DeMichael stepped over and shook Isabel’s hand. Isabel thought his hands were very soft-softer even than hers. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Isabel,” he said. “Does everyone call you Isabel, or do you have a nickname? Something like Belle or Bella-like that girl in Twilight?”
Isabel blushed slightly. “Some of my friends call me Izzy,” she said.
“Izzy,” he said. “That’s even better. I like that. If you’re straight with it, I’m gonna call you Izzy.”
Isabel smiled. “Okay,” she said, nodding.
DeMichael gazed admiringly at Isabel’s hair. “Girl, you have beautiful hair,” he said. “Long and thick and pure black.” He paused and then added, “Like mine!”
Crystal laughed. “Yeah, you wish. Except Izzy doesn’t have to spend a hundred dollars and two hours getting hers straightened every two weeks.”
DeMichael reached for Isabel’s hair then stopped. “Do you mind?” he asked.
“No,” Isabel said.
DeMichael ran his hand slowly through Isabel’s hair. “That’s dope,” he said, seemingly in awe. “And you don’t have to do anything to get this?”
“No,” Isabel said. “That’s just how it is.”
“Damn,” he said.
“Imagine if we hooked her up with Janeka,” Crystal said. “She can throw some conditioner on that, and Isabel’s hair will shine like a black diamond.”
“Say, look,” Donnie interrupted from the sidewalk at the front of the car. “Y’all can share hair-styling secrets later. Right now, I need to talk to Isabel for a second, and then we got to scoot.” He turned to Isabel. “Crystal tells me you having some problems on the home front.”
Isabel looked him in the eye. “I don’t have a home,” she said. “Not anymore.”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Donnie said. “Bottom line-you’re temporarily out on the streets. Right?”
“I guess.”
Donnie smiled. “Don’t have to be that way, baby-this is your lucky day. Crystal told you we got a spare bedroom.”
Isabel nodded.
“Good. You’re welcome to come stay with us for a while. Till you get yourself established. That sound okay?”
“It does,” Isabel said. “Thank you.”
Donnie smiled again. “Good. We gonna do some great things.” He looked at her backpack. “That all your stuff?”
Isabel nodded. “That’s it.”
“Y’all travelin’ light.”
“I know.”
He shrugged. “That’ll change. Crystal’ll probably hook you up with some of her stuff for now. Use it as an excuse to go shoppin’.”
“Hell with that,” Crystal said. “I don’t need no excuse. Me and my homey Izzy-we’re going shoppin’ anyway. Tomorrow. Right, Iz?”
Isabel hesitated, then started to speak, but Crystal interrupted her. “I know,” she said. “You don’t have any money for shopping.” She smiled. “Good thing for you, I do. You can owe me. We’re going to get you all done up. Your hair, too. You’ll be so dope, people’ll have to wear sunglasses around you just to knock back the shine!”
Isabel smiled as DeMichael opened the back door.
“I’m riding shotgun,” Crystal suddenly called out.
DeMichael looked at Isabel. “Guess that means me and you in the back. After you, my dear,” he said gallantly. Isabel crawled into the back seat. She could hardly believe her luck. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d been shivering the night away hiding under a cedar tree to avoid the guards and to keep from getting rained on. An hour ago, she’d been sitting on a bench with no idea how to proceed. Now, she was sitting in a BMW, surrounded by nice people who wanted to help her out. She smiled as the car pulled away from the curb.
PART 1
Chapter 1
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” The Range Safety Officer’s voice thundered down the line just as the last shooter fired his final round of the stage. The electronic noise-canceling features in my headset were designed to muffle the sharp reports of gunshots while still allowing voice commands to come through loud and clear-not that Gunny Doug Owens needed any help getting his point across. Twenty-one years in the Marine Corps prior to joining the Seattle Police Department as head firearms instructor gave him a “command voice” that left no confusion, no ambiguity as to the meaning of his message. Like many of the tough old sergeants I’d known in the army, Gunny Owens didn’t so much speak when he was on the range; he barked. It reminded me of basic training at Fort Benning.
I lowered my Les Baer Thunder Ranch Model 1911.45-caliber semiauto to a forty-five degree angle, finger indexed along the barrel. Keeping it pointed downrange, I turned my head quickly in each direction, automatically scanning the area around me for new threats, just as Gunny barked out, “Weapons to low ready!”
He followed this up a second later with, “Unload and make safe!” The slide on my weapon had automatically locked open when I’d fired the last round. I pressed the magazine release button, and the empty magazine dropped out and fell to the ground.
“After inspection by a Range Safety Officer, holster your safe weapon.”
The RSO on my side of the line worked his way from shooter to shooter, checking their weapons as he went and tapping them on the shoulders when he was satisfied their weapons were completely empty, signifying it was okay to holster their weapon. I waited my turn as the gentle breeze cleared the smoke from the range.
When Gunny saw that the assistant RSOs on either side of the line had completed their inspections, he barked out “Line clear on the left?” The assistant RSO on my side of the line held up his hand in acknowledgment. “Line clear on the right?” The officer on the opposite end of the line did the same.
“Good,” Gunny said. “Ladies and gentlemen, the line is clear! You may remove your hearing protection. Retrieve your magazines, and let’s check targets.”
It was a beautiful morning on June 5, 2012. The temperature was in the high sixties, and the sky was partly cloudy. My partner, Antoinette “Toni” Blair, and I had just fired the last sequence in the Washington State Basic Law Enforcement Firearm Training course at the Seattle Police Athletic Association range in Tukwila, just south of Seattle. This is the same test issued to retired law enforcement officers annually and, other than Toni and me, the thirteen guys on the line were all retired police officers. Thanks to the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act that Congress passed in 2004, successfully passing this test gave these retired officers the right to carry concealed weapons almost anywhere in the nation. Can you say instant extended police force? At no additional cost? Clearly, this was one of Congress’s smarter moves, if you ask me. Of course, Toni and I were not law enforcement officers, so passing the test wouldn’t give us the same privileges. But the practice kept us sharp, and it helped keep our insurance premiums low. And if, God forbid, we ever had to shoot anyone, regular documented training would probably help us legally. We were fortunate that my friends at Seattle PD allowed us to train with them and use the range.
I reached down and picked up my empty magazine, dusted it off, and put it in my pocket. Toni was two shooters to my left; I saw her do the same thing. At twenty-seven years old, she’d just had a birthday two weeks ago. She was dressed in camouflage-print fatigue-style pants that had no business looking as good as they did on her, green tactical boots, and a beige long-sleeved T-shirt that had an American flag and Made in the U.S.A. printed on it in big, bold red letters across the chest-just in case you were having trouble noticing the way she filled out the shirt (which, I suppose, would have been pretty good proof that you were legally blind). The other guys didn’t know it, but I knew that the long sleeves covered a full-sleeve tattoo on her left arm and a delicate little Celtic-weave tat on her right. Her thick, dark hair was covered with a backward-facing baseball cap, itself covered with her ear-protection headset. She wore yellow-tinted shooter’s glasses. She looked like a Victoria’s Secret model at a gun show-she was distracting as hell, and I was glad there was space between us. When we straightened up, she caught me looking and she smiled.