by Tracy Clark
“Got it?” I asked.
“Not yet.” Ben glared at the guy, still struggling. “Is this really the hill you want to die on? Drop it!”
I pressed in harder, kicked out at his legs again, but I couldn’t get enough leverage to send him over, not without removing my arm from his neck or letting his wrist go, and that wasn’t happening. Suddenly, Ben cried out, stumbled back, and I turned to see blood blossoming on the front of his white shirt.
“He stuck me!”
The guy’s right hand was free, and the knife was coming my way. I released his arm, ducked, and peddled back fast out of striking range. The spectators gasped, screamed, and took off running for the stairs like a herd of frightened buffalo, their retreat so frenzied that I could feel the rumble of the panicked exodus through the soles of my shoes.
I checked Ben, watched the knife, the man holding it. He was hopped up on adrenaline and fear in equal measure. I could see it in his eyes. He was cornered and knew it. I shifted slowly over so that I stood between Ben and him. The guy’s frantic eyes dropped to my waist and the gun there; then they met mine. “Don’t make me,” I said.
He dropped the knife and ran for the stairs. I exhaled, then ran to Ben.
Ben lay on the carpet, his hands clutching his stomach. “What the hell? What’re you doing? Leave me. Go after the son of a bitch.”
There was blood everywhere—his shirt, his hands, on the carpet beneath him. Pain was etched all over his pallid face. I kneeled down beside him to get a better look. The wound was deep. I turned to the bookstore rep. What the hell was her name?
“Call an ambulance!”
She didn’t move. She stood there like a zombie, mouth open, a stricken look on her freckled face.
I stood. “Hey! You. Bookstore girl. Call nine-one-one.” She fumbled for her phone, dialed the digits. I looked over at Allen and Chandler. “Both of you sit.”
Allen began to gather up her things, her purse, her glasses. “I’m not going to stand here in the open. Kaye, call for the car.”
“You’ll stay where I can see you. Sit!”
Chandler looked as though I’d stuck her with a cattle prod, Allen, too, but they both sat. I went back to Ben. There was too much blood, far too much, and he didn’t look good.
He winced. “You let him waltz right out the door? What’s wrong with you?”
“Shut up. Let me see.”
“Looks worse than it is.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Get me a Band-Aid, Nurse Nancy.”
He was joking. Good sign. I spotted a sweater someone had dropped on their mad dash for the exit, and scrambled over and grabbed it. After balling it up tight, I pressed it to Ben’s middle, listening out for the ambulance, trying not to think about the blood. I swallowed hard, waiting helplessly for someone to come.
“You’re right. It looks worse than it is.” I hoped I sounded convincing. “You do worse giving yourself a shave in the morning.” He’d gone gray. I looked into his eyes. Dullness stared back at me. Shit.
“You always . . . were . . . a lousy liar.”
I applied slightly more pressure to the wound. “I could stitch you up myself. I took basic first aid at the academy. I can birth a baby, apply a tourniquet, perform CPR.” Maybe if I razzed him, he’d stay alert enough to razz me back.
“I didn’t learn . . . half that crap.”
I shot Allen and Chandler an evil look as they sat there seething, as though they were the victims here, not Ben. “Well, I’m smarter than you, or didn’t you know that?”
“Yeah . . . I know it. Hands down.” His lips were beginning to turn blue, and the sweater was covered in blood.
I turned to the rep. “Call again. Tell them to hurry the hell up.” But before she could dial, I heard the sirens. Then, a couple of minutes later, there came a ruckus from the floor below, followed by the sound of heavy feet racing up the steps. Finally.
“They’re here.” I felt Ben’s hands, found them cold. His eyes were closed now. “Ben?”
“Relax. Just resting my eyes.”
Now who was the lousy liar? The paramedics rushed in, loaded down with gear, followed close behind by a couple of uniformed cops. I got up, stepped back, and let them work, my bloody hands shaking. I looked over at Allen, sitting there, her arms crossed petulantly at her chest, looking just as unconcerned and as disapproving as always, as though Ben, bleeding on the floor, was inconveniencing her. This was on her, every bit of it. She turned her back to me; Chandler, too. I stormed over to the table, grabbed up the book the guy had left behind.
Eric.
Chapter 13
I rode in the ambulance with Ben, but he drifted in and out, and I didn’t think he knew I was there. We rushed through the automatic doors of the ER six minutes later, Ben on the gurney, the paramedics and I trotting alongside it.
“We’ve got a bleeding cop here!” I yelled. “Bleeding cop!”
A nurse and doctor in scrubs rushed forward, ready to triage, stethoscopes hanging from their necks, bags under bloodshot eyes. Ben’s eyes fluttered open, and I almost cried with relief.
“Jeez, I’m not dead yet.” His words were slurred, and his voice was low, but it was something. It was everything.
I watched as the busy pair checked Ben out. The paramedics had replaced the sweater I’d used to apply pressure with real-deal bandages, and they had started an IV, meds, and oxygen in the ambulance. When the doctor pulled the bandages away, the gash on Ben’s stomach startled me all over again. I looked over at the doctor, but she didn’t appear to be rattled by the sight of it. I took that as a good sign.
She whistled. “Well, looks like somebody’s going to surgery on the fast track.” She flicked a look at the paramedics. “Wheel him back. We’ll get him set up.”
Ben scowled. “Surgery . . . ? For this?”
The doctor looked at me; the nurse, too.
I shrugged. “He doesn’t like hospitals.”
“Hate ’em,” Ben said. “Pee in this . . . Drop trou . . . Stick tongue out . . .” He faded out again.
The doctor shook her head, smirked. “Let’s go, people. Bleeding cop!”
The gurney shot through the doors, and I tried to follow, but the nurse stopped me at the threshold. “Family?”
I watched helplessly as Ben disappeared inside. “Yes,” I barked back.
His brows lifted; he angled his head. He’d obviously been here before.
“Practically. For all intents and purposes.”
He gave me a sympathetic smile, tucked his stethoscope into his pocket. “Sorry. You’ll have to wait out here, then. But don’t worry. He’s going right up.”
He hustled off toward another crisis and left me standing at the doors, Ben’s blood on my hands and shirt.
I turned toward the waiting room just as Marcus and Tanaka walked in, spotted me, and headed over. Instantly, everyone in the ER perked up and tuned in, even an old guy hooked up to an oxygen tank. Everyone could peg cop when it breezed through the door like it owned the place.
“What the hell went on tonight?” Marcus asked when he reached me. Tanaka just stood there, as animated as bleached-out driftwood staked into winter sand.
I didn’t answer, mainly because he’d just asked a question he already knew the answer to—or why else would he be here?—and secondly, because I was done with him. I eyed them both, weighed my options, then decided just to peace out.
“Excuse me, please.” I followed the directional signs to the women’s bathroom. I needed a minute, a month, a year even, and a quiet spot without anyone in it but me. I peeked under the stalls, looking for sick-people feet and ankles, pushed open a few stall doors just to confirm I was alone, and then stood at the sink, exhaled, and washed my hands, watching as blood and soap swirled slowly down the drain.
My hands looked clean, but I washed them again, the tap still running, then splashed cold water on my face a couple of times. I avoided looking at myself in the mirror, at my shirt with Ben’s blood on it.
It was bad enough I could feel the hardened smears brushing against my bare skin when I moved. It felt like it weighed a ton, the blood, like I was wearing a shirt of chain mail or one of bricks.
Why did it feel like I couldn’t breathe? Had Ben felt like this when it’d been me bleeding to death? I turned away from the mirror, yanked a rough paper towel from the dispenser on the wall, and patted my face dry, a little steadier, but not by much. That was when Tanaka came in.
“No,” I said, trying to ward her off before she had a chance to open her mouth. “Go away.”
“You know I can’t,” she said. “You know how this goes.”
“I cannot deal with you right now. You should be out there looking for the guy who did this. I gave his description to the uniforms back at the scene, a full, detailed report, before the ambulance pulled off. You’ve got a roomful of witnesses, including a news crew with footage of the whole thing. And you’ve got Allen and Chandler, who know what this is about, but won’t say. So right now? I need a minute. I need you—”
“Did the guy tonight mention Hewitt?”
Her question surprised me. What did Philip Hewitt have to do with tonight? “Why would he mention—”
But before I could finish, Marcus burst through the door and encroached on all my personal space. I took a step back.
“We’re done dancing around with you,” he said. “What the hell is Vonda Allen into, and what’s it got to do with this dead guy we’re working?” He placed his arms on his hips, his eyes hot, intense. He meant to throw his weight around, show me he called the shots, just like Farraday. I faced Tanaka, ignored him.
“You’re talking to the wrong person,” I said. “The right person’s likely at home now, sipping brandy out of a golden snifter. Go harass her.”
“Don’t get cute,” Marcus snapped. “Don’t forget I know you. I know how you operate.”
“Hewitt was into a few bookies for a lot of money,” Tanaka said, ignoring her partner. The seamless way she did it told me she was used to doing it. “Maybe the guy tonight worked for one of them. Maybe he—”
The door opened, and a black woman, maybe about thirty, rushed in with a little boy, about four, with a runny nose and saggy pants. She startled when she saw us.
“You can’t come in here,” Marcus barked. “We need the room.”
“Yeah, I need it, too,” she said none too gently. “He’s gotta pee, and this is where he’s got to do it, unless you want to wash his pants out in that sink.” She waited for a challenge but didn’t get it, then rushed into a stall, dragging the kid behind her. We stood listening to the sound of tiny pants being pulled down and the two of them bumping against the stall door. Tanaka stared at the tops of her shoes, Marcus stared at me, and I found a spot on the wall just over his shoulder to focus on as we waited on a kid’s bladder. I was acutely aware that time was being wasted. I needed to know how Ben was doing. I’d been in this bathroom too long already.
Marcus was growing impatient. “You want to hurry it up in there?”
“Mind your business,” the woman yelled back.
We all listened as the mother and kid finished up and the toilet flushed. Finally, the pair emerged and hurried over to the sink for the hand-washing portion of the program, the woman shooting daggers at Marcus. Time couldn’t have crawled any slower.
“You need to take all that somewhere else besides in here,” the woman said as she tossed the paper towel into the bin and headed for the door, with the boy by the hand. She looked Marcus up and down. “You’re not even supposed to be in here. Perv.”
When the door closed behind them, Marcus banged the trash bin against the door to barricade it shut and then stood in front of that to keep out the next toddler in crisis.
“No one mentioned Hewitt tonight,” I said, hoping to move things along. “This felt personal. You might want to start there. We done?”
Tanaka searched my face. “I’m surprised you’re not gung ho to work it all out.”
“I don’t work for Allen anymore. I quit tonight. Ben’s my concern right now. But if you two are thinking he was some bookie coming after Allen to resolve Hewitt’s gambling debt, you’ve gotten it wrong. Allen could barely tolerate Hewitt. There’s no way she’d agree to bail him out of a jam while he was alive, let alone dead.”
“She’s got deep pockets,” Marcus said. “The bookie wouldn’t know she couldn’t stand the guy.”
I stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “So, the bookie bought flowers and a book, stood in line for Allen to sign it . . . and then.... ‘Oh, by the way, would you write me a check for your employee’s gambling losses?’ Are you serious? Which one of you came up with this?” It didn’t look like either one of them wanted to claim it. I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have.
“Careful,” Marcus warned.
“You be careful. This was personal. He was there to see her, talk to her. He said as much, but you’d know all that if you’d talked to the uniforms before rushing over here to waste my time.”
Tanaka stood calmly, eyes steady. “You didn’t give chase. Why?”
“He’d dropped the knife. Ben needed help. What would you have done?”
Before she could answer, Marcus did. “I’d have run the guy down, like any good cop would.”
My eyes held Tanaka’s. “Hear that, Tanaka? Like any good cop would.”
She got the message. Marcus Jones would be no use to her when the chips were down. Like Marie Russo, if the worst came to pass, she’d find that her backup was no backup at all.
“I’m done,” I said. “You have the knife. Check for prints. Maybe he’s in the system. Grab the news footage. They got everything. You even have the book she signed with his name in it.” I stepped around them, slid the bin away from the door. “A good cop should be able to wrap this thing up in no time. Now leave me alone. I’ve got a friend to check on.”
Marcus turned around. “You’re not half as smart as you think you are, Cass.”
I smiled, let it go. “The next time you two crowd me in a bathroom, you’d better be ready to put me in cuffs.”
“Don’t leave town,” Tanaka warned.
“I’ll leave the country if I feel like it.” I glared at Marcus. “And you don’t know the first thing about me. Never did.”
It was well after midnight when Ben got out of surgery. Everything had gone well, the doctors said, and they thought he’d be just fine with a little recuperation. Eli had come to wait with me, and we were sitting in the surgical waiting room for word on when we could go back and take a look for ourselves. When we finally did, we found Ben snoring in a private room, hooked up to an IV, knocked out and floating on a wave of no-joke drugs, his abdomen covered in layers of bandages.
“It’s going to take more than a knife to send him on to glory,” Eli whispered.
I watched Ben’s chest rise and fall. He was alive, on the mend. I glanced at Eli. “I can go now.”
A half hour later, I trudged up the three flights to my apartment, having declined the offer of Eli’s company. Like Allen earlier, I wanted to be alone. I stepped inside, tossed my keys into the bowl on the entry table, unclipped my gun, and set it there, too. The place was dead quiet except for the ticking of the clock in my kitchen. I slipped out of my blazer, unbuttoned my shirt, peeled out of it, and then, angry, impotent, shaking, flung both toward my living room, not bothering to care where they landed. Half dressed, unable to move, unable to think about where to move to, I fell back against the door and slid down the length of it, then drew my knees up close, and rocked to soothe myself.
Chapter 14
Linda Sewell bumped her old Corolla into the multilevel garage across the street from the Strive office. It was almost 10:00 AM. She was late, with piles of work waiting, but first, she had had to drop Jarrod off at school, meet with his teacher, stop at the ATM, and then dash for gas at the Amoco, for the fifteen dollars’ worth, which would get her all the way downtown.
Allen would not
be in a good mood, either, she knew, not after the trouble at the bookstore. It was all over the news. Some crazed fan with a knife, still on the loose. No, Vonda Allen would be hell on wheels today. Sewell’s car clattered to a stop between diagonal yellow lines on level thirteen.
She grabbed her bag and a stack of files from the passenger seat and then all but hurled herself out of the car, her mind on the work ahead and the grief she had coming. So loud were her thoughts that she didn’t hear the footsteps. She had the car locked and her bag slung over her shoulder before she sensed she wasn’t alone. She turned, clutched the bag and files to her chest, and fixed surprised eyes on the smiling face. One she knew. Still, there was a prickle at the base of her neck as unease crept up her spine and turned her blood to ice.
“You don’t park here.” Sewell pulled the bag and the files closer to her. They were her only shield, but not much protection.
The smile widened. There was a slow shake of the head.
“Then what . . . ?” She couldn’t finish; fear had swallowed her words. There was no one else around, just cars, dim light, and walls of solid concrete . . . and the smile. Sewell took a tentative step toward escape. “I need to get upstairs.”
The head tilted. The smile died. A steady hand slipped into a bulky pocket. Sewell knew then she’d die where she stood. She would have screamed if she’d had the time.
* * *
I knocked on the door to Ben’s room and stood in the open doorway with a monstrous potted plant, watching as he sneered at the indistinguishable items on his breakfast tray. His color was back. He looked like his old self. He noticed me standing there and lifted what looked like a piece of smoked roadkill.
“Can you believe this crap? They’re calling this bacon. First, it’s turkey, so no way in hell, and second, it’s turkey.” He took in the plant. “What’s with the dieffenbachia?”
I eased in, smiling, my spirit instantly lifted after a night of wrestling ghosts and haunting what-ifs. I set the plant down near the window so it could catch some sun. “That’s what this is? I just asked for something alive and green.” I walked over to the bed, stared at the tray. “That looks . . . sad.”