by Dave Daren
“Go!” she whispered and waved me away from her.
I nodded to her and scanned the crowd for any signs of the shooter.
The sound of the shot had been almost exactly like the gun I held in my hand, so I figured it had to be another pistol, though I was no professional when it came to guns.
Waves of people were rushing in every direction, and some had even come up behind the stage to hide. The crowd was oddly quiet, as though their initial screams had given way to the silent need to escape the building. I saw Detective Gomez and his men had already drawn their weapons as well, but they weren’t looking around the room like I was. In fact, they were all headed in one direction.
Then I saw the one man who stood out from the rest.
His salt-and-pepper hair was unkempt, and he wore a dark suit that clearly didn’t fit. Its shoulders were too wide for his narrow body and draped down past his hips, almost like a trench coat. He stood stock still in the middle of everyone rushing past him, but he had both hands in the air and a gleeful grin on his weathered face.
Gomez reached him first, and he grabbed one of the man’s arms and wrenched it behind his back. Another officer grabbed a pistol from the ground and tucked it into the back of his waistband, while the others helped Gomez put the shooter in handcuffs.
I holstered my weapon as I ran over toward the commotion, and I had a quick realization that with the moving crowd and my inexperience, I wouldn’t have even had a chance to shoot the guy, which somehow pissed me off even more.
“Bastard!” I growled and pushed my way closer to him.
“Get him back!” Gomez ordered as he pointed toward me. “Go check on the ADA, Morgan! We’re taking care of this guy.”
“Hey, they got him!” someone in the crowd called out.
“Yeah! The cops caught him!” another person cheered.
The crowd began to slow their exit as they all tried to get a peek and a few pictures of the culprit, who continued to grin as though he’d won the lottery instead of a free trip to prison. He almost looked batshit crazy, but something told me he was perfectly sane. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and I narrowed my eyes on the man as I tried to figure out what was off about his lunatic act.
I didn’t recognize his scruffy face, but his dark eyes were still as Gomez and his companions grabbed each of his arms to pull him toward the exit. He was completely content with being carried out, and he didn’t resist at all. Something wasn’t right.
One of the other officers gently pushed me back toward the stage, and I shot an angry glare at Gomez before I turned around and headed for the podium. Alessia’s green shirt was just visible from this side, and I hurried up the stairs and kneeled beside her.
“Are you okay?” I asked gently. “They got the guy already. You can get up.”
“Well, this kind of hurts,” she replied as she unwrapped her arms and pointed to her shoulder while she lifted her body out of the shadow of the podium.
A dark red stain colored her blouse in a near-perfect circle in the upper part of her arm.
“Fuck!” I cursed and looked around. “Bear!”
The campaign manager seemed to appear out of nowhere and barreled toward us with a look of concern, while Mateo trailed along behind him like a frightened puppy.
“Oh, my God,” Bear mumbled when he saw Alessia’s wound. “You got shot!”
“Gomez!” I shouted as I stood up. “We need a medic!”
“Mateo, paper towels, cloths, something, now!” Bear ordered as he took over the scene.
Mateo’s look of horror was frozen on his face for a few seconds before Bear roared at him to move. Then he took off toward the bathroom and returned in seconds with a pile of brown paper towels. Bear pressed the stack against the ADA’s wound while I held her up.
Then she clenched her fist and muttered to herself before she turned her hazel eyes on me.
“Help me up,” she demanded.
“What?” I stared blankly back at her. “No, you need to wait here for the medics. They’ll be here any second.”
“EMT is two minutes out,” Gomez announced as if on cue. “Ms. Pizzano? Where were you hit?”
“My shoulder,” Alessia answered and tried to use my shoulder to push herself to her feet. “I need to finish the meeting.”
“The hell you do,” I argued. “We can reschedule a meeting. The people will understand. You just got shot, for God’s sake.”
“Yeah, for speaking the truth,” she insisted. “Just let me--”
Her argument was interrupted by the crowd cheering again as the shooter was escorted out of the building in handcuffs and presumably placed inside a patrol car. The cavalry had finally arrived.
A few seconds later, a pair of EMTs with a gurney strode through the crowd as they parted like the Red Sea to let them through. They approached the stage and got to work.
We lifted Alessia onto the gurney, despite her adamant protests, and the medics checked her vitals and cut back the sleeve of her shirt to reveal the wound.
“I loved this shirt,” Alessia grumbled as they destroyed the fabric with large scissors.
“You’re incredibly lucky, Ms. Pizzano,” one of the EMTs noted. “It was a through-and-through shot, and it seems to have only hit muscle. No bones from what I can see.”
“Good, then you can stitch me up, so we can continue,” Alessia declared, and I gave her a disapproving look.
“Not exactly,” his partner chuckled. “We still need to do an X-ray at the hospital, just to be sure. You don’t want any bone shards floating around in there. That would bring you a lot more trouble later. It’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to a gunshot wound.”
They tossed the bloody paper towels to the side and began to cover the wound with medical gauze. Then they wrapped her shoulders with a long white strip to hold the gauze in place, though it was already soaking through with more of her blood.
“Dammit,” she muttered. “I really didn’t want tonight to go like this.”
“Well, I don’t think anyone besides that lunatic planned for a shooting,” Bear said with a small smile. “At least the police caught him, so you don’t have to be looking over your shoulder, so to speak.”
“Maybe it’s the same guy who tried to attack you before,” Mateo suggested. “Does he look familiar? We can ask the cops to bring him closer if you want.”
“Okay, we don’t need to start our own investigation right this second,” I cut in before she could answer. “Alessia needs to get stitched up and X-rayed and all that jazz before she can worry about questions. We’ll have plenty of time to figure it out since they have him in custody.”
Plus, we hadn’t exactly clued the rest of the team in about how I was there for the attack or that it could have been aimed at either one of us. It was a complicated web of possibilities that we needed to sort through without anyone else involved.
“I agree,” Gomez said. “The case is pretty cut and dry right now, but we’ll have to take a statement later on. I can come to the hospital once we get this guy booked in. Are you okay with that, Ms. Pizzano?”
“Yes, of course, Detective,” the ADA agreed. “Thank you for being here. It certainly made it easier to catch the culprit with the cops already on-hand.”
“Thank Mr. Morgan,” he replied. “Looks like his instincts to protect you were spot on.”
Alessia smiled at Gomez when he dipped his head and walked away and then turned to eye me suspiciously. “You set up to have the cops here? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, I didn’t know you’d be getting shot,” I assured her. “But it was brought to my attention that this place was very open with no security, so I fixed it for you. It wasn’t anything for you to worry about. You have enough on your plate.”
“And it turned out to be the right call.” Bear nodded fervently. “I’ve never had one of my candidates get shot before. I’m not sure what to do next.”
“Let us take her to the hospital,�
�� one of the EMTs replied. “Then you can deal with your politics.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Bear murmured.
The medics kicked the brakes off the gurney and began to roll Alessia toward the exit. Several dozen people still remained in the auditorium and the parking lot, and they began to clap and cheer as she waved with her good arm on the way out.
They slid the gurney into the ambulance and crawled inside to get a closer look at the wound. One of the medics poked her with a needle, and I briefly worried it was poisoned since we hadn’t checked out these guys as well, but then Alessia sighed with relief as the apparent pain medication kicked in. She’d hidden her pain well, but I couldn’t imagine a gunshot wound felt great.
The EMTs fitted Alessia with a blood pressure cuff and pulse oximeter before they nodded to each other.
“Okay, we’re ready to head to the hospital,” one of them announced.
Bear and I glanced at each other while we stood behind the ambulance, and he gestured for me to climb inside with Alessia. I tossed him my keys, so he could bring my car to the hospital. I knew once she was done, she wouldn’t want to wait around for an Uber, and I didn’t particularly want her to ride with any strangers after tonight.
“Wait,” Alessia ordered. “Look.”
She pointed at the crowd that had meandered outside the building and now watched with a mixture of concern and interest as the medics prepared to cart her off to the hospital for treatment.
“Yeah, the shooter got picked up, remember?” I asked with confusion. “They aren’t scared anymore, just worried about you.”
“Exactly,” the ADA agreed and sat up on the gurney. “I need to talk to them, let them know I’m alright and this won’t stop me.”
“The campaign manager in me thinks you should definitely go for it,” Bear replied carefully. “But as your friend, you should probably get to the hospital. We can release an official statement to the press later.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Now, unhook these wires for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
The EMTs looked at each other and then at us, but I already knew there was no stopping the Italian woman. She wouldn’t back down, and I knew she’d say her piece regardless of what we suggested. I shrugged and lifted a hand to help her down from the back of the ambulance.
“Mateo!” Bear thundered.
The little Latino appeared in the doorway of the building and scurried over with his wide eyes on Alessia.
“Oh, God, what’s going on?” he asked.
“She wants to talk to these people,” Bear explained. “Put it with the first live stream.”
“Are you sure, boss?” he wondered. “We’re already trying to--”
“She’s got this,” the campaign manager interjected. “Get rolling.”
“Of course,” Mateo murmured as he pulled out his phone.
A few taps later, he gave Alessia a thumbs up, and she waved at the audience that had formed in the gravel parking lot amidst the red and blue flashing lights.
“First, thank you all for being concerned with my safety tonight,” she began. “I can’t tell you enough how much I appreciate the generosity I’ve felt from the people of Brooklyn here. As you can probably tell by now, I was shot by a man who has since been captured by the courageous officers of the NYPD. The wound is merely superficial, but, of course, the medical staff would rather be safe than sorry and will be taking me to the hospital for a full examination.”
“Who did this to you?” one of the women in the audience yelled. “We demand justice!”
The crowd started to get amped up and waved their fists in the air at the woman’s statement.
“I don’t know the man,” Alessia answered and held up her hand to quiet them down. “But justice will be served, whether that is prison time or time spent in a mental health institution. Right now, I know that someone is trying to silence my voice, to keep me from telling you what I believe and what I stand for. This is not the first attempt on my life since announcing my candidacy, and I’m well aware it may not be my last.”
“Has someone threatened you?” A man’s voice rang out from the back of the crowd.
“Not directly,” she replied. “But while their actions have spoken loudly, they will not speak louder than my words!”
The crowd immediately fed off Alessia’s growing energy, and shouts of agreement and justice echoed among the audience members.
“Someone out there does not want me to win this race!” Alessia continued, and her voice grew stronger with every word. “Someone hates what I stand for, and the last thing they want is for me to clean up the corruption that has tainted city hall for entirely too long!”
“Yeah!”
“Can the crooks!”
Shouts of support continued to grow with Alessia’s speech, and I watched as every eye remained on her. Even Gomez and his buddies stared at her with a sense of awe.
“I absolutely will can the crooks that have been pulling this city’s strings!” she agreed heartily. “I absolutely will do everything I can for my people. Brooklyn deserves better than what we’ve had, and I will stop at nothing to get it for you!”
“Alessia! Alessia!” the crowd began to chant.
“No mugging, no bullet, nothing they try will get me out of this race!” Alessia yelled over the chants.
The crowd went completely wild. They were screaming her name and pumping their fists, and even the older voters we’d been worried about before looked both impressed and awed. It seemed Alessia was finally worthy of their attention.
She gave a final wave, and I helped her back into the ambulance and climbed in behind her. I sat on the bench next to the gurney, and once the doors shut behind us, Alessia took a deep breath and let it out with a wince.
“That was awesome,” I murmured and pushed a strand of hair out from her face. “You really killed that speech.”
“I’m just glad no one killed me,” she chuckled, and then she grimaced again. “It’s actually hurting a little more now.”
“You probably burned off half the morphine I gave you with that pumped-up speech,” one of the EMTs muttered with a small smile. “It was pretty cool, though.”
“Thanks,” she sighed and dropped her head back on the pillow. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“You heard the lady,” I said.
The EMT banged on the front panel of the ambulance, and the driver shifted into gear. We rode in near silence to the hospital with only the beeping and clicking of the various machines in the background. I could see the headlights of the Chrysler 300 directly behind the ambulance, and I assumed Bear and Mateo had fallen in line behind them in my car.
Gomez and the other officers had taken the shooter in a patrol car and turned off toward the police station while we continued on toward the hospital. The ambulance rolled into the bay, and a team of nurses approached the back doors in the blink of an eye. They had Alessia’s gurney rolled out of the ambulance and headed for the sliding glass doors before I could even get to my feet.
“Female, late twenties, gunshot wound to the upper left shoulder,” the EMT advised the medical staff.
He continued to provide her other stats, and I jogged along behind them to keep up until we reached a pair of doors that read “Trauma.”
“You have to wait out here, sir,” one of the nurses cautioned me. “The waiting room is just over there.”
She rushed through the doors before I could ask anything else, and I huffed as I headed for the waiting area. The place was familiar even though I’d never been here before. I realized it reminded me of the hospital waiting room in lower Manhattan where we’d spent long hours after Salvatore had been shot, but his wound had required immediate surgery, then intensive care.
“Where is she?” Bear asked in a breathless voice when he rushed into the waiting area with Mateo right behind him.
“Back there.” I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder with a frown. “They wouldn’t let
me in. The nurse said I had to wait here.”
“Damn,” he muttered. “Just sit here and wait?”
“I guess so,” I replied as I plopped into one of the chairs. “I have no idea how long it will be.”
Bear opened his mouth to ask more when his phone rang, and he whipped it out of his jacket pocket.
“Fucking press already,” he muttered and declined the call.
My phone vibrated inside my pocket, and I looked to see my own reporter friend had also heard the news.
I know better than to call right now, but is your friend okay?
Yeah, she should be out in no time, I typed back.
I started to slip my phone back into my pocket when it buzzed again, and this time it was Anthony’s name on my screen. I excused myself and answered the call as I walked out of the waiting area.
“What the hell is going on over there?” my client demanded. “Hank said Ms. Pizzano got shot?”
“Hang on,” I murmured while I walked down the hall until I found the door to the chapel.
I strolled inside and was relieved it was already empty. I sat down in one of the uncomfortable chairs and sighed.
“Are you alone now?” Anthony asked.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “So, Alessia was shot by some dude who showed up at the event. Gomez already picked him up and took him in, but I didn’t recognize him.”
“Well, at least he can’t try again,” he muttered. “He just walked up and shot her?”
“Ah, he shot her from across the whole auditorium,” I answered and closed my eyes as I pictured the space. “He had to be at least thirty yards away.”
“With a pistol?” Anthony whistled. “That’s not an easy shot.”
“Well, he missed the kill,” I pointed out. “So, maybe he isn’t as good as he thought he was.”
“Still,” he insisted. “You practiced today at ten feet, right?”
Of course, Hank had already told him about our time at the shooting range.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “It wasn’t too bad once I got used to it.”