CRAIG MORLAND
By two-fifty he was airborne again. Going back to SF with a briefcase full of photos and enough information to shake city and state government to its foundations.
After takeoff, he tilted his seat back and thought about the prints Daniel had made for him from the videos.
The woman with the long blonde hair: no clue as to her identity.
The same for the dark-haired woman in bed with her.
But the men: top city hall figures and state officials, including Jim Yatz, the mayor’s closest associate.
Craig looked out the window at Phoenix’s receding smog-shrouded skyline, making connections.
Okay, somebody was trying to gain control over the city hall crowd, as well as minor state officials. They couldn’t entice the mayor or Amanda Teller, so they did their best to fake it.
Teller had had a hold over State Representative Paul Janssen. Forced him to sign a document.
Their deaths had been arranged to look like a murder-suicide pact, and someone had taken the document.
So how did all of this pertain to the attack on Shar?
Still unclear.
He thought of the call he’d received from Mick before he boarded his flight: “We’ve got an imposter in the office. Diane D’Angelo is really Susan Angelo, a small-time investigator from DC-and a close friend of Jim Yatz.”
So Yatz had probably hired her to find out what was in the agency files about the city hall investigation. But she had free run of the office and its computer system. Why would she have gone there at night to retrieve information and end up shooting Shar?
Whatever, Diane and Yatz were dirty, and they were going down. A large number of state and city officials as well. And the mayor, whom Craig liked, would have a hell of a time extricating himself from this one.
No worries. He’d done it before. The mayor was one slick, smart bastard.
HY RIPINSKY
It was after four in the afternoon when Ben Travers came out and told him the news-the
“Don’t expect too much,” Travers told him as they took the elevator to intensive care. “We don’t yet know what damage the pressure on her brain stem did. Even if it’s not severe, she’s still got a long way to go-therapy, relearning skills she’s lost.”
“But she’ll be all right?”
“Ultimately that’s what we’re hoping for. The important thing is that she’s alive and cognizant.”
Hy leaned heavily against the elevator wall. “I don’t care how long it takes for her to recover. Just so she does.”
Travers looked as if he wanted to say more, but the elevator door opened. He led Hy through a large circular area of rooms arranged around a central nurses’ station. Each room had a window and its door was open-so the nurses could monitor the patients from the desk, Hy supposed.
Shar’s head was swathed in bandages and she was hooked up to monitors that kept blinking on and off, providing running strips of information. Her eyes were open, and they lighted up when she saw him.
Hy kissed her cheek. “Welcome back. You’ll be all the way back in time.”
Doubtful look.
“Don’t try to talk now. You need your rest.”
Hy studied her face. The skin below her eyes looked bruised and her complexion was sallow. There were lines around her mouth that he hadn’t noticed before. But she was alive, and that was everything to him-everything.
She regarded him with a long, intense stare.
“They removed a blood clot and some bone and bullet fragments. No more pressure on your brain stem now.”
Still she stared at him.
“Dr. Travers, your surgeon, will explain more fully later on.”
Still staring.
“You want to know about the investigation. Is that it?”
Blink.
“You’re insatiable.”
He explained that everybody was working 24/7, gathering data. Once they had all they could get, they’d pool their information and present it to her. Another eyeblink. Then her lids closed and stayed that way.
Hy kissed her again and slipped out of the room. In the corridor he faltered and steadied himself on a railing. The constant emotional highs and lows had left him exhausted-but he wasn’t ready to give in to it yet. He’d go back to the waiting room and talk with Elwood. Then he’d begin to make phone calls.
“Now you realize her strength, Son.”
Nobody had called him “Son” since his daddy tangled with those high-tension wires in his beat-up old crop duster. He guessed he’d qualified as family with Elwood.
“Oh, Hy! My baby’s all right! Did you hear that, Saskia-our baby’s all right!”
Kay started wailing. Why the hell hadn’t Saskia or Melvin answered the phone?
“You know what I’m gonna do tonight? Clean this house. We can’t have Shar coming home to a dirty place.”
Well, maybe John would finally get rid of the empty beer bottles.
“You’ve reached Charlene and Vic…”
“Patsy and Evans are heading for the Bay Area. If this is about restaurant business, please call 801-2345 and speak with Nora.”
“Rae Kelleher. Please leave a message.”
“This is Julia Rafael. I’m sorry I can’t answer the phone…”
“This is Ann-Marie. I’m not available…”
“Hank Zahn here. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.” Dammit, people had cell phones so they could keep connected. Then they turned them off at a critical moment.
“McCone Investigations, Ted Smalley speaking.”
Finally-a real voice again.
“It’s Hy. Shar’s awake, not locked in any more. They think she’ll eventually be okay.”
“I knew it! I just knew it!”
“I’ve been trying to tell everybody, but most’ve them are unavailable. Is anybody else there?”
“Craig and Mick are, and if you can leave Shar, I think you ought to get over here. Something ugly’s about to go down.”
SHARON McCONE
I
Tears again. One thing that hadn’t changed was the roller-coaster ride of emotions.
I could see nurses moving around hurriedly, checking on other patients, carrying medicines. No downtime on the floor of an ICU. Nurses-I’d never before had so much respect for individuals in any single profession. Well, except for doctors or cops or firemen or, come to think of it, anybody who put it all on the line for others.
