“I knew it.” Disgusted, Reed punched out at the air. His vision went gray when his shoulder exploded.
“Okay, okay, take it easy, killer.” Bull gripped Reed’s good arm, pushed him down on a bench. “She fought the good fight, you oughta know. You’ve been ahead of the pack on this for years, and nobody got on board. That includes yours truly. Thing is, it’s not just a hot case, it’s hot press. They can put on their stern fed faces and claim the press doesn’t have dick to do with it, but that’s a crock of shit. But, the other thing is, you were part of the DownEast Mall, and now you’ve been a target of the sister of one of the shooters.”
“She had a part in that. I’m telling you she knew what her brother was up to.”
“Not saying otherwise. I’m saying the feds see that as two strikes against you staying on the investigation, and the brass on our blue line agrees.”
“That’s a crock of shit.”
“It’s a big, stinking crock of shit, but that’s what they’re serving. They’re going to lock you to a desk when you come back, and give you grunt work until you pass the physical. And even then, they’re going to block you out of the Hobart case.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Get your sad, skinny ass back in tune, kid. There are plenty of us who’ll work this on the side, but you need to shake off getting shot. And don’t tell me it doesn’t give you some cold sweats in the dark.”
“I see that gun coming up. Slow motion. Like I’ve got all the time in the world to take cover, return fire. But I’m in slower motion, and the damn gun’s as big as a cannon.”
“Shake it off. Get back to work.”
“Your compassion and sympathy are so heartfelt.”
Bull snorted, as bulls do. “You get enough of the soft stuff and forehead kisses. You need a kick in the ass.”
“It’s appreciated.”
“And for shit’s sake, eat something. You look like a zombie scarecrow. Now get up and walk.”
Reed waited to speak to Essie about it because, at long last, they opened his cage door.
He was going home.
Not home to the shitcan, as he couldn’t yet handle three flights of stairs, but home to his old bedroom, his mother’s cooking, his father’s wonderfully bad jokes.
He’d asked, specifically, that Essie pick him up, deliver him, so he had waited to talk to her.
“Why do I have to get in a wheelchair to leave when all I’ve heard for two and a half freaking weeks is get up and walk?”
Tinette of the beautiful smile patted the chair. “Rules are rules, my darling. Now put that sweet butt in the chair.”
“How about after I’m a hundred percent, we have a hot, torrid affair. It’d be good for my emotional and mental health.”
“My man would crush you like a bug, skinny boy. It’s too bad my sister’s only eighteen.”
“Eighteen’s legal.”
“You go near my baby sis, I’ll put you back in this hospital.” But she rubbed his shoulder. “I’m glad to see you go, Reed, and sorry at the same time.”
“I’ll be coming in for the torture.”
“And I’ll go down and see you don’t cry too hard. Here, hold your teddy bear.”
He took it, and took a last look at the room. Essie had already hauled down the books, his tablet, and other accumulated stuff.
“I won’t miss this place,” he said as she wheeled him out, “but I’ll miss you. You’re the only woman I love, besides my mother, who’s seen me naked without me having the same privilege.”
“You’re going to put some meat back on those bones.” She steered him into the elevator. “And you take some advice.”
“From you I will.”
“Don’t go back into it too fast, darling. Give yourself some time. Walk in the sun, pet some puppies, eat ice cream cones, fly a kite. I know enough about you now to know you’re a good cop and a good man. Take some time to remember why you’re both.”
He reached back—left hand—for hers. “I’m really going to miss you.”
Essie greeted them with a smile. “You’re sprung, partner. Tinette, you’re a treasure.”
“Oh, I am every bit of that. Come on now, darling, let’s get you in the car.” She settled him and strapped him in herself. “You take care of my favorite patient.”
“One hour in a cheap motel. It’ll change your life.”
With a laugh, she kissed him on the mouth. “I like my life. Go live yours now.”
“What if she’d said yes?” Essie wondered aloud as they drove away.
“Never happen. She’s crazy about her husband. You know, she was twenty when the DownEast Mall happened and doing community service as part of her college credits. Nurse’s aide, so she ended up being on the front lines at the hospital that night. Small, small world.”
He waited a beat. “Bull told me the feds have taken over, pushed us back. Pushed me out.”
She let out a hiss of breath. “I was going to talk to you about it once you got out, got home, got settled in. I’m sorry, Reed, they brought down the hammer in the house. You’re too close, so I’m too close. I went to the wall on it, and the wall won.”
“It’s not going to stop me.”
She blew out a breath, fluttering the bangs she’d recently tried out. “Look, I didn’t support your theory, and that theory’s now proven as fact. The feds are scooping that right up from under you. They’ll give you a handshake and a brush back. On our end, the same decision goes right to the top.”
“It’s not going to stop me,” he repeated.
“They’ll make it an order. Believe me. Whatever you do, you’ll have to do it in the dark, on the side. If they find out, they’ll write you up and slap you down. It’s not right, but that’s the line.”
“What’s your line?”
“I’m with you. We’ll do what we can on our off time. I’m going to add, Hank’s with us on it.”
“Good man.”
“He is. He’s not going back to full-time teaching. He’s going to finish the book he’s been writing. Literary cop fiction, he calls it. It’s damn good so far—what he’s let me read. But part of why he’s not going back is to give me more time to work this. With you, when I can.”
“I need to think it through, take some time. I need to get back in shape. Apparently getting shot’s turned me into a zombie scarecrow.”
“You’ve looked better. But Jesus, Reed, trust me, you looked worse.”
He knew it, just like he knew he had a ways to go. “I need to take her down, Essie. I need to be a part of it. But I’m going to think it through. No word on her since they found her car?”
“She’s in the wind.”
“The wind’s going to change,” he murmured.
*
He spent a month with his parents, white-knuckled his way through the PT, managed to put back on a couple of the pounds he’d lost during his hospital incarceration.
He’d dropped twelve before he’d leveled off.
He went back to work—desk duty. And when he got the word from his captain on the Hobart investigation, he didn’t argue. No point.
Still, desk duty had its advantages, and gave him plenty of time to access files. He might not have the brass behind him, but he had the blue line.
Traces of Hobart’s blood had been found on the driver’s seat of the car she’d dumped at the airport. The car reported stolen by a family of four after they returned from a three-week vacation in Hawaii had yet to be recovered.
Reed placed his bets on Hobart dumping it in a lake, torching it in the woods, or otherwise erasing it. She had cash, most likely fake IDs and credit cards. No way she’d stick with a stolen car.
She’d buy one under a fake name, with cash. A solid, nondescript, used car, he calculated. She’d change her hair, her appearance, so she looked little to nothing like the photos on the newscasts and the Internet.
She would watch those newscasts, the blogs, the newspapers, and lie low, at a distance. Until she hit again.
If she had a bullet in her, she’d found a way to get medical treatment.
He tried a check for breakins, clinics, veterinary hospitals, pharmacies, but found nothing to fit.