We were in the air, falling backward. The black water of Puget Sound coursed ten feet below, glints of moonlight defining gentle waves. For an instant there was no sound at all.
Then the police car hit hard and speared below the surface, bobbing swiftly back up to slap the waves flat. The impact threw me face-first into the clear plastic barrier separating the rear of the car from the empty driver’s seat. Blood erupted from my lip.
I yanked myself upright, hampered by handcuffs that bound my wrists behind my back and the heavy bulk of the man lying half across me. The car window pressed his head into an awkward angle, deforming his cheek. A puff of breath condensed on the glass.
He was alive. For now.
We began to dip forward, borne down by the mass of the cruiser’s V-8. Seawater bubbled and splashed into the front compartment. In seconds it had swamped the pedals. A briny reek overwhelmed the tang of blood in my mouth. I twisted in my seat, trying to feel for the tiny piece of bent metal I’d dropped in our fall.
The car leaned toward the icy deep as if eager for its embrace. Half a minute, maybe less, before the roiling water would fill the interior.
I pushed at the unconscious man with my shoulder, trying to gain a few more inches of space, but there was nowhere for his body to move. The cold lent a razor sting to every gasp of air. My grasping fingers brushed the hard plastic seat, only to slide away again.
Heavy diesels churned nearby. The barge from which we had fallen began moving away from the sinking car and toward the shore. Four miles off, the city sparkled in the clear night. I had one final glimpse of those glittering lights before the waves shrouded the windshield outside and darkness consumed both of us.
Me, and the man I’d met for the first time barely one week before. A week of violence and death—and the hard proof about the identity of the man about to drown alongside me.
My father.