The Dirty Secrets Club Read Free Page B

and death. And nobody here could be helped by a Band-Aid.
    Jo exhaled. There was litter everywhere—the dirt, mess, and stink of every crash site. She saw bandages and ripped packaging, caps from disposable syringes, an IV line that had fallen to the ground. This chaos had been created by rescuers' frenzy to save lives. Somebody had survived the collision, at least long enough for the paramedics to arrive.
    "How many?" she said.
    "Four dead, five injured."
    The BMW had hammered down onto another vehicle. She couldn't identify the make, but painted on a door the firefighters had pried open was Golden Gate Shuttle. The BMW had speared through the roof of an airport shuttle minivan.
    A forensic team was collecting evidence. The medical examiner was bent over his equipment case. A police photographer snapped photos. Each flash of the camera was like a silent shriek.
    The deformations of wrecked machinery always shocked her. Once-gleaming metal had shredded, collapsed, been strewn across the road like bomblets. Like the lives of the people inside. Fragmented into shards of remembrance that cut like shrapnel. Firefighting foam lingered on the street, though there had been no fire. She saw no charring, smelled the residual stink of gasoline, not burnt rubber. Not, thank God, burnt flesh.
    Two police officers unfurled a blue plastic tarp to cover the worst of whatever could be seen from the bridge.
    The cop cleared his throat. "Medics had to amputate one guy's arm to get him out."
    The officers slid the tarp across the top of the minivan. God, Jo thought, what a lousy job they had. You had to admire these guys.
    She studied the bridge. It was illuminated by bright kitschy signs for the Green Door Massage Parlor and Tunnel Top Bar. The posts that made up the bridge railing were concrete. The BMW had slammed through them like they were Lego blocks. The words ramming speed sprang to mind.
    Beyond the bridge, Stockton Street ran uphill. For two blocks here, Stockton was a split-level road. The original street ran over the crest of the hill, and was lined with apartment buildings. Directly below it, the tunnel cut through the base of the hill, straight across to Chinatown. It looked like a throat. And it could collapse like a crushed windpipe, she knew. All it would take was a magnitude nine quake.
    The cop nodded at a woman standing near the mouth of the tunnel. "That's Tang."
    He caught her attention. She walked over like somebody who'd been in a rush her whole life and was still scrapping to get ahead. She was tiny, sheathed in black, with hair spiked like a hedgehog. Her cheeks were red, but she looked contemptuous of the cold. She also looked chilled to the bone. She extended her hand.
    "Dr. Beckett?"
    They shook, and she lifted the police tape to let Jo duck under.
    "What do you have for me?" Jo said.
    Instead of enlightenment, Tang gave Jo the once-over, eyeing her Doc Martens, combats, jean jacket, red scarf wound around her neck for warmth, brown hair that tumbled in random curls down her back. Tang's expression was cool. Maybe she thought Jo looked a mess, or too young. Jo didn't care. Her clothes were functional, easy to run in, though she hadn't been called here to deal with a violent psychotic. Nobody was going to grab her by the neck and try to strangle her. She wouldn't have to run, or jump out a window, or kick anybody with the good heavy toes of her boots. Not tonight.
    Nobody at this scene was going anywhere.
    Tang scanned Jo's face, as cops do. They gauge anxiety and truthfulness and the potential for violence, but Tang was also doing the standard California genealogy check. What are you? Tang was herself San Francisco Chinese, Jo guessed from the name and the California accent. She seemed to be searching for some box to tick.
    "What's your rush to get me involved?" Jo said.
    Tang gave her a shrewd glance. She knew that Jo Beckett, M.D., was not a first responder but a last resort.
    "The driver of the BMW was Callie