Miami Fire

by Rick Murcer

  “I’m sorry, Belle. I know we should talk about a few things and how they were handled, and we will, but we have some different issues right now.”

  “Like what, Josh? It better be good. You and Manny sent me to the hellhole that almost drove me crazy years ago, and now you’re telling me we have some ‘different issues’ to take care of? That’s not fair.”

  “I know. Like I said, we can talk later. I just found out that a side assignment I have taken initiative to handle isn’t where it should be. But more important than that, for now, is the fact that Dean’s been shot and is fighting for his life.”

  Belle felt her jaw drop, then instantaneous shame at her own selfishness for demanding her own way without getting all of the details from Josh.

  “Oh God in heaven. What happened?”

  “Manny only said that Valentino set them up somehow at the warehouse, stole the SUV with Dean in it. Sophie and Manny tracked the SUV and finally found it—with Dean at death’s door in the passenger’s seat. He’s in surgery to repair perforated intestines. It could take hours.”

  “So he’s going to be all right?”

  Josh stared without focus at the floor of the jet, the sound of rushing air as ominous as wind in a cemetery.

  “There’s only about a twenty-percent chance he’ll make it.”

  Having her stomach twist in this business wasn’t all that unusual, but the knot in her belly now made her nauseated.

  “Twenty percent?”

  “There’s more. Even if they can reach the bullet and he survives, the doctors don’t believe he’ll walk again.”

  CHAPTER-33

  The ride to Miami’s largest hospital had been like a roller coaster that traveled from somewhere high into heaven straight into the deepest, darkest depths of hell for Sophie.

  Dean was still alive, and the EMS got to the SUV in no time flat.

  Heaven.

  Her odd, but incredible, loving husband had even spoken to her. He said he loved her and not to worry. He even joked that he’d bled more than this the last time he shaved his beard.

  Heaven, again.

  Halfway to the hospital, Dean’s eyes had rolled up into his head, only showing the whites, and his blood pressure and heart rate had fallen off a cliff. The EMS crew was very skilled and brought him out of it, but they had no repair for the years that episode had taken from her life.

  Hell.

  When they finally rolled into the emergency circle in front of the entrance, her spirits spiked high again—higher than they should have. She had been holding his hand, kissing it incessantly, when Dean’s heart stopped completely.

  Hell again.

  After two horrible minutes and three AED shock treatments, his heart began beating.

  Heaven.

  She looked down into the small cup of shitty hospital coffee, her mind going in every direction and nowhere at all.

  What would she do if he didn’t come through the surgery? How could she breathe? How would she be able to put one foot in front of the other?

  Thoughts of Manny dealing with Louise’s death came to her.

  She’d cried with him, held him, and even joked with him, making every attempt to console in her own way. At the time, she thought she understood what he was going through.

  Not even close. She understood jack shit.

  “Any updates?” asked Manny.

  Turning to her right, she saw her friend walking into the waiting room from the hallway where he’d been meeting with Miami law enforcement.

  “No. Nothing yet. I keep asking, but they just say the same thing. If I go up to that desk one more time, they’ll probably give me a shot to put me under and then cuff me to one of those beds in the psych ward.”

  “What? You don’t want them to do that? I mean, there was a time when that handcuff thing appealed to you, right?”

  She shook her head slowly, unable to stop the tiny smile.

  “True. But I can wait this time.”

  Then Sophie melted into Manny’s strong arms and let him hold her.

  All her life, she had been tough, hard, and self-reliant, bottling up her frustrations and anger for her own good . . . and never showing anyone the essence of who she really was.

  But not with Manny—not that it would have done a lot of good trying to hide her thoughts from him anyway, his gift made that impossible.

  Beyond seeing her for who she was, he accepted her, cared for her, and loved her completely, even right from the start of their partnership.

  No bullshit, no pretense, just utter acceptance for who she was and where she was in her life. No one, not even her parents and siblings, made her feel like that.

  If the God he talked about from time to time held those traits, and Manny said He did, then she was grateful He’d given them to Manny, especially now.

  There was never a romantic side to their relationship, although she’d held a secret infatuation for a brief time.

  He was just Manny, the Big Brother that everyone should have.

  “Dean’s got this you know? He’s a hell of a fighter and loves his life with you,” whispered Manny.

  Fresh tears spilled from her eyes as she squeezed tighter.

  “You’d better be right, or I’m going to kick both your asses.”

  “Duly noted. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m right a lot.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  A few minutes later, she released her grip and touched his hard chest.

  “Sorry about the tear stains. I’ll get you another shirt.”

  “I’ll live. But I do have a favor to ask,” said Manny.

  “As long as it has to do with killing Valentino’s ugly ass, fire away.”

  “Well, it does have to do with him. Are you able to talk about a few things regarding this case?”

  “Yeah. I think so. I can’t box up my emotions like you, but I can be a cop, I think.”

  Manny nodded. “Good. Although, I’m not sure how good of a job I’m doing boxing up my emotions either.”

  There was no mistaking the edge in Manny’s voice as he spoke. She’d seen him pissed, especially the night he’d taken Argyle out, but still . . .

  He read her mind, again.

  “Yes, I’m fighting this damn angry attitude that I can’t quite get a grip on. I think I’ve been that way since before we left Lansing, but I’m good.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Don’t mock me.”

  “I wasn’t, in the true sense of mocking.”

  “Yeah? Okay then, let’s get this going.”

  There was another of those magical smiles. That made her forget her problems for a second or two. He got another A+ for trying.

  “Josh called to give us the name of the suspect that the Saint Kitts police believe killed Belle’s friend.”

  “What? They knew?”

  “Apparently. Josh said it was complicated and had to do with money and politics and the man who owned the sugar transportation company that employed a ton of Saint Kitts’s workers. He said they’re still working though some more details, but that’s not our concern for now. We have to find Eric Tovant.”

  Sophie ran the name through her mind a dozen times in a few seconds, allowing him to sink in.

  Eric Tovant had killed at least six Miami innocents and one poor little island girl. He’d shot her husband, who was struggling desperately not to be the next Tovant victim.

  Her heart was ravaged with another wave of fear, doubt, and lastly, rage, at the idea that Dean, who wouldn’t harm another if his life depended on it, might not see another sunrise.

  She clenched and unclenched her hands repeatedly, trying to find hope in the middle of that possibility.

  Manny always talked about doing things the right way and letting the system work. Everyone had a right to justice. No matter what they’d done. If not, then the sy
stem wasn’t good or fair for anyone.

  Right now, she couldn’t care less for anyone else’s definition of that overused and under practiced ideal.

  This man needed to die.

  She glanced up at Manny, searching those blues for a little direction, if not redemption for her runaway anger and ideas of revenge.

  There wasn’t any.

  His eyes were almost a reflection of her very thoughts. “Almost” being the operative word. Men like Manny would always have a small measure of compassion and empathy for a perp, no matter what the killer had done—because they couldn’t help it.

  But she wasn’t cut that way.

  “What do you want me to do? As much as I’d like to cut this man’s balls off and feed them to him as I cut out his heart, I can’t leave Dean,” she said.

  “I appreciate the sentiments, and I would never ask you to leave Dean. I’m not sure I can leave you both, but we have to get to this man while the getting might be good.”

  She nodded.

  “So far we’ve not been able to truly ID Valentino as Eric Tovant.”

  “You’re not convinced?”

  “I’ve found that being convinced of something and discovering the truth can be two different things entirely.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning I need you to hold down the fort until Belle and Josh get back from Saint Kitts. I want you to look at the data that comes in on Eric Tovant from the FBI’s databases and whatever else we have from Miami-Dade’s research division plus the files from the island’s police department. There are two forensic units out to the warehouse where you shot Valentino collecting whatever they can, including blood samples to compare DNA against CODIS to see if there’s a match and make sense of the rest of it.”

  “Are you being cautious or is your brain doing one of those ‘pull applesauce out of a pile of shit’ things again?” she asked.

  “If you mean do I want to make sure black is black here, then yes. Something seems a little off with the manner in which Valentino made himself so visible when it wasn’t in his make-up, at least as far as I was concerned. And he no doubt talked about ‘why’ with Dean before he was shot. Which also leads me to think he didn’t intend to shoot Dean.”

  “Why do you say that? I mean about shooting Dean. I think I get it about probably talking about getting his rocks off killing people, hell, they all do that, but explain yourself.”

  He draped a strong arm around Sophie’s shoulders.

  “You’d already have that figured out if you didn’t have more important things to be concerned with. Two things here. Why kill Dean if he told him about himself? Wouldn’t he have wanted Dean to help spread the word?

  “The other thing is the angle of the shot to Dean’s middle indicates the barrel of the gun was lower so the shot went upward. If Valentino was just going to kill Dean, he would have probably shot from his shoulder height and probably not aimed for the stomach either. I almost think Dean made a play for the gun.”

  Sophie felt another flush of tears well up thinking about how brave that action had been for her husband.

  “I know you’re right. I can just see him doing it, that dumbass. I told him to never try to be a hero like that because he sucks at it.”

  “He’s a cop, you know? He did what he thought was the right thing to do.”

  She sighed. “I know. I know.”

  She felt his gentle kiss on her head.

  “He’s going to make it, Sophie. He’s a good man and tougher than most,” Manny said softly.

  “Yeah, that’s what scares me. It seems like God takes all of the good ones and leaves the rest of us to figure out why.”

  “Not this time. We need him.”

  Funny how Manny said “we.” But then again, that’s how he looked at things. They were a team, a family, always.

  “Okay, I have to keep my mind off that emergency surgery room so I’ll do it. Just no guarantees, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Good. The local officers brought us a laptop programmed for just this kind of thing so when I leave, they’ll bring it in.”

  She had known he was going to leave, but hearing it was tougher than she’d imagined. Alone with the prospects of terrible news on the horizon wasn’t her idea of a good time, but she understood her partner, didn’t she? Guardians of the Universe saw a bigger picture.

  “I’ll only be a phone call away,” he said, once again in tune with her emotions. “We have to stop this killer before any more murders.”

  “Okay. I get that. What are you going to be doing?”

  “I’m leaving with Marie and Duane to search Eric Tovant’s house. He owns one on the northeast side of Miami. It had belonged to his parents, both deceased by the way.”

  “You don’t think this psycho left you any clues about what’s next for his screwed-up love and kill agenda, do you?”

  Manny looked out the window into the night sky, then back to her, a tense smile clouding his handsome face.

  “I think we just might find more than we bargained for.”

  CHAPTER-34

  The pin-sized light coming from the end of the dark passageway seemed miles away. It was barely distinguishable.

  He immediately thought about the stories of people who claimed they had near-death experiences. In almost every version of their encounters, they had been plunged into immediate darkness until a bright light drew them through a distant tunnel. The light eventually grew to the point where it completely bathed them in a great white light. Then, they would be introduced to a close relative, or maybe Jesus Himself.

  Alex wondered what Manny would think if he knew that Alex had been curious enough about his God to actually do research on the end-of-life experience.

  He’d probably smile and say something like, “It’s about time.”

  So was this the end? Was he dead? He couldn’t remember much of what had happened after the surgery to attach the new hand. Nothing much at all.

  Barb? Did he see her? Did they talk? Maybe. That felt right, though his grasp on reality was questionable at best right now.

  The light began to grow brighter, expanding to almost encompass him, but it was blurry and out of kilter.

  After realizing that he probably was still alive, he reached unsteadily with his right hand and made a valiant effort to wipe the fog from his eyes. He missed and slapped himself on the nose.

  That seemed to do the trick, however. His vision began to focus and then cleared faster than a New York minute as his immediate surroundings came into perfect view.

  The white-walled room was much smaller than his original hospital abode although it seemed to be clean and fully capable of handling a patient’s needs, he hoped. He’d just had a major surgery; it wouldn’t be good for him if he were wrong.

  There was one double-paned window to his right, a bathroom directly in front of him some ten feet away. To the left of that was a door he assumed led out of the room.

  There was a black padded chair near the foot of the bed on the left, where several wires and tubes were running into the extreme porcupine metal cast on his arm, and one chair on his right side.

  In the chair on the right was a purse. He recognized it as the designer bag he’d bought Barb for Christmas last year.

  Shaking the last of the cobwebs from his mind, he eventually got around to wondering why he was here and not in his original room. Was this a special recovery room? If so, why wasn’t he told about it? But that was the government for you, right? They never told anyone squat.

  Barb.

  Where in hell was she?

  She wouldn’t leave him alone in a situation like this, ever.

  He frowned. They’d had a discussion and almost an argument, hadn’t they? It was about the last time he’d come to Walter Reed. Was she that pissed at him? He’d missed something in their conversation, he was sure of that, but she wouldn’t leave him alone, right?

  His eyes blurred over again. He blinked, held them shut for a
few seconds, then opened them again.

  The door swung open, and two people entered just as his vision cleared for a second time.

  It didn’t matter, nor did he care, that he didn’t recognize the large, pale, white man with the shaved head wearing a black suit and tie to match. He only cared about the woman who made his heart leap. Seeing his wife sent waves of relief coursing over his body; there was no one on earth he wanted to see more.

  She moved to the chair, set her purse on the floor, and took his hand.

  “How you doing, tiger?”

  “I’m coming around. Where am I? This isn’t my room at the hospital.”

  Barb glanced at the big man.

  “No it’s not. I, we, couldn’t leave you there.”

  Alex opened his mouth to ask why, then he remembered everything, especially Barb poking him with a hypodermic needle and the lights going out. What the hell was that about?

  “Raise my bed up so I can look you in the face while you tell me why you shot me up with something and why we’re someplace other than where I’m supposed to be.”

  Barb reached for the remote and adjusted the bed so that he was sitting at almost a right angle, then she sat back down.

  The man cleared his throat but said nothing.

  Alex shot him a look, then turned back to his wife.

  “Well?” he asked. “Do I have to play fifty questions or some other pointless game?”

  “There is more going on here involving you and your surgery, Alex.”

  “I gather that. Keep talking.”

  She reached for his hand, and he pulled it away.

  “Talk.”

  She nodded.

  “You were right when we talked before your surgery. I have never lied to you before, that minute, ever, and it almost killed me when they wheeled you into the operating room with that black mark on my report card, but I had to.”

  “You had to? Why?”

  “I was protecting you. You couldn’t know what was in store for you after the surgery.”

  Alex felt like his head was going to explode.

  This cryptic conversation was driving him toward goofy land.