Leslie Glass: A Killing Gift

"It's okay, baby." He tried to reassure her that she was a hero, she'd done right, but the words came out more like a moan.

Pain cut through his body, and anxiety cut even deeper. He'd failed again in the saving department. Then his thoughts switched over to smells. He couldn't help being aware of odors. When he was happy, when he was sad, when he was making love to Lisa they could distract him. During disasters especially, his emotions could easily be derailed by his olfactory sense. When his mother was dying of liver cancer three years ago, he'd rushed to the hospital hoping to make it in time. When he got there and saw that she was gone, he couldn't feel the terrible loss because the sheet covering her body had the incongruous odor of wet rubber. So wrong for her, who'd always smelled of the delicate tea rose. After a lifetime of wearing it, she had had the perfume lodged so deep in her pores it seemed part of her. And yet it was the odor of wet rubber that stuck with him. He was like a dog that way.

Now, lying on the damp cement and fearing another death, Jack was aware only of the agony of broken bones, and the smell of strong garlic and stale cigarette smoke. The mountain of a man who was holding him down had breath that could kill. But the sidewalk under his body also had a smell. So had the girl he'd tried to save; so did the bark and new leaves of the venerable Washington Square trees. Right at that moment Jack Devereaux could have named all the smells of flat-on-the-ground Washington Square. A faint odor of urine, too, from the dogs. What else? Something about the guy struck a chord. He couldn't pin it down. Then his thoughts spun back to the woman surrounded by cops on the ground near him. Dear God, he didn't want to have hesitated and been too late.

"Please… is she okay?" His voice was like ashes in his throat. Everything in his life had changed two weeks ago, but he still sounded pathetic, like someone who had no control over his life.

"Whose dog is this?" The question did not come from the mountain with the horrific breath. A new person had arrived. This one smelled of leather and bay rum aftershave.

"Mine." Jack tried to reach out with his other hand, his left one, but Sheba was beyond his reach, too. The chocolate lab also had a strong smell. It was always comforting to him. Now, restrained by a stranger holding her leash, she whined from the bottom of her soul. Boss, boss, boss. Get over here.

"How are you doing?" The new person squatted by his side. Jack saw his mustache and thought cop, not doctor. "I don't know," he said honestly.

"Looks like your arm is broken. I'm Lieutenant Sanchez. We're going to move you in a minute. Can you give me your name and address? Someone to call?"

"Is she all right?" Jack asked about the woman.

"Yeah." The word came out curt. "She's all right. Your name?"

"Jack Devereaux."

There was silence for a moment. It was always like that these days. As soon as people heard Jack's name, it hit the famous-name register. Yeah, know that one. A celeb. New York was full of them. But Jack was a recent celeb. He wasn't used to it.

"The Jack Devereaux?" the lieutenant said after a beat.

"Which would that be?" Jack might be paralyzed for life, but he couldn't resist playing out the famous-name game.

"Creighton Blackstone's son?" Already amazement was sounding in the officer's voice.

Jack and the rest of the world were pretty much with him on that one. Shock had echoed around the globe. It was difficult to believe that one of the founding fathers of the Internet, a man with a large empire, whose life had been written about and dissected a hundred times, had actually died leaving an heir no one knew he had. Including and especially the heir himself. Jack Devereaux, a perfectly ordinary young man, nobody of note, was suddenly immensely wealthy. Or soon to be wealthy. Who'd have thunk?

"Yes, sir, I am," Jack admitted. Until two weeks ago he'd been a young entrepreneur struggling to build his own Internet company. And his mother, bitter to the end because her husband had left her long before making his fortune and having to share it with her, had never told him.

Lieutenant Sanchez's response to the news was a low whistle. "Well, you've got another feather now. You just saved a cop's life," he said.

"That woman was a cop?" Jack was shocked. "She wasn't in uniform."

"She's a sergeant. Did you get a look at the attacker?"

Jack searched his mind, and the moment of chaos flashed back. He'd been walking in the fog with Sheba. He'd heard indistinct noises, like shuffling, scuffling. It had sounded like dancing on leaves until Sheba stiffened and began to whine and pull on the leash.

Despite his unwillingness to go in that direction, she'd dragged him closer. At first the blurred silhouette of two bodies moving apart, then together gave him the impression of a modern dance of some kind. But he heard grunts, and finally realized that what looked like an embrace was in fact a judo hold. Sheba was lunging on the leash and he dashed forward without thinking of anything more than to stop what he and the dog knew was a mugging.

He called out, reached out. The man dropped the girl and spun around behind his body so fast that Jack could not see his face or even get an impression of how tall he was. He turned blindly with no plan at all, just turned to where the danger was. As he turned, the man grabbed his arm and used his own weight to flip him. He didn't know if it was the hold or the fall that broke his arm. All he knew was that Sheba lunged at his attacker with her powerful teeth bared, and the man took off. It all happened in seconds.

"No. I didn't see him," he said finally.

Two medics interrupted the questions. Lieutenant Sanchez stepped back to let them do their work. Jack wanted to hang onto him, but a woman with a crew cut took his place, crouching down to talk to him. Another paramedic with the same hairstyle followed her, wheeling the gurney. Oh, no. He wanted to go home and hide out with his girlfriend, Lisa. Whatever happened, he couldn't take any more reporters.

"Could we keep this out of the news? Please!" he called after the lieutenant with all the strength he could rally.

"Press is here already, but I'll do what I can," he promised. "First we're getting you to the hospital. Later we'll talk. We'll be sending a few uniforms with you. You won't be alone."

Jack didn't have time to figure out what that meant. What did it matter if he was alone or not in the hospital? He gave the officer their home number, then turned his attention to the medic who was sticking a needle in his arm.

April's eyes were closed. When she'd gone down like a wet noodle, the back of her head smacked the sidewalk hard. Two explosions went off at once. Her skull, like a baseball connecting with a bat. Her lungs, already screaming for air, further deflated on impact. April was no character out of a cartoon flattened by a steamroller who bounces right back. Uh-uh. All her training went for nothing that night. She didn't fight right. She didn't fall right. And when she fell, an evil dragon snatched the breath right out of her and flew away with it.

Seconds passed. She wanted to say, "I'm okay," get up, find her shoes, and get out of there. But her chest didn't rise. Her lungs didn't fill. There was commotion all around. She also had the sensation of a large animal, some beast from Chinese mythology, circling her body, breathing on her hotly. Marking her. She would have avoided that beast at any cost. But the grip of death held her as strongly as if her attacker still had her by the neck. She could not catch that breath the dragon had stolen.

The weight of defeat crushed her, and she could feel herself letting go. The next thing she knew was the screaming agony of air forced into her lungs. And Mike was talking her back into the world.