No one came. The machinegun in front fired another burst, and Novak fired back. A lone siren in the distance got louder, then I heard another faint siren. All we had to do was hang on. It was tempting to toss another grenade inside, but I had no idea where the girl Cordero had brought might be.
Someone inside had the same thought. I saw a body through the crack. Then I saw the person had a pistol. I shoved the muzzle of my gun into the crack and fired. Before anyone had time to react, I rolled around the door and through the doorway, crashing into the falling body.
A woman with a pistol stood behind the guy I’d shot. I pulled the trigger, and she went down. The sirens got louder—loud enough that I could hear them over the echoes in my ears.
I heard a long burst from the submachinegun and a fusillade of pistol fire, then three men carrying guns appeared in the hallway running toward me. I dove to the floor, firing as fast as I could pull the trigger. One of them got off a shot, but all three went down.
Noise from the front of the building—a shot, a lot of yelling, and pounding of feet—was followed by silence.
“Throw down your weapons and come out,” Novak shouted.
“Don’t shoot,” I responded.
I heard people in the alley behind me and rolled across the hallway until I hit the wall. A moment later, a uniformed cop cautiously stuck his head and pistol through the doorway.
“I’m a cop!” I called.
And then there were cops everywhere, pointing guns at me until Novak showed up and came over and knelt down beside me.
“Are you okay?”
I did a quick check and, unbelievably, discovered I wasn’t bleeding anywhere. “Yeah, I think so.” My side hurt like crazy.
Chapter 26
Whittaker showed up about 15 minutes after all the shooting was over. We counted a total of twenty-four blood vampires either dead, wounded, or in custody, including Doan Felspeth, who had taken one of Novak’s bullets in the forearm.
We found Camille Cordero in a room in the basement. She lay in the middle of the floor, an astonished expression on her face and a bullet hole in her forehead. The girl she brought to Felspeth was curled in a fetal position in the corner. The EMTs checked her over and found that she was unharmed, then they took her out.
“What in the hell happened?” Whittaker asked.
I shook my head and gestured at Cordero’s body. “We found her at one of her appointments. She came out with the girl, and we followed her. But when we got here, the vamps were waiting for us.”
“An ambush.”
“Yeah. Someone tipped them off, but I don’t see how. All I can think of is that it has something to do with Johansson’s murder this morning.”
“And that was carried out by a vampire connected to Felspeth.” Whittaker’s statement wasn’t a question.
Novak cleared his throat. “I think we need to operate on the assumption that we’re under surveillance. This was well-planned. There aren’t any customers here, just vamps with guns.”
I shrugged. “Neither of us spoke to anyone between the time we interviewed Janice Iranski at the station and left to find Cordero, but we didn’t make any special effort to hide what we were doing or where we were going.”
“We spoke to the receptionist at Social Services,” Novak said. “She might have tipped Cordero off, or she might have called a contact at our headquarters.” He picked up the dead woman’s purse, rummaged through it, and pulled out her phone. “If we can crack this, we can see whether anyone called her.”
Whittaker held out his hand and took the phone, then passed it to me. “See to it. Johansson’s murder hit the news before you left to track down Cordero.”
“You don’t suppose that someone in the police is reporting to Johansson’s Family, do you?” I asked.
Both men snorted.
Novak’s eyes shifted momentarily to Whittaker, then he said, “Every one of the Families has people inside the police. Danica, my first loyalty is to Novak, or I wouldn’t be here. If I couldn’t be trusted to guard our interests, they would insert someone else.”
Whittaker nodded. “Dani, I know your relationship with your Family is rather tenuous, but the fact is that the Families run everything. If you ever make captain, it will be because Findlay put you there. Ability only gets you to lieutenant.”
I felt a little naïve. When I thought about it, it was as plain as the nose on Whittaker’s face. All of the top officers were from the Hundred Families. Sam Berger, my unlamented ex-partner, didn’t have the brains or ability to make sergeant on his own, let alone lieutenant, but his Family was one of the Hundred. I should have paid more attention to all that, especially after twelve years on the force.
“Yeah, well, I don’t get involved in Family politics,” I said.
Whittaker snorted again. “Hell, Dani, you don’t get involved in any politics. Cops have stabbed you in the back more times than I can count, but you just flip them the bird and barge ahead like a bull in a damned China shop. Pay a little more attention to what’s going on around you before it gets you killed.”
I felt my face warm. “Okay, message received, but where does that leave us? I started out trying to find Sarah Benning, and it seems to have blown up into something else. I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with her.”
“I think it’s obvious,” Novak said. “Johansson kidnapped and sold her. A daughter from a Hundred Family. That was pretty stupid, and someone up the food chain found out you were searching for her. Assassinations of business rivals is one thing, but attacking a Family’s children is off limits. If it became public, it would bring all the Families down on him.”
“Johansson was head of his Family,” I said.
“Yeah, but he has other Families tied
