foxx looked at me. It was all in his eyes. Your call, Reinhart. Only we both knew what I was going to do.

“I’ll come back to help,” he said.

“Don’t you dare.”

I ducked down and climbed through the passenger side window, the flames now shooting through the air vents. I didn’t know what I had, seconds or minutes. The fire could rocket into the fuel line at any moment.

I called out Sadira’s name yet again, the back of the van so thick with smoke I could barely see.

But I heard her. Even with her mouth gagged she was able to make enough noise.