She stared into the dark, wishing she could go, escape. Instead, she turned around slowly, dragging out the time before she met his gaze.
When she did, it was like a physical blow.
He had stood again. Shoulders hunched, he gripped his hands together. “That was the last thing dad said to me.”
She moved toward him, and it was like walking through moving water, the sense of being dragged back by so many forces. “You didn’t kill Mick. I read about the fire, Tony. A beam fell on him. You didn’t make that happen.”
Tony sank onto the couch then slid onto the floor. “He went in after me.”
“That’s not the same as killing him.”
“Dad wanted it to be me,” he said. The words were slurred in drunken anguish.
She dropped to her knees, searching for something to say. Christ, why was it so hard? “No, he didn’t.”
“The hell he didn’t. He told me. ‘It should’ve been you, Tony. Mick was too good.’”
She turned back, anger rising. “Fuck him, then.”
“Ha!” he shouted. “That’s what I told him, the bastard. I said to hell with him.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah, good for fucking me. He died the next week. I never talked to him after that. My last words to my own father were ‘Go to hell.’” He choked back a sob.
Jamie sank to the floor beside him, rubbed her eyes. She reached out to touch his shoulder. Her hand was tentative as though expecting an electrical shock. It found a bony shoulder and she squeezed gently. “He didn’t mean it,” she promised. “He was angry. Shit, we all say things we don’t mean when we’re angry.”
“He meant it. He was calm when he said it, not angry. He was disgusted that I was the one he was left with. So disgusted that he went and fucking died.”
“Pat loved you, T. He did.” She pressed her palm to the back of his neck, felt the moisture of his sweat. She laid her hand flat, felt his pulse, the rough edge of the healing wounds under her fingers.
How long had it been since she’d touched another person?
The tears fell harder.
“They never got over Lana and Mom, you know. Neither of them ever did,” she whispered. “They had a raw deal, those two—one shitty thing after another. We were reminders of the women they’d lost.”
He sat up, leaned his head into hers. “God, haven’t you got anything to drink?”
“I quit.”
“That was a stupid idea.”
“I was about to lose my job. It’s no good, you know. We can’t handle the booze. Dad and Pat never could, either. It’s lousy Irish luck.” She lifted her head. “You’ve got to quit it, Tony.”
He pulled away.
“You can’t do it anymore,” she told him. “Trust me. It’ll get easier.”
“You’re as self-righteous as the rest of them.”
“Damn it, Tony,” she snapped. “I want to help, but you can’t drink here. I can’t do it—I’m not strong enough to hold us both up.”
Tony pushed himself to his knees, stood unevenly. “Who asked you for help?”
Jamie didn’t move, felt the anger burn under her skin. “Isn’t that why you’re here? Because if you’re not here for help, what do you want, Tony?”
“Nothing,” he snapped then staggered several feet. “Shit, I don’t want anything. God forbid I ask you for anything.”
Jamie stood and moved around the table until she was standing inches from Tony’s chest. “I’m trying.” She shoved him back down.
He stumbled, but didn’t fall.
“It’s been pretty shitty here, too,” she went on, ignoring the way her voice cracked. “I’m sorry you lost your job, but did you ever stop to think that losing your job saved your damn life? You’d be dead now if you hadn’t gotten drunk and kicked out of the department.”
Tony looked away. “Maybe I want to be dead.”
“Fine,” she shouted. “Then go kill yourself, but don’t come to my house to do it. Don’t go asking for my help. You want to do that, then you do it somewhere fucking else.” Her throat went hoarse. She coughed.
“Jesus, you’re a hard bitch.”
Jamie halted, stunned. Tears fogged her vision.
She blinked quickly. “Yeah. Life’s made me hard.”
He marched for the front door. He hadn’t quite reached it when the doorbell rang.
As Tony pulled the door open, Jamie wondered what neighbors they’d awakened. Why wouldn’t everyone leave her the hell alone?
“Oh, Christ,” Tony cried. “Jamie, quick!”
Jamie came around the corner as Tony stood up and turned back to her. He stared at his hands. They were streaked in red—blood.
Jamie ran. He’d cut himself, but she couldn’t see how. “What the hell happened?”
“He’s hurt.”
“Who?”
She passed Tony.
Barney lay on his side on the doormat. She lifted his paw and saw his heaving chest. Blood caked one ear.
“Barney!” Jamie touched his matted coat, the blood dark against his brown fur. “Oh, my God. He’s been cut. He’s bleeding.”
“He must’ve cut himself on the glass,” Tony said.
Jamie shook her head, heart pounding. “Then, who the hell rang the doorbell?”
Chapter 23
“Who the hell rang the doorbell?”
Z stood frozen on the side of the house. It was dark and cold.
He wanted to go to his shed. But he was afraid.
Afraid she’d find him, blame him. Would she believe he didn’t hurt Barney?
Z rang the doorbell. Why did he do that?
Because Barney was hurt. That man hurt Barney. Barney was bleeding. Bad. Z wanted Inspector Jamie to know so she could take care of him.
He didn’t think about the doorbell. That was so dumb. Dogs couldn’t ring doorbells.
Z shivered as the garage door started to open. He hovered close to the house, watched her car pull out. A man sat in the passenger seat, Barney in his lap.
The headlights swung across the side of the house and Z pressed himself into the shadow until they were gone.
Please don’t let Barney die. If the dog died, he’d never find Shay.
Z swiped at the tears on his cheeks.
Not just that, he thought. Barney was a good dog.
Z would miss Barney. He had started to come visit Z when he was in the shed. Barney never got too close. Almost like he understood that Z was hiding.
The tears started to well again and Z hurried back behind the house. He would sleep in the lower cabinet tonight. Maybe for a couple nights.
Then, he would find a time to come to the door. It might not be the perfect time, but he would try. He would try to make it a good time.
As he slid the cabinet door open and crawled in, he planned out how it would go with Inspector Jamie. How he would ring the doorbell and he would tell her about what happened to Barney.
He would do it soon.
Before he got to nineteen notches and had to start the count again.
Shay would tell him to be brave. To be honest and polite.
Inspector Jamie had helped Shay.
He would tell her that. He would tell her that Shay really liked her too. That it meant a lot when she called.
Then, he would ask Jamie to help him find his sister.
He would beg if he had to.
Because he wanted to go home.
Chapter 24
Jamie woke up to a phone ringing. She bolted upright. Tony. No, Tony was here. “Hello,” she gasped.
The voice was breathless on the other end. “Wallace has been attacked.”
“Wha—who?” She blinked, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Who the hell was Wallace?
“It’s me. Hailey. Mackenzie Wallace—the rookie cop who found Natasha—she was attacked. I just found out from Linda James.”
“Attacked. When?”
“Around eight last night. Near I
rving and 10th.” There was a pause and Jamie felt her pulse still. “He was brutal,” Hailey added. Jamie pressed her fist to the hollow pit in her gut. “No one’s gotten her report on it. She was unconscious when she came in. She only woke up about an hour ago.”
This was her fault. Jesus Christ. First the dog, then a rookie cop. She glanced at the bedside clock. Eight a.m. Sunday morning. She’d gotten to bed sometime after three o’clock. Barney was at the vet hospital. Twenty-eight stitches as a result of a knife wound. Not a piece of broken glass on the porch. Someone had knifed her dog at her house. Already there had been another attack.
She threw the covers back, stood. “Where is she now?”
“She’s at General. I’m going there. But Jamie, there’s something else.”
“What?”
Hailey didn’t speak.
Jamie heard a door close with a click. “Hello?”
“I’m here. I had to go into another room.” Hailey’s voice was a whisper.
“What is it?”
“I was attacked.”
Dread splashed hot in Jamie’s gut. “What? When?”
“On Friday night,” Hailey whispered.
“Where? At home?”
Silence.
“Hailey, what the hell happened?”
“After we left the station, I was headed home. But I got a call.”
“From—”
“A friend. He invited me over.” She hesitated. “I went to his apartment.”
Jamie thought about that night. “Daniels.” It wasn’t a question.
Hailey didn’t respond.
Jamie knew she was right. “What time did you get there?”
“About nine-fifteen. Listen, Jamie, this could ruin so much for both of us.”
“I don’t care about the affair, Hailey.”
Hailey’s breath released in a long hiss. “I hate that word.”
“Call it what you want.” Tim. Natasha. Now, Hailey. Christ, the world was full of cheaters. She forced it aside. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Hailey told Jamie about the attack. How she’d gotten out of her car, locked her gun in the glove box, put her purse strap across her chest, and walked up to the apartment. She hadn’t noticed anyone. The street was quiet. It was always quiet, she said.
Jamie fingered the small crater at her temple. Pressed against the soft spot. The purse strap across Hailey’s chest was a big mistake. Cops were supposed to know better. Straps, long ponytails, and hoods all made good things for an attacker to grab. Hailey described how he’d had her facedown, how he’d knocked her head into the floor, tightened the strap on her neck. She’d passed out once, maybe twice. Then, she’d heard a voice above. Someone coming down the stairs. The attacker ran.
“Did you go after him?”
“I was half conscious.”
“Did anyone else go after him?”
“No. He—he was worried about me.”
Jamie closed her eyes, searched for another clue. “Did the attacker speak? Say anything?”
“Nothing. I didn’t get a look at him, and he didn’t say a word. I don’t remember him breathing. I was alone one minute, and the next, he was there, strangling me.”
Her voice caught. “It was clean, Jamie. I didn’t get anything.”
“Prints? I don’t suppose you—”
“I didn’t. I let the scene go.”
“Shit.”
A moment of silence passed before Hailey spoke. “I assumed it was random.” She stopped. “No. I wanted to think it was random. But I know it wasn’t.”
Jamie thought about that night. They’d confronted Scanlan. He could have pulled something like that. But Hailey wasn’t really at the forefront of that—Jamie was. Mackenzie had nothing to do with that night. Scanlan would have had no reason to target her. Then there was Marchek.
Had she really seen him at Tommy’s?
Could he have followed Hailey to Daniels’s apartment?
Mackenzie was badly beaten. That sounded like Marchek’s work. Christ. Jamie ran her hand through her hair. She would’ve never forgiven herself if Mackenzie had been killed.
“I blame myself, Jamie. I should’ve spoken up.”
“Don’t.”
Hailey stopped.
Jamie shook her head. “I thought I saw Marchek when we were at Tommy’s. I’m not sure. It was a flash of something familiar, a sense.”
“Oh, God,” Hailey breathed.
“I’m to blame as much as you.” She paused. “More so, even.”
“We could do this all day. It won’t help Mackenzie.”
Jamie nodded. “Has anyone talked to her about what she saw?”
“Not yet.”
Jamie heard someone in the background on Hailey’s end.
“I need to go,” she said quickly. “But I’m heading to the hospital soon. Will you come?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there as soon as I can. It’ll probably take me an hour.”
“Thanks. And, Jamie, if you could—”
“I won’t say a word about it, unless my only other choice is to let Marchek go.”
“Thank you.”
Goddamn it. Mackenzie had to be okay. They’d already lost one rookie because of Marchek. Shawna Delman, the first victim, had overdosed on heroin three weeks after that attack. Jamie had spoken to Shawna Delman on the phone a few times after the attack.
How come she hadn’t sensed Delman’s despair?
The fact that Marchek was out there, following them away from the station, was terrifying. It was no longer just a case. Marchek was hunting them. She had to stop him before he killed someone else. Before he killed her.
Chapter 25
Hailey held her breath as she walked through the automatic doors of San Francisco General. The smell of it—ammonia and lemon cleaning fluid and the faint odor of feet—almost stopped her. She hated hospitals, would much rather spend time in the morgue. It was this halfway house—not dead, but not well—that made her feel like she needed to rush home and shower, put herself on antibiotics.
At least she didn’t worry about what she would catch from the dead. Today, the hospital felt worse than usual. The guilt that ate at her from the inside wasn’t helping.
There was no way to avoid the fact that she was partially to blame for Mackenzie’s attack.
She thought again of the rookie, of the stressed phone call she’d gotten from Mackenzie’s captain, Linda James. Hailey had a duty to let someone know about her attack. She and Bruce had discussed the possibility that the attack was part of a series of events. The other officers—Shawna Delman, and another Hailey hadn’t met. Then Emily Osbourne.
And Natasha Devlin? Was she related to this too?
She and Bruce discussed the possibility and dismissed the likelihood that Natasha was killed by their serial rapist. Not because she didn’t think the rapist was capable of it. They all knew he was.
They hadn’t taken Marchek seriously enough.
Now, Mackenzie was in the hospital.
Hailey turned her gaze to the ceiling and swore to God that she’d never see Bruce again if the rookie came out of this okay. That night, after the attack, she’d considered the symbolism of it.
She’d been attacked on the way into her lover’s home.
What sign could be clearer?
Jolted from her reverie, Hailey saw she’d stopped in the middle of the hallway. In the lobby, people milled around her—nurses and doctors with cups of coffee, patients in wheelchairs with oxygen or IVs hanging. Pregnant women walked in slow circles to induce labor, nervous husbands beside them.
She felt herself turn back toward the door, couldn’t. Instead, she marched to the young man at the desk. She dropped her badge on the counter in front of him. “I’m trying to locate a patient who was brought in last night. Her name is Mackenzie Wallace.”
His shoulders hunched as he focused on the computer screen, his fingers clicking across the keyboard. “Orthopedic ward. Third floor. Eleva
tors are there.” He pointed across the lobby.
She thanked him and thought the orthopedic unit was a good sign. She knew Mackenzie had broken her arm—had to have a screw put in. It was the emergency department or intensive care that Hailey dreaded. The ICU was where her mother had been right before her liver had failed. No, this was better. Wallace wasn’t going to die.
Please don’t die, Wallace. Just don’t die.
*
Hailey rode the elevator alone, thankful for a brief reprieve from the sick. When the doors slid open, she followed signs to the orthopedic unit and stopped at a nurses’ station. It was unmanned. She spotted a nurse coming down the hall.
“I’m looking for Mackenzie Wallace.”
The nurse glanced at a large whiteboard that was divided into a chart with black tape. A row of patient names was followed by room numbers. To the far right was a second set of names—the doctors’, probably.
She spotted Wallace on the fifth line.
“She’s in room 1027, but it’s early for visitors.”
Hailey brought her badge out again and flipped it open, swallowing her rising stomach. “Is she going to be okay?”
The nurse nodded. “Concussion. She had a bad break in her elbow. She’ll be in a cast for a while.”
“Can I see her?”
The nurse eyed the clock. “She’s only been out of the OR for a couple hours. She’s going to be pretty out of it.”
“I’d really like to see her.”
“I’ll get her doctor and ask, but I don’t think the patient’s going to be up to talking.”
Hailey put her hand on the nurse’s arm as she turned. “I’m a friend. I don’t need her to talk. I’d just like to see her—please.”
The nurse hesitated, looked back at the board. A phone rang then something else buzzed. “It’s around the corner,” the nurse said, pointing left as she grabbed for the phone. “Make it short.”
Hailey took two steps before she heard her name. She turned back and saw Jamie Vail half running down the hall, a man trailing behind.
Hailey stopped and waited. The man with Jamie was average height—maybe five-ten and medium build. He’d been strong once, she could tell, but he looked thin and out of shape. He had wavy, dark brown hair cut close to his head and soft, green eyes.
The Rookie Club Thriller series Box Set Page 17