Night Shield

by Nora Roberts

  like that.”

  “Shame about that. Nice car.”

  “Yeah.” She forgot about it as they screamed up the interstate.

  * * *

  A block from the Barneses’ address, she hopped out of the car and arrowed straight to Hickman. “Give me the story.”

  “They took their time getting here. Balou and Dietz had the first leg of the tail and said they drove like solid citizens, kept under the speed limit, signaled for turns. Woman riding shotgun, made a call on a cell phone. He turned over the tail to me and Carson when they got on 36. They stopped for gas. The woman gets in the back. They’re driving a nice, suburban minivan. She’s doing something back there, but I couldn’t get close enough to see.”

  “Making the keys. I bet you two weeks’ pay she’s got the works for it in the van.”

  “Do I look like I take sucker bets?” He glanced down the quiet street. “Anyhow, we had a unit here, waiting. The suspects were observed parking the van a block down from the target address. They strolled up the street, walked right up to the door, unlocked it and went in like they owned the place.”

  “Barnes said they have a security system.”

  “Alarm didn’t trip. They’ve been inside about ten minutes now. Lieutenant’s waiting for you. We’ve got the area blocked off, the house surrounded.”

  “Then let’s move in and wrap this up.”

  He grinned, handed her a walkie-talkie. “Saddle up.”

  “God, I love cowboy talk.”

  They moved fast, kept low. She spotted the cops positioned on the street, behind trees, in shadows, hunched in cars.

  “Glad you could join the party, Detective.” Kiniki nodded toward the house. “Ballsy, aren’t they?”

  Lights gleamed, a homey glow against windows on the first and second floor. While Ally watched, she saw a faint shadow move behind the lower window.

  “Dietz and Balou are covering the back. We’ve got them closed in. What’s your play?”

  Ally reached in her pocket, pulled out keys. “We move in on all sides and go in the front. When we move, pull one of the radio cars across the driveway. Let’s block that route.”

  “Call it.”

  She lifted the walkie-talkie to establish positioning and give the orders. And all hell broke loose.

  Three gunshots blasted the air, the return fire slamming into the echoes. Even as Ally drew her own weapon, voices shouted through the walkie-talkies.

  “Dietz is down! Officer down! Shooter’s male, heading east on foot. Officer down!”

  Cops rushed the house. Ally hit the door first, went in low. Blood pounded in her ears as she swept the area with her weapon. Hickman took her back and at her signal headed up the stairs while she turned right.

  Someone was shouting. She heard it like a buzz in the brain. Lights flashed on.

  The house opened out like a fan. She brought the layout Barnes had described into her mind as she and the rest of the team spread out. At each doorway she led with eyes and weapon, following training while her breath came short and shallow.

  There was more gunfire from outside, muffled pops. She started to turn in that direction and saw the sliding door on what looked like a small solarium wasn’t quite shut.

  She caught a scent, very female, and following instinct turned away from the shouts and bolted for the door.

  She saw the woman, just the silhouette of her, running hard toward a line of ornamental trees. “Police! Stop where you are!”

  She would replay it a dozen times. The woman continued to run. Weapon drawn, Ally raced after her, calling out the warning, shouting her position and situation into her hand unit.

  She heard calls from behind her, running feet.

  They’d cut her off, Ally thought. Cut her off even before she reached the six-foot fence that closed in the property.

  Nowhere to go.

  She gained ground, caught both the scent of perfume and panic sweat the woman left on the air. Moonlight picked her out of the shadows, the swing of her dark hair, the stream of the short black cape.

  And when, on the run, the woman turned, the moonlight bounced off the chrome plating of the revolver in her hand.

  Ally saw her lift it, felt with a kind of detached shock the heat of the bullet that whined past her own head.

  “Drop your weapon! Drop it now!”

  And as the woman pivoted, and the gun jerked in her hand, Ally fired.

  Ally saw the woman stagger, heard the thud as the gun fell from her hand and heard a kind of sighing gasp. But what she would remember, what seemed to burn on her brain like acid on glass, was the dark stain that bloomed between the woman’s breasts even as she dropped.

  It was bone-deep training that had her rushing forward, stepping on the woman’s gun. “Suspect down,” she said into her hand unit as she crouched to check for a pulse. Her voice didn’t shake, and neither did she. Not yet.

  It was Hickman who got to her first. She heard his voice like something carried on the crest of a wave of churning water. Her head was full of sound, a rushing liquid sound.

  “Are you hit? Ally, are you hit?”

  His hands were already moving over her, tugging at her jacket to check for injury.

  “Call an ambulance.” Her lips were stiff. They felt wooden, splintered. She reached forward, crossing her hands over each other, pressing the heels of them on the woman’s chest.

  “On the way. Come on. Get up.”

  “She needs pressure on this wound. She needs an ambulance.”

  “Ally.” He holstered his own weapon. “You can’t do anything for her. She’s dead.”

  * * *

  She didn’t let herself be sick. She made herself stand and watch as the wounded officer and the woman’s partner were loaded into ambulances. She made herself watch when the woman was zipped into a thick black bag.

  “Detective Fletcher.”

  And she made herself turn, face her lieutenant. “Sir. Can you tell me Dietz’s condition?”

  “I’m on my way to the hospital. We’ll know more later.”

  She rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. “The suspect?”

  “Paramedics said he’ll make it. It’ll be a couple of hours at least before we can question him.”

  “Am I … will I be allowed to be in on the interrogation?”

  “It’s still your case.” He took her arm to draw her away. “Ally, listen to me. I know what it feels like. Ask yourself now, right now, if you could have done anything differently.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hickman was behind you, and Carson was coming in from the left. I haven’t spoken with her as yet, but Hickman’s report is you identified yourself, ordered her to stop. She turned and fired. You ordered her to drop her weapon, and she prepared to fire again. You had no choice. That’s what I expect to hear from you during the standard inquiry tomorrow morning. Do you want me to call your father?”

  “No. Please. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, after the inquiry.”

  “Then go home, get some rest. I’ll let you know about Dietz.”

  “Sir, unless I’m relieved of duty, I’d rather go to the hospital. Stand by for Dietz, and be on hand to question the suspect when we’re cleared to do so.”

  It would be better for her, he thought, to do what came next. “You can ride with me.”

  * * *

  Panic was like an animal clawing at his throat. He’d never felt anything like it before. Jonah told himself it was just hospitals that did it to him. He’d always detested them. The smell of them brought back the last hideous months of his father’s life and made him all too aware that a turn here, a turn there in a different direction, might have damned him to experience the same fate his father had at fifty years old.

  His source had assured him that Ally wasn’t hurt. But all he knew for certain was that something had gone very wrong at the bust and she was at the hospital. That had been enough to have him heading straight out. Just to see for
himself, he thought.

  He found her, slumped in a chair, in the hallway of Intensive Care. The panic digging into his throat released.

  She’d taken the clip out of her hair as he knew she did when she was tense or tired. The gilt curtain of hair fanned down the side of her face, concealing it. But the tired slouch, the hands she gripped together on her knees, told him what to expect.

  He stepped in front of her, crouched down and saw, as he’d known he would, pale skin and dark, bruised eyes.

  “Hey.” He gave in to the need to lay his hand over hers. “Bad day?”

  “Pretty bad.” It seemed like wires were crossed in her brain. She didn’t think to wonder why he was there. “One of my team’s in critical condition. They don’t know if he’ll make it till morning.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me, too. The doctors won’t let us talk to the son of a bitch who shot him. Male suspect identified as Richard Fricks. He’s sleeping comfortably under a nice haze of drugs while Dietz fights for his life, and his wife’s down in the chapel praying for it.”

  She wanted to close her eyes, to go into the dark, but kept them open and on his. “And for a bonus, I killed a woman tonight. One shot through the heart. Like she was a target I aced at practice.”

  Her hands trembled once under his, then fisted.

  “Yeah, that’s a pretty bad day. Come on.”

  “Come where?”

  “Home, I’m taking you home.” When she looked at him blankly, he pulled her to her feet. She felt featherlight, her hands as fragile as glass. “There’s nothing you can do here now, Ally.”

  She closed her eyes, groped for a breath. “That’s what Hickman said at the scene. There’s nothing you can do. Looks like you’re both right.”

  She let him lead her to the elevator. There was no point in staying, or arguing or pretending she wanted to be alone. “I can … get a ride.”

  “You’ve got one.”

  No, she thought, no point in arguing, or in resisting the supporting arm he slipped around her waist. “How did you know to come here?”

  “A cop came by to take the Barneses home. I got enough out of him to know there’d been trouble, and where you were. Why isn’t your father with you?”

  “He doesn’t know. I’ll tell him about it tomorrow.”

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  She blinked, like a woman coming out of a dark room into the light. “What?”

  He pulled her out of the elevator, across the hospital lobby. “Do you want him to hear about this from someone else? To not hear your voice, hear you tell him you’re not hurt? What are you thinking?”

  “I … I wasn’t thinking. You’re right.” She fumbled in her purse for her phone as they crossed the lot. “I need a minute. I just need a minute.”

  She got into the car, steadying herself, steadying her breathing. “Okay.” She whispered it to herself as Jonah started the car. She punched in the number, waited through the first ring, then heard her mother’s voice.

  “Mom.” Her breath hitched. She bore down, holding a hand over the phone until she was sure her voice would be normal. “I’m fine. Everything okay there? Uh-huh. Listen, I’m on my way home, and I need to speak to Dad a minute. Yeah, that’s right. Cop talk. Thanks.”

  Now she closed her eyes, listened to her mother call out, heard the warm mix of their laughter before her father’s voice sounded in her ear.

  “Ally? What’s up?”

  “Dad.” Her voice wanted to crack but she refused to let it. “Don’t say anything to upset Mom.”

  There was a pause. “All right.”

  “I’m okay. I’m not hurt, and I’m on my way home. It went down tonight, and things went wrong. Ah, one of the team was wounded, and he’s in the hospital. One of the suspects is in there, too. We’ll know more tomorrow on both.”

  “You’re all right? Allison?”

  “Yes, I wasn’t hurt. Dad. Dad, I had to fire my weapon. They were armed. Both suspects were armed and opened fire. She wouldn’t … I killed her.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “No, please. Stay with Mom. You’ll have to tell her and she’s going to be upset. I need to … I just need to go home and— Tomorrow, okay? Can we talk about it tomorrow? I’m so tired now.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is. I promise, I’m all right.”

  “Ally, who went down?”

  “Dietz. Len Dietz.” She lifted her free hand, pressed her fingers to her lips. They didn’t feel stiff now, but soft. Painfully soft. “He’s critical. The lieutenant’s still at the hospital.”

  “I’ll contact him. Try to get some sleep. But you call, anytime, if you change your mind. I can be there. We both can.”

  “I know. I’ll call you in the morning. I think it’ll be easier in the morning. I love you.”

  She broke the connection, let the phone slide into her purse. She opened her eyes and saw they were already in front of her apartment. “Thanks for …”

  Jonah said nothing, simply got out, came around to her door. Opening it, he held out a hand for hers. “I can’t seem to get my thoughts lined up. What time is it?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Give me your key.”

  “Oh, yeah, the traditionalist.” She dug it out, unaware her other hand was clutching his like a lifeline. “I’m going to start expecting flowers next.”

  She walked through the lobby, to the elevator. “It seems like there’s something I have to do. I can’t get a rope around what it is, though. There should be something I have to do. We identified her. She had ID anyway. Madeline Fricks. Madeline Ellen Fricks,” she murmured, floating like a dream out of the elevator. “Age thirty-seven. She had an address in … Englewood. Somebody’s checking it out. I should be checking it out.”

  He unlocked the door, drew her inside. “Sit down, Ally.”

  “Yeah, I could sit down.” She looked blankly around the living room. It was just the way she’d left it that morning. Nothing had changed. Why did it seem as if everything had changed?

  Jonah solved the matter by picking her up and carrying her toward the bedroom.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’re going to lie down. Got anything to drink around here?”

  “Stuff.”

  “Fine. I’ll go find some stuff.” He laid her on the bed.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “That’s right.” He left her to hunt through the kitchen. In a narrow cupboard he found an unopened bottle of brandy. He broke the seal, poured three fingers. When he brought it back, she was sitting up in the bed, her knees rammed into her chest, her arms roped around them.

  “I’ve got the shakes.” She kept her face pressed to her knees. “If I had something to do, I wouldn’t have the shakes.”

  “Here’s what you need to do.” He sat on the bed, cupped a hand under her chin and lifted it. “Drink this.”

  She took the first sip obediently when he lifted the glass to her lips. Then she coughed and turned her head away. “I hate brandy. Somebody gave me that last Christmas, God knows why. I meant to …” She trailed off, began to rock.

  “Have some more. Come on, Fletcher, take your medicine.”

  He gave her little choice but to gulp down another swallow. Her eyes watered and color flooded her cheeks. “We had the place closed in, surrounded the house, cordoned off the area in a three-block radius. They couldn’t have gotten through. They had no place to run.”

  She needed to talk through it. Jonah set the brandy aside. “But they ran anyway.”

  “We were just about to move in, and he—Fricks—came out the back, already firing. He hit Dietz with two rounds. Some of us went around the back, covering both sides. Some of us went in the front. I was first in, Hickman was behind me. We spread out, started the sweep.”

  She could still see it in her head. Moving through, fast and steady, the lights blazing.

  “I could h
ear more gunfire and shouting from outside. I nearly turned back, thinking they were both out of the house and running—that they were together. But I saw—there’s this bump-out sunroom deal on the house, and the sliding door leading out wasn’t closed, not all the way closed. I spotted her as soon as I stepped out. Going in the opposite direction as her partner. Splitting us up, I guess. I called out, told her to stop. I was in pursuit and she fired a round. Sloppy shot. I ordered her to stop, to drop her weapon. I didn’t see she had a choice. Where the hell could she go? But she spun around.

  “She spun around,” Ally repeated. “The moon was very bright, very bright and it was on her face, in her eyes, shining on the gun. And I shot her.”

  “Did you have a choice?”

  Her lips trembled open. “No. In my head that’s clear. Jonah, that’s so clear. I’ve gone over it, step after step, a dozen times already. But they don’t prepare you for what it’s like. They can’t. They can’t tell you how it feels.”

  The first tear spilled over and she wiped it impatiently away. “I don’t even know what I’m crying for. Or who.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He put his arms around her, drew her head down on his shoulder and held her while she wept.

  And while she wept he went back over what she’d told him.

  Sloppy shot, she’d said, almost skimming over the fact that someone had tried to kill her. Yet she wept because she’d had no choice but to take a life.

  Cops. He turned his cheek against her hair. He’d never understand cops.

  * * *

  She slept for two hours, dropping into oblivion like a stone in a pool, and staying deep at the bottom. When she woke, she was wrapped around him in the dark.

  She lay still a moment, orienting herself, while his heart beat strong and steady under her palm. With her eyes open and her mind clearing, she went through a mental checklist. She had a vague headache, but nothing major—just a hangover from the crying jag. There was a stronger feeling of embarrassment, but she thought she could live with that, too.

  She wiggled her toes and discovered she was barefoot. And her ankle holster was gone.

  So, she realized, was her shoulder harness.

  He’d disarmed her, she thought, in more ways than one. She’d blubbered out her story, cried on his shoulder, and was now wrapped around him in the dark. Worse than all of that was realizing she wanted to stay there.

  Believing him asleep she started to inch away.

  “Feel any better?”

  She didn’t jolt, but it was close. “Yeah. Considerably. I guess I owe you.”

  “I guess you do.”

  In the dark he found her mouth with his and sank in.

  Soft, unexpectedly soft. Warm, deliciously warm. Yes, she wanted to stay there, and so she opened for him, sliding her hand from his heart to his face, yielding when he turned his body to press hers into the mattress.

  The good solid weight of him, the hard lines of his body, the drugging heat of his mouth was exactly what she wanted. Her arms came around him, holding him there as he had held her in tears and in sleep.

  He gave himself the moment, the dark taste of her mouth, the sleepy sigh she made, the feminine give of her beneath him. He’d lain beside her, his body alert, his mind restless while hers slept. Wanting her, wanting her so it was like a