Then a great weight fell on me from behind. The ground came up fast. I felt sharp pain, sudden force. I was losing altitude. Then I wasn’t really there. It was only in a little closet of my consciousness that I noticed my arms being pulled in an unnatural direction, and I heard a sound that reminded me of handcuffs locking.
Chapter Sixteen
“You’re gonna be OK. You just got the air knocked out of you.”
“Do you know what day it is?”
“Don’t try to talk. Just breathe.”
“Do you want to go to the hospital to get checked out?”
“He’s fine. He doesn’t need to go.”
People were having a conversation in a language I didn’t quite understand.
“He’s a deputy. He’s on the job. Take those off.”
I inhabited a hidden control room just behind my eyes, working an air machine of some kind, vaguely aware of things going on around me. I was attached to something heavy. Then everything turned sideways and my stomach was headed up my throat…
“Don’t try to stand up. That’s right. Keep your head down. Just concentrate on breathing.”
“Lindsey!”
“She’s OK, she’s OK. Just sit there.”
I came around. “There” was the grass in front of the condo tower. I was surrounded by redwood-sized men, a couple of paramedics, three Phoenix cops, two sheriff’s detectives whose names I could remember if you gave me a few minutes without my passing out. A DPS trooper was glowering at me, putting away his cuffs. I squeezed my hands just to make sure they were still there. He must have weighed 280 pounds, and I suddenly felt every one of them on my back and ribs. My left arm was swelling painfully, in the grasp of a large man in a blue T-shirt.
I came around enough to notice the SWAT officers arrayed around the entrance to the building. Men in black jumpsuits, black Kevlar helmets and goggles, black bulletproof vests. My mouth thick with dread, I asked my question again.
“She’s safe. She’s gone. Just sit there and take it easy.”
I focused on Chief Deputy Kimbrough, looking dapper in tan slacks, blue blazer and a rep bow tie on a blue and white striped Oxford shirt. The paramedic peeled the blood-pressure cuff off my arm and called out a number to his partner-at least I wouldn’t die of high blood pressure.
“She’s safe,” Kimbrough repeated. “We had to move her. There was a security breach.”
“What the hell?” I got on my knees and tried to stand, wobbled, then found a lamppost to support me. Every joint in my body felt swollen and stiff. I asked, “What breach? Why do you have SWAT teams here?”
“Somebody tried to get into the building,” Kimbrough said. “After you called Lindsey she called down to the deputy in the lobby. He called backup, and they found a ladder leaned up against the building.”
“What?”
“Just listen and breathe, Mapstone. You look like you’re about to pass out. We found a ladder that had been leaned up against a second-story balcony. Nobody was home in that apartment, but the balcony door had been pried, and the door to the hallway was unlocked. We got her out. Now we’re searching the building. Our friends from PPD think it might just be a burglary or a careless maintenance man. But the sheriff didn’t want to take a chance.”
I shivered in the warm breeze blowing down Central. “Show me.”
I limped along the front sidewalk, then through some hedges to the south of the entrance. Sure enough, around a corner and just out of view, an aluminum ladder was raised to the balcony. A SWAT officer on the balcony glared down at me.
“So much for the safe house,” I said.
“Peralta thinks Yuri found it by following you.”
I stared at the chief, too sore to argue. He went on, “Whoever followed you this afternoon might have been trying to keep you away from here. So they could make their move. They want Lindsey.”
“I guess they succeeded in keeping me away,” I said quietly.
“Obviously it’s not just Yuri. He’s got help.”
“And we can’t seem to do anything to stop him.”
“Did you get a tag?” Kimbrough asked.
I shook my head, a jolt of pain driving into my shoulder blades. I ran through what happened, from the time I noticed the Hummer on my tail. Then Kimbrough wanted it again, from the time I left the condo that morning. I was certain I wasn’t being followed. Yes, I had gone through all the agreed upon procedures. No, I couldn’t be sure that the blond man at Encanto Park was a bad guy. When I was done, I just wanted to go to Lindsey.
“You can’t,” Kimbrough said.
I asked why.
“It’s a federal case. The FBI has taken over, moved her to a secure location.”
“Sounds like a kidnapping.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, this is serious. This was a close call.”
“No shit,” I said. “How do you know she’s safe now?”
“I know!”
“Where is she?” I knew I was babbling. I couldn’t stop myself.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “They won’t even tell me.”
“Then how do you know anything?”
“My detectives took her to a rendezvous with the feds. One of our men will be with the federal agents. You remember Patrick Blair, from Robbery-Homicide Division? He’ll stay with her.”
“Damn it!”
“You don’t have to shout,” Kimbrough said.
Amid all that was coming at me, I realized my ears were ringing loudly. In a lower voice, I asked, “When can I see her?” Kimbrough said nothing, and the frustration made every ache worse.
I tried it another way. “What if she’s asking to see me?”
“She’s being told the same thing,” Kimbrough said. “Every member of her team is now in protective custody.”
“So she doesn’t have civil rights, just because she works for the Sheriff’s Office? This is nuts. You promised this would be for two weeks. Now, she’s gone God knows where, and you have nothing to say to me?”
“I don’t have the answers, David. Wish I did. You’re lucky you’re not in jail after what you pulled on the freeway with DPS. You’ve got to be a professional about this. Lindsey is at risk, and any of us could bring her into danger without even realizing it. I feel like I had a role in this, too, finding a way for you two to stay together when maybe that wasn’t such a smart thing. Now we’ve got to let the people with the real experience deal with this.”
A city cop came up and told Kimbrough the building was clear. Whoever had used the ladder was gone. The cop was all of twenty-five, with a dirty blond crew cut, and he kept calling Kimbrough “dude.” Kimbrough glared at him each time, but the kid was oblivious to social skills, protocol, or any breaches thereof.
Kimbrough watched the cop walk away. Then he reached in his coat, and his features relaxed into a benevolent smile. “Here’s a voucher for the Hyatt. We’re shutting down this safe house. You need some rest. The sheriff will get with you tomorrow. I know he’s interested in the progress of your case. He’s at a fund-raiser at the Boulders, or he’d be here now. I promise we’ll get you some information about Lindsey as soon as possible.”
I waved the envelope away. “Nothing personal, Chief,” I said. “You’re a good guy. But this situation is fucked. I’m going home.”
Kimbrough gave me an alarmed stare. “You can’t. .”
“Yes, I can,” I said. “I’m going upstairs to get the cat.”
I pointed down Cypress Street, into the lush old trees of the Willo district. “Then I’m going home.”
