The Narrows

brim would most definitely contain skin cells that would hold the body's DNA. She carried the hat past me and started running for the door. I looked down to see the burn point on the fuse line disappear under the bed. I started to run behind her.
    "Was it him?" she yelled over her shoulder.
    I knew what she meant. Was the cadaver on the bed the man who showed up on Terry McCaleb's boat? Was it Backus?
    "I don't know. Just go! Go! Go!"
    I hit the door two seconds behind Rachel. She was already on the ground heading directly away, in the direction of Titanic Rock. I followed her lead. I had taken maybe five strides when the explosion ripped through the air behind me. I was hit with the full force of the deafening concussion and knocked forward to the ground. I remembered the tuck-and-roll maneuver from basic training and it served to give me a few more yards' distance from the explosion.
    Time became disjointed and slow. One moment I was running. The next I was on my hands and knees, my eyes open, trying to raise my head. Something momentarily eclipsed the sun and I managed to look up to see the shell of the trailer thirty feet in the air over me. Its walls and roof intact. It seemed to float and almost hang up there. Then it came crashing down ten yards in front of me, its splintered aluminum sides as sharp as razors. It made a sound like a five-car pile-up when it hit the ground.
    I checked the sky for more incoming and saw I was clear. I turned to look back at the trailer's original location and saw intense fire and thick black smoke billowing into the sky. Nothing was recognizable on the trailer pad. Everything had been consumed by the blast and fire. The bed and the man in it were gone. Backus had planned this exit perfectly.
    I got to my feet but was unsteady because my eardrums were still reacting and my equilibrium was off. It sounded as though I was walking through a tunnel with trains speeding by me on both sides. I wanted to put my hands over my ears but knew that it would do no good. The noise was reverberating from inside.
    Rachel had been only a few feet from me before the blast but now I couldn't see her. I stumbled around in the smoke and started to think that maybe she was under the trailer's skin.
    But finally I found her on the ground to the left of the trailer debris. She was lying still in the dirt and rocks. The black hat was on the ground next to her, like a sign of death. I moved as quickly as I could to her.
    "Rachel?"
    I got down on my hands and knees and first examined her without touching her. She was lying facedown and her hair had fallen forward to further hide her eyes from my view. I was suddenly reminded of my daughter as I used a hand to gently pull the hair back. As I did this I noticed blood on the back of my palm and for the first time realized I was wounded in some minor way. I decided I would worry about that later.
    "Rachel?"
    I couldn't tell if she was breathing or not. It seemed that my senses were working on the domino theory. With my hearing gone at least temporarily, the coordination of the other senses was gone as well. I patted her cheek lightly.
    "Come on, Rachel, wake up."
    I didn't want to turn her over in case there were unseen injuries that I might aggravate. I patted her cheek again, this time harder. I put my hand on her back, hoping that I would feel the rise and fall of breath as I could with my daughter.
    Nothing. I put my ear to her back but this was laughable considering my condition. It was just instinct moving ahead of logic. I was thinking that I had no choice and had to turn her over when I saw the fingers of her right hand twitch and then form a fist.
    Rachel suddenly lifted her head off the ground and groaned. It was loud enough that I could hear it.
    "Rachel, are you all right?"
    "I-I'm… there's evidence in the trailer. We need it"
    "Rachel there is no trailer anymore. It's gone."
    She struggled to turn over and sit up. Her eyes opened wide at the sight of the burning debris of what had been the trailer. I could see that her pupils were dilated. She had a concussion.
    "What did you do?" she asked in an accusatory tone.
    "It wasn't me. The place was rigged to go up. When you opened the bedroom door…"
    "Oh." She turned her head back and forth as if working a kink out of her neck. She saw the black cowboy hat on the ground next to her.
    "What is this?"
    "His hat. You grabbed it on the way out."
    "DNA?"
    "Hopefully, though I'm not sure what good it will