Blind Panic Read Free Page A

baby as high as she could and begged her, “Save my little boy, please.”
    Jasmine leaned over the edge of the van’s roof and tried to take hold of the baby’s hands, but he kept waving his arms and she couldn’t reach him. “Ma’am—can you lift him just a little higher?” she asked.
    “I can’t. Both of my legs are trapped.”
    “Okay, then, I’ll see if I can climb down farther.”
    There was another explosion, much closer this time. The woman said, “Oh my God, listen to all of those poor people!”
    Jasmine managed to get a grip on the van’s side mirror with her left hand, and lean over a few inches farther. She touched the baby’s fingertips with her fingertips, and suddenly the baby stopped crying and blinked up at her in bewilderment. He lifted up one hand toward her, and in that instant Jasmine thrust herself over the edge of the van’s roof as far as she dared and snatched the sleeve of his pale blue romper suit.
    For one instant she thought that she had reached out too far, and that she was going to drop the baby and fall on top of him. But with something between a grunt and a scream, she heaved herself back upward, inch by inch, even though the mirror that she was holding onto was gradually bending.
    “Please take care of him,” said the baby’s mother.
    “Of course,” Jasmine told her. “You’ll be okay. The rescue services will be here any minute—they’ll get you out.”
    The young woman gave her a panicky, wide-eyed stare, as if she didn’t believe her for an instant.
    Jasmine climbed back toward the edge of the off-ramp, holding the struggling baby close to her chest. As she reached the retaining wall, she heard another explosion, right behind her, and then another. She turned around and saw that the young mother’s SUV was blazing fiercely, and that she was sitting in her seat, shaking her head from side to side in agony. The young man beside her was still leaning against the steering wheel, not moving at all.
    “Oh, dear God,” said Jasmine. “How could you let this happen?”
    But more and more vehicles exploded with a series of bangs that made Jasmine’s ears ring. By the time she reached the main highway, the smoke was so thick that she could hardly see where she was going. She could hear fire truckswhooping and warbling and blasting their horns, but there was no way that they could force their way through a half mile tangle of wrecked vehicles to reach the off-ramp.
    Jasmine kept on walking along the side of the freeway, with the wailing, wriggling baby held tight against her shoulder. “There,” she kept saying, patting his back. “Everything’s going to be fine, l’il feller. You just wait and see. Everything’s going to come up roses.”
    At last they were clear of the smoke. Jasmine kept on walking in the hot morning sunshine and didn’t once look back, even when she heard more explosions, and more echoes of explosions. Just before she reached the off-ramp that would take her down to Alameda Street, the baby fell asleep, snuffling and bubbling against her neck. She couldn’t even guess what he was dreaming about.

C HAPTER F OUR
    Miami, Florida
    “I dreamed that my driver took me to the the Classic Grille. I just had to have one of their lobster-and-crab burgers. My driver opened the door of the car for me, and I high stepped it into the restaurant as if I was a fashion model. Everybody turned to look at me, but I stuck up my nose and swung my pearl necklace around like I really didn’t care. It was only then that the maître d’ said, ‘Hasn’t madame forgotten something?’ I said, ‘I don’t think so, Luigi. What?’
    “He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, ‘ Madame is wearing no clothes.’
    “I looked down and he was right. Except for my pearls and my black patent Prada pumps, I was absolutely butt-naked. Brazilian and all, for pity’s sake.”
    I almost choked on my rainbow-colored cocktail, and if you had ever seen Mrs. Zlotorynski,