A/N: All standard disclaimers apply: I don't own and don't profit. Only the writing is mine. Please let me know what you think...

They say you always remember your first. I remember that when I first got the call, I thought Mario was fucking with me. He liked to assign me these stupid, milkrun details because I was new on the force and 'cause I wouldn't go out with him. No one with a functioning frontal lobe would go out with Mario. Sometimes I played along, because I was new and because everyone gets a kick out of his Napoleon complex. But sending me out to the Meadowlands at midnight to ID an abandoned car was going too far, even if he'd asked nicely. Which he hadn't. With his usual tact, Mario suggested that I might want to do some real policework after spending the day playing Metro Traffic Liason with the Newark International Airport rent-a-cops.

"I'll come right down to Central and liase you a new one, buddy. My shift is done in half an hour. I'm going home. Gotta pick up Jason from my Mom's. I am done."

That met with a hail of mic clicks—radio applause from other patrols on the same frequency. Everyone hates the dispatcher.

"Caro, babe, there's a three-car pileup on the bridge and a car fire blocking two lanes on the turnpike; you'll be sitting at the ramp for an hour anyway," Mario wheedled, "Go check out the car and we can have it towed before the tree-huggers even know it's there. Save yourself a day of paperwork." God, I hated it when he was right. This was ten years ago, remember: there were a dozen environmental groups interested in rehabilitating the Meadowlands marshes that separate Newark Airport from the city. Every time anyone sneezed within the Meadowlands watershed, picketers gathered at the State House. Not that they didn't have a point: the area had been a dumping ground for too long—for the Mob as well as for United Chemical. But why the Transit Police always ended up with the paperwork, I could never figure out. In particular, I was puzzled by how the files always seemed to end up on my desk.

"OK, Mario," I conceded. He was right about the traffic: already, I could see the taillights backing up along the airport turn off. "But, swear to God, if there's a dead mobster in that car, he's going in your locker."

Another patrol car cut in to speculate on just why Mario's locker always smelled so foul, anyway. The suggestions flew back and forth as I maneuvered from the airport exit to the utility road that cut out into the marshes. Taxpayers' money at work, I figured, but I didn't turn the radio off. I'm not exactly timid, as even Mario will admit, but the Meadowlands are eerie even at the best of times. The way the highway cuts overhead, especially in the evening, with the city lights off on one side—makes you feel like you're sinking, like you've just been put in a life raft and shoved out onto some big ocean of darkness. What can I say? I'm a city kid: long empty stretches of slushy ground make me think of quicksand and copperheads and that urban legend about the alligators in the sewers. Not to mention the fact that the whole area had once been prime real estate for hit men. Why bother with cement shoes when you could just beat someone's face to a pulp, burn off his fingerprints and chuck him in a bog? Let Mother Nature do the heavy lifting. Oh, yeah, the environmentalists were going to solve a lot of our missing persons cases when they started dredging for the Meadowlands Visitors Center.

Even the surveyor who'd called in the abandoned car hadn't wanted to spend any extra time here after sundown. He'd already been on the highway, headed for New York, when he'd called to report a car abandoned in a ditch. Hadn't even got a good look at it, just enough to say he thought they were out-of-state tags, which couldn't be good news: all the environmental groups were local. And for a surveyor, I gotta say, his directions sucked. Of course, there were only a few unflooded roads, but still I probably passed the car at least once before my high beams reflected off the shower of broken glass that marked where it had gone off into the marsh.

The locker conversation had meandered onto something else by the time I found the flashlight in my glove compartment and clambered down the embankment. It was really hot outside of the air-conditioned patrol car, the kind of damp, sticky heat that comes from standing water and untended vegetation. And I was amazed at how loud it was once I got out of the car: every cricket, mosquito and water bird in the tri-state area had taken up residence here and each one was shouting for attention. Over it all was the distant grumble of traffic. As I picked my way across the dry sections of land, my light attracted some kind of creepy winged spider that I knew would reappear in my nightmares. The car—a cheap compact—hung at a crazy angle in the muck. Looked like the driver had spun right off the road, but I couldn't tell why: most of the smaller paths were submerged, but the main drag was wide as a boulevard and built like levee. There hadn't been any skid marks, either: I would have seen them on my first pass. The driver seemed to have quite placidly driven the car clear off the edge of the road. It probably would have rolled completely if the rear axel hadn't caught up on the remnants of an old windbreak. Amazing that anyone had walked away alive. Yup, this was a job for the tow-truck, and probably the junkyard after that: the whole front end was accordion-pleated, a back door had popped open on impact, the windshield was a web of cracked glass.

There was a sticker on the rear window—advertising a minor league team I'd have to ask Jason about—and a parking permit from UCLA. UCLA? I leaned in to make sure I'd read it right, then ran the flashlight beam across the rear bumper: sure enough, there were those out-of-state plates. California, of all places! I think I said that out loud, actually, followed by a few choice adjectives modifying 'California driver.' But I don't remember the exact phrasing because almost as soon as the words were out of my mouth, they were cut off by a gurgled moan from somewhere very close by.

Now, I am not an outdoors girl, but I knew that wasn't a bird. Birds are too fragile; they couldn't sustain the kind of pain I heard in that sound. I hadn't been serious about the dead mobster, but was it possible that the driver hadn't walked away, after all? I cast my flashlight around the crash site, then back to the car itself, playing over the busted windshield. Even though I half expected them, when the eyes reflected back at me, I nearly choked on my own scream. Holy Christ! There someone still in that wreck, some guy, and his eyes, at least, were very much alive: he was watching me, through a mask of blood, as intently as if he were trying to count every sin on my soul.