“You slept through two sunny days, actually,” said Wellesley. “I put you under heavy sedation. You’ve managed to accumulate quite a collection of holes, Professor. You were leaking pretty badly when your friend here brought you in.”
“Strange, I don’t remember that part,” said Verraday.
“The good news is you’ll recover completely. The girl who did this to you was highly selective about where she placed the perforations.”
“Some guys have all the luck.”
“Indeed they do, Professor Verraday. And you’re one of them. Another inch in any direction on those abdominal wounds, and you’d be somewhere nice and dark. Forever. Now if you’ll excuse me, Professor, I’ve got to take care of some genuinely sick people. So I’ll leave you to Detective Maclean. Later.”
“Thanks, Doctor,” said Verraday as Wellesley headed out the doorway.
Verraday turned as much as he could to look at Maclean. “You okay?” he asked.
“Sure, I’m fine, thanks to you.”
“And I dodged God knows what, thanks to you. So I guess you got my text?”
Maclean smiled. “Yeah. I decided losing a few z’s wouldn’t make that much of a difference at the press conference. Thought maybe all those love hormones you’re always talking about would make up for the lack of sleep.”
“How did you know something was wrong?”
“You didn’t answer when I rang your doorbell or when I knocked. I thought you’d gone to bed but then I saw the light from the gas fireplace. That seemed strange. I called and you didn’t answer your cell or your landline either. So I took a stroll down the side of your house. Saw that the phone line had been cut. So I called for backup and decided to go in.”
“What about the patrolman who got hit with the knife? Was I hallucinating from blood loss by then, or was that really Bosko?”
“It was Bosko. He was doing a stakeout at the liquor store a few blocks from your place when I called for help. He was there in under a minute.”
“He was bleeding pretty badly. Did he make it?”
“It was really close. He flatlined in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, then once more in the ER. But he’s still with us—so far at least. In critical but stable condition in the ICU. They think he’ll pull through.”
“Did he know it was me that you were going in for?”
“Yeah. I thought he deserved to know. He told me the two of you had a run-in the night before. Said you accused him of being a stalker.”
“Yeah, he stopped me in the parking lot of the liquor store. We had some words.”
“I know. He told me about it as we were going in. He said if you really did have some nut job stalker in there with you, maybe we should just leave you two alone together to sort it out because you’re such a pain in the ass.”
Verraday smiled weakly. “Yeah, that would have been convenient for him.”
“He was kidding. He agreed with me that there was no time to wait for more backup. He was the one who broke down your front door.”
“Well, tell him I have an eight-hundred-dollar deductible. That ought to give him some consolation.”
“I’ll mention it when he comes around.”
“You can mention something else too. Tell him I’m dropping the lawsuit against him.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. How can I sue someone who took a knife in the throat trying to save my life? But I’m making it conditional on him taking an anger management course.”
“I think he’d rather take the lawsuit and the knife in the throat.”
“Okay. I’ll drop the suit against him. No conditions. But I’m not dropping the one against the city and the SPD. They’re the ones who are really responsible for it. That’s where the orders came from.”
“Word is they want to settle out of court with you, James. You’ve just helped them close a lot of cases. They don’t want to be seen to be making an enemy of you. They want to treat it like an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“What about Jensen? What happened to her?”
“Now there’s a piece of work. One of the shots I fired through the door got her in the arm. Even then, she had no intention of giving up. She jumped right through the window of your study. Hopefully your insurance will cover that, too. I looked out and saw her lying facedown on your walkway. I thought she was dead, and I knew you and Bosko both needed my immediate attention. Tempted though I was to leave the duct tape on your mouth, I was afraid you’d choke on your own blood. And I knew I’d lose Bosko for sure if I didn’t get some compression on that knife wound. So I left her out there while I tended to the two of you. When the backup arrived, they asked what had happened to the wounded suspect who was supposed to be outside. She was gone. A patrol car spotted her in an alley three blocks away. She had a broken ankle but she was halfway through hotwiring a car for a getaway. This girl’s done her homework.”
“She’s a deeply disturbed individual. And trust me, I’ve met a lot of them.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that. But she was sane enough to realize she didn’t have a chance when a second patrol car showed up and sealed off the alley. So she surrendered. She’s been charged and is in custody. No bail.”