Witness in Death

  “Yes, sir. She wants the collar. ‘This evening, the New York City Transit Authority, led by Captain Stuart, captured the primary suspect in Richard Draco’s murder, in flight. Pictures at eleven.’”

  “And what is our objective?”

  “To identify, restrain, and incarcerate target. In one piece, and with no civilian injuries.”

  “You following that, Trueheart?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Eve noted the transit officers holding the perimeter of Area C. And the flood of people who milled, loitered, or rushed over the wide platform and through the snaking corridors that opened into shops and eateries.

  She smelled the greasy aroma of fast food, the hot scent of humanity. Babies were crying. The latest urban rock was pumping out of someone’s tune box in direct violation of the noise pollution code. A small band of sidewalk singers was struggling to compete.

  She saw weariness, excitement, boredom on the sea of faces. And with mild annoyance, she saw a strolling pocket-dipper snag a wallet.

  “Trueheart, you’re the only one who got a look at him. Keep your eyes open. We want to take this down smooth, but we don’t want to waste time. The longer that express is delayed, the more nervous Stiles is going to get.”

  “Dallas, Feeney and McNab at nine o’clock.”

  “Yeah, I see them.” She saw them, the surging tide of civilians, the dozens of byways. “This place is like an insect hive. We’re going to spread out. Peabody, troll the right. Trueheart, take the left. Maintain visual contact.”

  She took the center, cutting through the crowd, eyes scanning. Across the tracks, a southbound train shot down the tunnel with a hot whoosh of air. A panhandler, his beggar’s license smeared with something indefinable, worked the passengers waiting for the delayed Toronto express.

  She was about to overlap with Feeney, shifted her gaze to lock Peabody’s position, turned her head to lock Trueheart’s.

  She heard the shout, a series of screams, an explosion of glass as the panel on one of the busy storefronts shattered. Even as she spun, she saw Stiles shove his way through the panicked crowd, pursued by a transit cop.

  “Hold your fire!” She shouted it, grabbing both weapon and communicator. “Stuart, order your man to cease fire! Target is cornered. Do not deploy weapons.”

  She was using elbows, boots, knees, to fight her way through the surge of people fleeing the area. Someone fell against her, all wild eyes and grabbing hands. Gritting her teeth, she shoved him away, bulled through an opening.

  The next wave of people swarmed like bees, screaming as windows on the storefronts spat glass. She felt heat on her face, something wet ran down her neck.

  She saw Stiles leap over the fallen and the cowering. Then she saw Trueheart.

  He had long legs, and they moved fast. Eve used her own, burst free. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a jerk of movement.

  “No! Hold your fire!” Her shouted order was drowned out in the chaos. Even as she jumped toward the transit cop, he shifted to shooting position and took aim. At the same instant, Trueheart bunched for a leap and tackle.

  The shock of the beam hit him midair, turned his body into a missile that rammed hard against Stiles’s retreating back. The forward force sent them both tumbling off the platform, onto the tracks below.

  “No. Goddamn it. No!” She shoved the transit cop, spun to the side, and rushed to the edge of the platform. “Hold all northbound trains! There are injured on the track. Hold all trains! Oh Jesus. Oh Christ.”

  A tangle of bodies, a splatter of blood. She jumped down to the tracks, feeling the shock sing up her legs. Her breath panted out as she searched for the pulse in Trueheart’s throat.

  “Goddamn it. Goddamn it. Officer down!” Her voice cracked out of a dry throat and into her communicator. “Officer down! Require immediate medical assistance, Grand Central, Level Two, Area C as in Charlie. Deploy medi-vac units. Officer and suspect down. Hold on, Trueheart.”

  She yanked off her jacket, spread it over his chest, then used her hands to press down on the long gash running down his thigh.

  Feeney, out of breath and sweating, landed beside her. “Ah, Christ. How bad?”

  “Bad. He took a hit, jumped right into the fucking beam.” She’d been a step too late. One step too late. “Then the fall. We can’t risk moving him without stabilizers. Where are the MTs? Where are the fucking MTs?”

  “On the way. Here.” He unfastened his belt, nudged her to the side, and fastened a tourniquet. “Stiles?”

  She ordered herself to maintain, crab-walked to where Stiles lay facedown, checked for a pulse. “Alive. He didn’t catch the hit, and the way they went down, it looked like the kid broke the worst of his fall.”

  “Your face is bleeding, Dallas.”

  “I caught some glass, that’s all.” She swiped at the trickle with the back of her hand, mixing her blood with Trueheart’s. “When I get done with Stuart and her hot-shots—”

  She broke off, looked back down at Trueheart’s young, pale face. “Jesus, Feeney. He’s just a kid.”

  *** CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ***

  Eve burst through the emergency room doors in the wake of the gurney and fast-talking MTs. The words were like slaps, hard and ringing. Under the barrage of them she heard something about spinal injuries, internal bleeding.

  When they hit the doors of an examining room, an enormous nurse, her skin a gleaming ebony against the pale blue of her tunic, blocked Eve’s path.

  “Step aside, sister. That’s my man down in there.”

  “No, you step aside, sister.” The nurse laid a boulder-sized hand on Eve’s shoulder. “Medical personnel only beyond this point. You’ve got some pretty good facial lacerations there. Take Exam Four. Someone will be along to clean you up.”

  “I can clean myself up. That boy in there belongs to me. I’m his lieutenant.”

  “Well, Lieutenant, you’re just going to have to let the doctors do what they do.” She pulled out a memo board. “You want to help, give me his personal data.”

  Eve elbowed the nurse aside, moved to the observation glass, but didn’t attempt to push through again. God, she hated hospitals. Hated them. All she could see was a flurry of movement, green scrubs for the doctors, blue for the nursing staff.

  And Trueheart unconscious on the table under harsh lights while they worked on him.

  “Lieutenant.” The nurse’s voice softened. “Let’s help each other out here. We both want the same thing. Give me what you can on the patient.”

  “Trueheart. Christ, what’s his first name. Peabody?”

  “Troy,” Peabody said from behind her. “It’s Troy. He’s twenty-two.”

  Eve simply laid her brow against the glass, shut her eyes and relayed the cause of injuries.

  “We’ll take care of him,” the nurse told her. “Now get yourself into Four.” She swung through the doors, became part of the blue and green wall.

  “Peabody, find his family. Have a couple of counselors contact them.”

  “Yes, sir. Feeney and McNab are monitoring Stiles. He’s in the next room.”

  More gurneys were streaming in. The injured at Grand Central were going to keep the ER busy for the rest of the night with cuts, bruises, and broken bones. “I’ll inform the commander of the current status.” She stepped back from the glass so that she could give her report without wavering.

  When she was done, she took her position by the doors and called home.

  “Roarke.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I—I’m at the hospital.”

  “Where? Which one?”

  “Roosevelt. Listen—”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “No, wait. I’m okay. I’ve got a man down. A boy,” she said and nearly broke. “He’s a goddamn boy. They’re working on him. I need to stay until…I need to stay.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said again.

  She started to protest, then simply nodded. “Yeah. Thanks
.”

  The nurse pushed back through the doors, sent Eve one smoking look. “Why aren’t you in Room Four?”

  “What’s Trueheart’s condition?”

  “They’re stabilizing him. He’ll be heading up to surgery shortly. Op-Six. I’ll get you to a waiting area after you’re treated.”

  “I want a full report on his condition.”

  “You want it, you’ll get it. After you’re treated.”

  • • •

  The waiting was the worst. It gave her too much time to think, to replay, to second-guess. To spot every small misstep.

  She couldn’t sit. She paced, drank vile coffee, and stared out the window at the wall of the next wing.

  “He’s young. Healthy,” Peabody said because she could no longer stand saying nothing. “That weighs on his side.”

  “I should’ve sent him home. I should’ve relieved him. I had no business taking a rookie on this kind of operation.”

  “You wanted to give him a break.”

  “A break?” She spun around, and her eyes were fierce, brilliant with emotion. “I put his life on the line, into a situation he wasn’t prepared for. He went down. I’m responsible for that.”

  “The hell you are.” Peabody’s chin lifted mutinously. “He’s a cop. When you put on the uniform, you take on the risk. He’s on the job, and that means facing the potential of taking a hit in the line of duty every day. If I’d taken the left instead of the right, I’d have done exactly what Trueheart did, and I’d be in surgery. And it would seriously piss me off to know you’re standing out here taking away from actions I took to do my job.”

  “Peabody—” Eve broke off, shook her head, and walked back to the overburdened coffee machine.

  “Well done.” Roarke moved over, rubbed a hand on Peabody’s shoulder. “You’re a jewel, Peabody.”

  “It wasn’t her fault. I can’t stand seeing her take it on.”

  “If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be who she is.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m going to see if I can tag McNab and get an update on Stiles’s condition. Maybe you can talk her into taking a walk, getting some air.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  He crossed to Eve. “You keep drinking that coffee, you’ll have holes in your stomach lining I could put my fist through. You’re tired, Lieutenant. Sit down.”

  “I can’t.” She turned, saw the room was momentarily empty. Let herself crumple. “Oh God,” she murmured with her face pressed to his shoulder. “He got this stupid grin on his face when I told him I was pulling him with me. I thought I had him covered, then everything went wrong. People trampling people, screaming. I couldn’t get through fast enough. I didn’t get to him in time.”

  He knew her well enough to say nothing, just to hold on until she steadied herself. “I need to know something. You’ve got strings here,” she said, easing back. “Pull a few, would you, and find out what’s happening in surgery?”

  “All right.” He took the recycled cup out of her hand, set it aside. “Sit down for a few minutes. I’ll go pull those strings.”

  She tried to sit, managed to for nearly a full minute before she was up and after the coffee again. As she drew another cup, a woman stepped into the room.

  She was tall, slim, and had Trueheart’s guileless eyes. “Excuse me.” She looked around the room, back at Eve. “I’m looking for a Lieutenant Dallas.”

  “I’m Dallas.”

  “Oh yes, I should have known. Troy’s told me so much about you. I’m Pauline Trueheart, Troy’s mother.”

  Eve expected panic, grief, anger, demands, and instead stared blankly as Pauline walked to her, held out a hand. “Ms. Trueheart, I very much regret that your son was injured in the line of duty. I’d like you to know that he performed that duty in an exemplary fashion.”

  “He’d be so pleased to hear you say so. He admires you a great deal. In fact, I hope it won’t embarrass you, but I think Troy has a little crush on you.”

  Instead of drinking the coffee, Eve set it down. “Ms. Trueheart, your son was under my hand when he was injured.”

  “Yes, I know. The counselors explained what happened. I’ve already spoken with the patient liaison. They’re doing everything they can to help him. He’ll be fine.”

  She smiled, and still holding Eve’s hand, drew her toward the seats. “In my heart I’d know if it was otherwise. He’s all I have, you see.”

  Eve sat on the table, facing Pauline as the woman lowered into a chair. “He’s young and strong.”

  “Oh yes, and a fighter. He’s wanted to be a policeman as long as I can remember. It means so much to him, that uniform. He’s a wonderful young man, Lieutenant, has never been anything but a joy to me.” She glanced toward the doorway. “I hate thinking about him in pain.”

  “Ms. Trueheart…” Eve fumbled, tried again. “I don’t believe he was in pain. At least, he was unconscious when I reached him.”

  “That’s good, that helps. Thank you.”

  “How can you thank me? I put him in this position.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” She took Eve’s hand again. “You must be an excellent commanding officer, to care so much. My son wants to serve. Serve and protect, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I worry. It’s very difficult for those of us who love the ones who serve and protect. But I believe in Troy. Absolutely. I’m sure your mother would say the same about you.”

  Eve jerked back, bore down on the ache that centered in her gut. “I don’t have a mother.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Well.” She touched Eve’s wedding ring. “Someone who loves you, then. He believes in you.”

  “Yeah.” Eve looked over, met Roarke’s eyes as he came in. “I guess he does.”

  “Ms. Trueheart.” Roarke crossed to her. “I’ve just been informed that your son will be out of surgery shortly.”

  Eve felt the quick, light tremble of Pauline’s fingers. “Are you a doctor?”

  “No. I’m Lieutenant Dallas’s husband.”

  “Oh. Did they tell you how—what Troy’s condition is?”

  “He’s stabilized. They’re very hopeful. One of the surgical team will speak with you in a little while.”

  “Thank you. They said there was a chapel on this floor. I think I’ll sit there until they’re ready for me. You look so tired, Lieutenant. Troy wouldn’t mind if you went home and got some rest.”

  When she was alone with Roarke again, Eve simply braced her elbows on her thighs and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Tell me what you didn’t tell her. Give it to me straight.”

  “The spinal injury is giving them some concern.”

  “Is he paralyzed?”

  “They’re hopeful it’s temporary, due to swelling. If it proves to be more serious, there are treatments with high success rates.”

  “He needs to be a cop. Can you get a specialist?”

  “I’ve taken care of it.”

  She stayed in the same position, rocked a little. “I owe you.”

  “Don’t insult me, Eve.”

  “Did you see his mother? See how she was? How can anyone be that strong, that brave?”

  Roarke cuffed her wrists, drew her hands down. “Look in the mirror.”

  She shook her head. “It’s love with her. She’ll will him to be safe and whole and happy because she loves him. I think she’ll pull it off, too.”

  “Mother love is a fierce and powerful force.”

  Steadier, she rolled her aching shoulders. “Do you ever think of yours? Your mother?”

  He didn’t answer immediately, and the hesitation had her frowning at him. “I was going to say no,” he explained. “But that was knee-jerk. Yes, I suppose I do, occasionally. I wonder now and then what became of her.”

  “And why she left you?”

  “I know why she left me.” The steel was back in his voice, in his eyes. Cold steel. “I held no particular interest for her.”

&nbs
p; “I don’t know why mine left me. That’s the worst of it, I think. The not knowing why. The not remembering.” She hissed out a breath, annoyed with herself. “And that’s useless speculation.

  “I guess I’ve got mothers on the brain. I need to talk to Carly about hers.”

  She got to her feet, shoved back the fatigue. “I want to check on Stiles’s condition, interview him if he’s conscious. I’m going to have to go into Central, file my report. I have a meet with the commander first thing in the morning.”

  He rose as well. Her face was pale, her eyes bruised. The nicks and scratches on her face stood out like badges of honor. “You need to sleep.”

  “I’ll catch some at Central. Anyway, as things stand, it should be wrapped up in a few hours. I’ll take some personal time when it is.”

  “When it is, let’s take a few days. You could use some sun.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Because they were alone, she leaned forward to kiss him.

  • • •

  At oh seven ten, Eve stood in Whitney’s office. He had her written report on disc and hard copy, was listening to her oral follow-up.

  “The doctor over Stiles estimates midday before he can be questioned. At this point, he’s sedated. His condition is stable. Officer Trueheart remains in serious condition. His lower extremities are not yet responding to stimuli, and he has not, at this point, regained full consciousness. I would like to recommend Officer Trueheart for a citation for his conduct. His quick actions and disregard for personal safety were directly responsible for the apprehension of the suspect. The injuries sustained by him during the operation were not due to any negligence on his part but on mine.”

  “So you state in your written report. I disagree with your analysis.”

  “Sir, Officer Trueheart displayed courage and clear thinking under difficult and dangerous circumstances.”

  “I don’t doubt that, Lieutenant.” He leaned back. “You’re admirably controlled in both your written and oral reports. Are you considering discussing the problems with the operation personally with Captain Stuart? Because if you are, I will have to issue a direct order that you make no contact with Captain Stuart. She is, at this moment, being reprimanded by her superiors. You don’t think that’s enough?” he asked after a moment of thrumming silence.