They went over proper positioning, to prevent too much air pressure, the emergency chute location, and checking the harness. Then Gunn clipped Stanton’s harness to his own and they were literally joined at the hip. Gunn shouted that he would have ahold of him as they exited the plane and would correct his posture on the way down. When they hit the right altitude, he would initiate the chute so he didn’t have to worry about that either.
The door opened and Stanton got a look at the drop zone underneath him. It was the airfield, lit up with some floodlights. But it was still dark enough that he couldn’t judge the proper distance for the fall. The air was screaming so loud it drowned out Gunn’s last minute instructions, but the adrenaline was flowing so powerfully it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The only thing Stanton could hear was the wind and the pounding of his heart.
“Tell me why,” Stanton shouted.
“No way, after the jump. If both of us live.” Gunn looked to the pilot who gave him a thumbs up. “You ready?”
Stanton nodded.
They stepped to the edge of the door, the night sky before them like some vast painting, the moon lighting up the water of the Pacific, and they jumped.
The power of the wind against his goggles and the icy feeling on his exposed skin woke Stanton up like he hadn’t been awakened before. He was acutely aware of his surroundings. It didn’t feel like motion; it felt like he was floating, but the cold air making him shiver told him he was falling. Gunn kept pulling up his arms or pushing down his knees or fixing the arch in his back. But Stanton couldn’t take his eyes off the Pacific. It appeared like the vastness of space; black and unknown. He glanced up at the moon and felt like he hadn’t seen it before.
The one problem that nagged at him was that he couldn’t tell how far away the ground truly was. It was exhilarating and terrifying at once. But he kept himself calm though his heart pounded in his ears like a drum.
When they were at a certain altitude that Stanton couldn’t guess, Gunn pulled his cord and both of them shot up when their chutes opened. It was a sudden, jerking motion and it rattled him before the smooth decent began. Stanton could now see his surroundings in a way he couldn’t during the free-fall. It was a 360º view of the city of San Diego and the Pacific Ocean, with glimpses into Mexico. San Diego was bright and vibrant while the Mexican side had few lights but more open fields and groves of trees that appeared black as tar in the night. But it was the ocean that drew him and that was where he kept his eyes. It shimmered and moved; it appeared alive.
Gunn was shouting something but he couldn’t hear what it was. Then he started waving his arms. Gunn cupped his hands over his mouth and Stanton could barely make him out. He was saying, “Almost there.”
Stanton braced himself but because the ground was so dark he couldn’t anticipate when he would land. By the time he realized he was just barely off the ground, he had only enough time to bend his knees and hit the ground hard. He tumbled head over heels several times and lay flat on his back, his breathing heavy and labored, as Gunn awkwardly unbuckled and rolled next to him.
They both collapsed and Gunn was yelling for some reason.
“How was it?” Gunn said. “No, don’t tell me. Words just fuck things up.”
They sat for several minutes, watching the stars, when Stanton said, “Why?”
“Her dad. He was executed in Texas for murder. They think now that maybe he was innocent. Guess what the crime he was accused of was?”
Stanton didn’t have to guess. He knew it the moment Gunn had said it: it was arson.
CHAPTER 28
Stanton lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Though it was well past two in the morning, he couldn’t sleep. The rush of skydiving was still with him and he could hear the wind in his ears. His heart would start pounding again for no reason and he would get butterflies in his stomach. Also, his head and his back ached from the landing and he thought he had injured his knee.
He tried to sleep but the fatigue would only wash over him for so long before he would wake and stare at the ceiling again. He turned on some music, soft jazz, and drank a glass of warm milk.
It was eight in the morning when his cell phone woke him from a brief sleep. He was exhausted and thought about just turning it off, but decided to check. He was always worried about getting that call from his ex saying something was wrong with his boys.
The caller ID on his phone said, “NATHAN SELL.”
“This is Stanton.”
“Jon, it’s Nate, man. Get your ass up, I got something for you.”
“What is it?”
“Got a call about a homicide up here in Old Town. I was gonna work it when someone mentioned that it was similar to something you got.”
“What is it?”
“Fire.”
Stanton’s heart dropped. “Is it a family?”
“Yeah, man. Six damn kids and mom and dad. Fucking believe that?”
“What made them think homicide?”
“One of the uniforms used to be a lab tech and smelled an accelerant. He called it in. I got Benny comin’ out in a few hours.”
“I’ll be right down.”
Stanton wrote the address on his palm and then quickly put it into Google Maps on his iPhone. He got dressed without showering or shaving and was out the door in less than ten minutes.
The freeway was relatively clear and he got up to Old Town quickly. He turned music on, a classical station, but couldn’t concentrate on it so he turned it off.
The neighborhood was a mass of fire engines, police cruisers, neighbors, and several ambulances. The ME’s van was parked up on the sidewalk and there was an SUV with the words “CSI” emblazoned on the side parked behind it. Stanton came to a stop near the police tape before getting out.
Nathan Sell was tall and lean. He stood in a gray suit on the sidewalk, watching the men work the house. Homicide detectives could do little at suspected arson sites, but they had to be there supervising the work. Someone’s butt had to be on the line if something went wrong.
“You got anything?” Stanton said, walking up to him.
“Not a damn thing. The temperature got so hot most of the jewelry in the bedroom’s melted. The bodies…there’s not much left.”
“I need to see them.”
“Have at it.”
Stanton walked up the driveway. Nothing was left of the house but a few pieces of the frame and a half-melted shed in the back. He found a tech’s bag near where the front door had been and placed booties on his feet before going in.
The walls had been completely burned away and he could see the remnants of the family. Eight blackened skeletons huddled together in the living room. Nothing was surrounded them like the prior scene; nothing that indicated they had been tied together. The father, or what Stanton guessed had been the father, had his arms around the younger children, trying to protect them from the flames.
Stanton turned away and walked out.
“Well?” Nathan said.
“It’s the same. The same person did this.”
Nathan shook his head. “Some days, I wish I’d gone to business school like my mama told me to.”
A van pulled up; Channel 4 News, the NBC affiliate. A leggy blond stepped out of the passenger side and an overweight guy with a Chargers cap jumped out of the driver’s side and they met up with another man who came out of the back. They gathered some equipment, the second man held a mirror for the blond to check her make-up, and they ducked under the police tape.
“Fucking vultures,” Nathan said, stepping toward them.
“No,” Stanton said. “I want them here.”