Chapter 2 - The Glass Oven
Traffic on Elm Street was light, limited to a few delivery trucks and local commuters whose tires made a sticky, peeling sound against the softening asphalt. I waited for a silver pickup truck to pass, then stepped off the curb. The cat was already on the double yellow line in the center of the road, sitting upright on the burning paint, waiting for me to catch up. The instant I crossed into its lane, it moved again, trotting quickly into the parking lot of the strip mall.
The strip mall was nearly deserted. Most people had the good sense to stay indoors where the air-conditioning was running. Three cars were parked in the stalls directly in front of the storefronts: an old farm truck with a rusted bed, a clean white minivan, and a dark navy-blue sedan sitting dead-center in the lot, completely exposed to the sun without a scrap of shadow near it.
The cat didn't head for the doors of the pharmacy or the shade under the dry cleaner’s awning. It ran directly to the driver’s side of the navy sedan.
It began pacing around the car in rapid, erratic loops. It jumped onto the hood, its paws immediately flinching against the burning metal, and slid back down to the asphalt. Then it reared up on its hind legs, planting its front paws against the glass of the rear passenger window, making that same dry, desperate noise against the tinted glass.
"What do you have under there?" I asked, walking over the hot gravel. "Did you lose a kitten under the frame?"
I reached the rear bumper of the sedan. The vehicle was silent. The engine was off, the exhaust pipe was cold, and there was no vibration coming through the metal chassis. The windows were rolled up entirely—not even a quarter-inch crack had been left open to allow air to circulate. The dark paint of the car was absorbing every ray of the two o'clock sun, radiating heat so intensely that I could feel it against the skin of my face while standing three feet away.
I bent down to look under the frame, assuming the cat had chased some small creature beneath the muffler. The underside of the car was clear—just dry concrete and oil stains.
Then I stood up and looked through the rear passenger window.
The glass was heavily tinted, darkened to a deep charcoal gray that reflected the blue sky above like a mirror. I had to step closer, cup both hands around my eyes, and press my face within two inches of the glass to see past the reflections.
The interior was a dark, stagnant shadow. In the front, the dashboard was empty except for a dry-cleaning receipt and a pair of cheap sunglasses. The center console showed no keys in the ignition. In the back seat, positioned behind the front passenger chair, sat a standard rear-facing infant car seat.
At first, I saw only the curved plastic frame and a faded pink blanket draped over the edge. But as my eyes adjusted to the darkness behind the tint, I saw two tiny, pale feet extending from beneath the fabric. The toes were motionless.
"No," I said out loud, the word dropping out of my mouth before I could stop it. "No, no, no."
I shifted my angle, leaning heavier against the door. The pink blanket was rising and falling, but the movement was terrifyingly shallow—a faint, rapid flutter that looked more like a muscular twitch than breathing. The child’s head was slumped sharply against the right shoulder strap of the harness, the skin of her face flushed a dark, blotchy crimson. Her hair was soaked, plastering thin dark strands against her forehead and temples. Her mouth was open, dry and still.
The heat inside a sealed vehicle on a ninety-five-degree day rises exponentially. Within ten minutes, the interior temperature reaches one hundred and twenty degrees. Within thirty minutes, it reaches one hundred and forty. The air becomes a furnace, cooking the blood and shutting down organs one by one.
I grabbed the handle of the rear passenger door and yanked it upward with all my weight.
Locked.
I lunged for the front driver’s door handle. Locked. The rear driver’s door. Locked.
I struck the glass of the rear window with the heel of my open hand, the sound cracking out across the empty parking lot like a gunshot. "Hey! Wake up!"
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The child didn't flinch. The little feet remained totally still against the pink fabric. There was no crying, no stirring, no instinctive turn toward the noise.
Behind me, the cat sat on the hot asphalt, its ears pinned back flat against its skull, watching me with wide, pale eyes.
