“I went to Ruthie’s. The door was open—” Very un-Ruthie-like, as was the blood all over the walls.
The significance of these two being homicide detectives reached me at last. So I wasn’t firing on all cylinders; I blame the coma.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Landsdown said simply.
I wanted to cry, but I wasn’t sure how. People like me have the crying beat out of them pretty early.
They waited a respectable amount of time for me to shed a tear, and when I didn’t, they moved on.
“What did you see?” Hammond asked.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and experienced again the flashes of tooth and claw, the strange, nightmarish beings that couldn’t be real. What had they been putting in my IV?
I shook my head, opened my eyes and met Hammond’s steady gaze. “Ruthie on the kitchen floor. I went to her.”
“Was she alive?” Landsdown prompted.
They seemed to follow the tag-team method of questioning—first one, then the other, no good cop/bad cop for these guys. They were almost interchangeable.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Did she speak?” That was Hammond.
“She said ‘I knew you’d come.’“
“Why would she know that?”
I hesitated. Why had she? I’d gone there on a whim, beset with an irresistible urge to see her.
“I have no idea,” I said, then frowned. “What about the kids?”
Ruthie’s was always filled to capacity, which meant there were up to eight children living in that house along with her. I hoped to God none of them had come home and found us.
“They’re fine,” Landsdown assured me. “All at school. Didn’t see a thing.”
“Good.” I let out the breath I was holding. “Where are they now?”
“Back in the system.”
I winced, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Even if I were capable of mothering eight problem kids, the state would never let me.
“You think someone hit you?” Hammond asked.
“Someone did. Ruthie grabbed my hand and then… wham! Next thing I knew I woke up here.”
The two of them exchanged glances.
“What?”
Landsdown nodded and Hammond spoke. “According to the doctor there wasn’t a mark on you. No head trauma. No gunshot or knife wound. No drugs in your system.”
“But—” I lifted my hand, trailing tubes and sensors. I didn’t feel any bumps. “How long have I been out?”
“Four days.”
I glanced at the window where snow still swirled. I’d been right about the weather. Still springtime in Wisconsin. Gotta love it.
“Someone hit me,” I insisted stubbornly.
“Maybe you fainted.”
I glared at Landsdown. I did not faint at the sight of blood like a swooning maiden.
“If no one conked me on the head,” I pointed out, “then why was I in a coma for four days?”
Hammond shrugged. “No one knows.”
The two detectives shifted in their chairs, then twitched their necks as if their ties were too tight. Considering that the offending pieces of clothing appeared to have been loosened hours ago, perhaps when they’d slept in those suits, I didn’t need a psychic flash to understand they wanted to ask me something, and then again, they didn’t.
“We need a favor.” Hammond actually tried to smile. He must have needed a favor bad.
“Mmm,” I said noncommittally. Without even a do you mind? Hammond tossed something at me, and I caught it. The instant I did, I murmured, “Jimmy.”
“Jesus,” Landsdown muttered. “How do you do that?”
I wish I knew. Because if I did maybe I could quit doing it.
If wishing could have made the bursts of intuition disappear, they’d have been gone shortly after I was able to voice what I’d been seeing all my life. That was when everything pretty much went to hell.
“Where is he?” Landsdown demanded.
“What?” I shook the cobwebs from my mind, peered at the baseball cap gripped desperately in my fingers. The Yankees. I hated the Yankees. Doesn’t everyone?
“Do you see where he is?” Hammond murmured.
My heart picked up in panic. These guys were homicide. However, if they wanted me to tell them where Jimmy was, he couldn’t be dead. Or at least I hoped not. I might have kicked him out of my bed a long, long time ago, but I’d had a much tougher time kicking Jimmy Sanducci out of my heart.
“No.” I pitched the cap into Landsdown’s ample lap. “What do you want with him?”
They exchanged glances again. The two of them were like an old married couple, which is what most longtime partners were. They squabbled, made up, shared jokes, and spoke without having to speak.
My partner and I had been like that, which was why he’d listened to me when I said I had a “hunch” where we could find the strung-out junkie who’d killed his supplier. Because of me, that strung-out junkie had also killed Max.
“You’re acquainted with Sanducci?” Landsdown’s voice brought me back to the hospital.
“You know damn well I am.”