Indelible

no sleep tonight and heads to the bathroom to take a shower. He steps under the hot spray, tilts his head back, and closes his eyes. Our shift was routine up to the moment the dispatcher sent Sam and me toward the I-280 bridge over the Lawrence Expressway & Creek in San Francisco to intercept a drunk and speeding driver that had been reported. We didn’t know we were heading into the crosshairs of a telescopic sight on a sniper’s rifle. A weapon designed for extreme accuracy. Perfect for an ambush.
Hot water rushing over his body, he remembers the call to that overpass on a Friday night. It was their last ride together as police officers. Sam and Mick had just been promoted. The following Monday, they were to start their careers as homicide detectives.
He remembers the horrific crash and the helpless feeling at seeing his partner, Sam’s, lifeless body.
He doesn’t remember being life-flighted to the hospital. They told him afterward that he almost died during transport. The surgery that saved his life is a total blank. It left him with a limp and survivor’s guilt.
The most heart-breaking memory he doesn’t have is Sam’s funeral. He was in the ICU.
Mick steps out of the shower and towels off. He can’t make out his features in the steam-fogged mirror, but his clenched teeth inform him that his face looks grim. In a few hours, he’ll head to the airport. He dreads it because every overpass he drives under opens old wounds and cuts fresh ones, triggering a grim reminder of what lays coiled inside him, ready to spring if disturbed.
JASON
Jason Hughes can’t help but smile when he unzips the suitcase and sees two immaculate stacks of pristine white hotel towels. Both stacks contain five towels with a name badge pinned to each one. He touches the first rectangular name badge that’s pinned with precision to the folded, thick white towel, and traces his finger over the name. Rose. That simple act, along with the scar on his left wrist, ushers a flood of sweet memories from New York.
After setting Rose’s towel on the side table, Jason picks up the top towel from the second stack and winces a little in excruciating delight as he remembers Yolanda in Jacksonville, Florida. She left a small scar on his right forearm.
Jason checks his watch and sees there’s still time to enjoy the rest. He chuckles as he remembers Teagan in Chicago. She’s the first one he tested a zip-tie restraint on. After all, I can’t afford to get a scar each time I kill, he muses.
While caressing his way through the rest of the towels and name badges, he revels in memories of Mai in Los Angeles, Teresa in Boston, Linh in Dallas, Amala—oh she was feisty—in Portland, Silvia in Kansas City, Veronica in Denver, and Devi in Philadelphia.
He remembers when Andrew, his fraternal twin, teased him, calling his suitcase “precious” and saying that he reminded him of Gollum. Jason smiles. I don’t have to worry about that anymore now, do I?
After replacing the towels in the appropriate order, he zips the suitcase shut and gathers the other items waiting by the front door—another suitcase, a backpack, and two manuscript-sized boxes that he’ll ship from the UPS Hub on his way to the airport. They’re supposed to contain the manuscript he’s pretending to work on, Rearview Mirror: Reflections of a New York Limo Driver. They don’t.
Not one to leave anything to chance, he verifies, yet again, that “UPS accepts firearm parts for shipment, provided the part is not a ‘firearm’ as defined under federal law; the contents of the package cannot be assembled to form a firearm; and the package otherwise complies with federal, state, and local law.”
The parts in either box by themselves can’t be made into a firearm. It requires all of the pieces in both boxes. Not a problem. I’ll assemble my Beretta when they get to Pines & Quill.
Jason loosens his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel of the rental car and relaxes. I’m not excited about the five-hour nonstop flight between Cleveland and Seattle, followed by a two-hour drive to the writing retreat. But I am looking forward to the in-air service. I always enjoy flying with my friend Jack Daniels.
He keeps his backpack and watches as the airline representative at the ticket counter takes the rest of his luggage, tags it, then heaves it onto a conveyor belt. In moments it’s swallowed by a fringed-rubber throat. He imagines its snake-like journey as it makes its way through x-ray machines with TSA officers looking for weapons, explosives, and drugs before passing the wet nostrils of trained dogs sniffing for the same. He’s done this before and knows that no one will bat an eye; no hackles will rise, as his suitcase with ten folded, plush white towels passes through.
Jason’s boarding pass is TSA pre-checked. Unlike the other poor schmucks, passing through security should be fast and easy. After stepping through the full-body scanner, he hears, “Sir, please step to the side.”
“Is there a problem?” he asks.
“No, it’s just your lucky day.” The agent smiles. “You’ve been selected for a random check. Is this piece yours?” he asks while removing a backpack from the conveyor belt.
Jason mirrors the agent’s smile and nods. “It sure is.”
One by one the agent empties the innocuous contents onto the table, stopping when he gets to the stainless-steel flask. He gives it a slight shake. “Mind if I open it?”
“Not at all. Help yourself. I wish it had something in it, but I know that’s not allowed.”
With gloved hands, the agent twists off the lid and turns the empty flask upside down over the trashcan, then lifts it to his nostrils and inhales deeply. “I bet it was good to the last drop.” He laughs at his joke. While replacing the items in Jason’s backpack, the agent continues, “I hope to enjoy something like that when I get home tonight.”
“Me, too,” Jason says, smiling. “Am