lights already going. “Don’t bet against her. Come on, buddy; you’re going to the hospital where a doc is going to bless you with a look-see.”
“No. I’m staying with Tracey.”
Connor’s gloved hand turned his head so that Marsh was forced to look at him. “No, you’re going to the hospital. I’m going to make sure she gets the best of care with all the dignity a shooting victim can still get; that’s my word. But you’re not staying to see it. Go get checked out, get changed, and join me at the precinct in two hours.”
“I have to stay and help.” Marsh knew he was in the way here, in the way of the manhunt, in the way of treating the injured, but leaving was something that would just make this situation worse, permanent. He was leaning against a car parked along the street, and he tried to stand.
Connor caught his arm to steady him. “Way too much happened in the last few minutes for you to be trying to help me yet. Two hours, Marsh, then we’re working this together.”
“We’re going to find the shooter today,” Marsh said, settling it in his mind.
“We’re sure going to try,” his partner promised, his voice choking a bit as he said it. Connor nodded to the paramedic who had been standing a discreet distance back. “Get him to the hospital in one piece.”
“He was shooting to take out both sisters, Chief. Two into the restaurant glass, he caught Marsh and Tracey in the open; Caroline got hit at the end of the exchange,” Connor explained, trying to not get caught by the glare of lights now reflecting off window glass as television trucks beamed lights from the end of the block. Too many spectators, too many people around.
“Where’s Marie?”
“Bryce took her out the back way and won’t stop until they make that safe house on the other side of town. She doesn’t know, Chief, about Tracey. Marie doesn’t know yet.” He struggled against tears. “I didn’t see it coming, not like this.”
“Marsh?”
“Too deep in shock to put it together yet; he thinks they were just shooting at him. I put him on the second ambulance heading to Mercy General.”
The pressure of Luke’s hand on his shoulder tightened. “Okay. The deputy chief and I have got the scene. Where do you most want to be?”
“Cab hunting. I promised Marsh we’d find that cab.”
“You and Mayfield, pull in as many guys as you can use. Stop every single cab and then pull every logbook and hack license in the city if you have to. I’ll push through the warrants. Tall guy, Irish, the curly side of red hair-he’s not unique for a cabdriver in this town, but he’s close.”
Connor nodded his thanks. “I told Marsh two hours, and I’d meet him at the station.”
“Keep him moving today, okay? Whatever you have to do. Don’t give him a lot of time to think. You took his sidearm?”
“When I was searching him over for bullet holes of his own. It’s locked in the gun box of the first arriving officer.”
“I’ll handle it from there. And, Connor-I’ll tell Marie about Tracey personally.”
“I appreciate it.” He fought to keep his voice together. “Sorry, Chief. I just can’t do it.”
“I’m sending my sister to step in with Marsh; she can nag him into listening to the doctors. The chaplain is on the way to meet Caroline. Just focus on the task in front of you, and let the thinking about it come later, okay?”
“Yeah.” Connor found the guts to look down the sidewalk at where a white sheet covered Tracey. “They were getting married, Chief.”
Luke squeezed his shoulder. “Go find Mayfield. He was over at the communications van a few minutes ago.”
Connor nodded and took a deep breath as he turned that way. He wished like crazy it was one of the guys under that sheet instead of Tracey; anything would be an easier loss to absorb than losing Tracey.
“Connor.” He followed the shout and found Mayfield waiting for him. “Sorry, man.”
“Yeah. We’re going after that cab.”
“An all points is already out; they’re stopping every cab in the city. You want to put emergency traffic stops on the outbound interstate lanes?”
“There, and a couple patrol cars sitting on the airport entrance and anywhere else we can think of as exit points where he’s going to try and dump the vehicle.” Connor climbed into the van beside Mayfield and tried to focus on remembering the street names he normally knew without thinking about them.
Who wanted him dead?
The question rattled around the tired focus of his thoughts as Marsh accepted the scrip the emergency doc wrote him for pain pills and stuffed it in his shirt pocket.
“Your personal doc can take those stitches out in about ten days. Any redness or extra heat in the injury, see him before then.”
“Sure, Doc.”
The ER still bustled with staff coming and going between curtained-off cubicles, and Marsh was left alone again. One of the guys in the squad had brought over the shirt and slacks from his work locker. Marsh buttoned the uniform shirt, relieved to have something clean.
The curtain moved, and where the doctor had disappeared a lady reappeared. “They said you can go now?”
Marsh offered the chief’s sister a partial smile. “Yeah. I don’t think they want to particularly keep me. This hospital and I go way back.” He’d been shot twice in his career, and both times had ended up here with him staring at the ceiling and getting asked inane questions by doctors about hands and toes and names of presidents.
“I remember.” Susan was at his side to help when he shifted off the bedside to stand, but he wasn’t nearly as wobbly on his feet now after they shoved nearly three sports-drink bottles full of some awful sweet stuff into him.
“Your headache is pounding?”
“Like a full-blown parade drum section is camped out in there,” he agreed.
“You would think they could do better than aspirin in a place like this.”
“They could; I passed.” He slipped on his sunglasses to slash the light he had to deal with in half and cover the fact tears were too close to the surface for comfort. “That helps.”
She offered what she had brought with her. “The coat is probably a size too big, but the gloves should be right.”
He accepted the coat. “I appreciate your thinking of it.”
“Connor did. He said-” She bit her lip.
“It’s okay, Susan. I was wearing that other coat. I know what it ended up looking like.”
“Yes, well, it’s not a memory you should have.” She gathered up the papers that had become his admission records and nodded toward the center aisle. “They’ll need you to sign out at the desk.”
“Of course, one more signature on one more form.”
She smiled and with one arm around his waist hugged him. “I’m buying you some good strong coffee before I take you to the station.”
“Connor’s there now?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t ask about Tracey, and she didn’t offer. He knew what had already been done. The medical examiner’s staff had put her in a body bag and taken her to the morgue and started taking X rays so they could take the slug that killed her out of her and into evidence. Tracey was dead, and the evidence needed to convict her killer was still in her.
He took a troubled breath and refused to let himself think about that reality. He needed to work; he needed to do something.
The police-department desks were busy with guys-that was the odd realization Marsh had as he walked
