Flashpoint Read Free

right ear had the crumpled look of charred foil.
    Nothing left of the right hand. Sonora saw the whiteness of bone. The left hand had a blackened lump of flesh at the end, like an infant’s curled fist.
    Sonora turned on her recorder. “Mr. Daniels, I’m Specialist Sonora Blair, Cincinnati Police.”
    He moved his head. She said it again and connected suddenly with the good eye. He focused on her face, and Sonora had the odd sensation that she and Daniels were worlds away from the doctors, the technicians, the bright, intrusive lights.
    â€œI’m going to ask you some questions about your assailant. Mr. Daniels? Shake your head yes or no. Okay? You with me here?”
    He nodded his head, smearing stickiness on the white sheet. The thick tube of the respirator parted the melted lips, expanded and deflated the scorched lungs.
    â€œDid … do you know your assailant?”
    Daniels did not respond, but his eyes were locked with hers. He was thinking. He nodded, finally.
    â€œHad you known him long?”
    Daniels shook his head.
    â€œNot long?”
    He shook his head. Kept shaking it.
    â€œMet him tonight?”
    Nodded his head, then turned it from side to side. Sonora wondered if he was connecting. But the awareness was there, in the eyes. Something he was trying to tell her. She frowned, thought about it.
    Ground zero, she thought. “Man or woman. Mr. Daniels, was your assailant a man?”
    The head shake. Vigorous. Not a man.
    Wife, Sonora thought. Ex-wife. Girlfriend.
    â€œYour assailant was a woman?”
    Sonora stepped to one side, out of the doctor’s way. But she caught his response. “Witness indicates the assailant was a woman,” she said for the benefit of the recorder. “Someone you know?”
    Back to that again. No.
    â€œWife?” No. “Girlfriend?” No. “Just pick her up tonight?”
    That was it. A stranger.
    He was fading on her. “Young?” she asked. “Under thirty?”
    He focused again, aware and intent, in spite of the chaos of the ER, the sensory overload. Sonora had a sudden strong feeling that he wanted her to touch him.
    She was afraid to. Afraid she would cause pain, infection, the wrath of the doctors.
    Sonora tried to remember the rest of her questions. Daniels watched her, his eyes large and lidless. The fire had stripped him to almost embryonic form.
    Sonora laid two fingers on the blackened flesh of his arm and thought she saw some kind of acknowledgment in his eyes. Likely her imagination.
    Questions, she thought. Get this man’s killer.
    â€œYoung?” she asked again. “Under thirty?”
    He hesitated. Nodded.
    â€œBlack?”
    No.
    â€œWhite?”
    Yes.
    â€œProstitute?”
    Hesitation. No.
    Young. White. Not a prostitute. Maybe.
    â€œBlack hair?”
    No.
    â€œBlond?”
    Yes. Definite.
    â€œEyes,” Sonora said. “Blue?”
    He was going on her.
    â€œBrown?”
    Something about him changed. An alarm went off, the doctor shouted clear. Sonora stepped away from the table and ducked out from under the white curtains. She knew without looking that the EKG monitor would be flat.

3
    Officer Finch stood in a hushed circle of uniformed cops, telling and retelling his story, answering questions. Sonora paused but kept walking. Talking would be therapeutic, at least, and Finch was young to be racking up nightmares. They seemed to be hiring them right out of the nursery.
    There’d be no playing it close on this one. The cops wouldn’t talk to civilians, but the hospital people would. They were the worst, even ahead of lawyers. Putting something in a medical record was worse than telling Oprah and Phil, though not as bad as faxing Geraldo.
    â€œSpecialist Blair!”
    Sonora glanced sideways. Channel 81’s Tracy Vandemeer moved close, trailed by cameras. No other press around. At the crime scene, Sonora thought. It was where she wanted to be. She waved