“Leah, we need you at the house,” Luka said. “Foster Dean has been shot.”
Suddenly Leah had four patients to triage, one critical. The reverend was stable, as was Beth’s baby—although with kids, you never knew, they could go downhill fast—Luka’s leg was bleeding, probably torn stitches, leaving Foster Dean as her most urgent priority. But one good thing about having the ERT squad here was that they were all trained in basic trauma care.
Leah nodded to the two ERT men. “Put pressure on his wound and call for an ambulance—he has a scalp laceration and probable concussion.” She turned to Beth. “We’re going to get your baby to the hospital as fast as possible. Harper, can you drive them? It will be faster than waiting for the ambulance.”
Harper nodded, then looked to Luka for confirmation. “You’ll need my statement and—”
“Exigent circumstances,” he told her. “We’ll deal with the formalities later. Go. Stay with Beth. Whatever you do, you don’t leave her side, not until I say, understand?”
Tears streamed down Beth’s face and Leah could tell she was so frightened she might run. “Beth, this is Detective Harper and Detective Sergeant Jericho. They’re going to keep you and your baby safe, understand me? You’re safe now.”
Beth shook her head. “No, no. They’ll find me.”
“No. They won’t.” Leah wrapped an arm around the trembling woman. “We’re going to take care of you and the baby. Go with them, now. We need to get your baby back to the hospital. I’ll meet you there, I promise.”
“Leah, we need to go,” Luka urged.
She grabbed her kit and followed him into the hall. He was limping badly, moving slowly. “Go ahead. The ERT medic is with him, I’ll catch up,” he told her. “But Leah, don’t mention his name. As far as anyone is concerned, he’s a John Doe.”
“Why?”
“My friend at the FBI, the one who got me the info about the Zapata family’s dealings with Spencer back in Denver? I just got off the phone with her. She said if Dean will take it, she’ll offer him witness protection if he talks. She’s on her way here to make him a deal.”
“Wait. Dean killed two people that we know of, and he gets witness protection? Why not Beth? She’s the innocent here, the one really in danger.”
“You don’t get wit-sec unless you have something to trade for it. I have no idea what Beth knows—she hasn’t been around to interview,” he snapped, obviously also frustrated by the idea of a killer making a deal.
“Then go with Beth,” she urged him. “You need that leg checked out anyway. Talk with her, see if you can help her.”
They’d reached the back door of the church. Behind them, Harper was already leading Beth and the baby out.
Luka nodded. “I will. Now hurry. I need Dean alive.”
Forty-Seven
Once again Luka found himself stranded, lying on a stretcher in the ER, forced to manage his growing Hydra of a case from flat on his back. Beth was under guard while the doctors treated her baby; Harper was giving her statement to the state police officer-involved-shooting team; Ray and Krichek were booking her mother and brother; while he’d heard from the nurses that Leah had called for a LifeFlight to transport Dean to Good Sam and he was currently in the operating room.
The highlight of his night so far was the fact that Leah had been able to keep Dean alive. Hopefully the surgeons would do their job as well and soon Dean would be able to talk. Because neither he nor Harper had been able to get anything out of Beth during their drive to the hospital—not even a last name, forcing them to admit her son to the hospital as Baby Doe.
He’d just gotten off the phone with Ray—both Rachel and John had lawyered up—when a rap came at the exam room door. Leah. She’d changed into scrubs, so he hoped that meant she had news about Dean.
“How is he?” he asked.
She sank onto the stool beside the bed. “Hanging in there. They removed his spleen, but his liver is also damaged and he’s lost a lot of blood.”
Luka blew his breath out in frustration. All this death and destruction—he dearly wanted someone to pay. Not only Dean but the people who’d sent him to Cambria City as their enforcer.
She glanced at his wound that he was waiting for the nurses to dress. “You know that’s going to scar.”
“What do I care?”
“Did you call Nate? Let him know you’re okay?”
Luka focused on the far corner of the ceiling. He’d been tempted to wait until morning to call home, but the memory of the look on Nate’s face yesterday when he’d seen Luka in the ER had forced him to interrupt the phone calls and details of his case that he was juggling to take the time to call Nate. “Yeah. Woke him up. He was upset, but better than yesterday. Even thanked me. I felt like it was the first time anyone had ever taken his feelings into consideration, put his needs first.”
Son of a junkie, raised mostly by the foster care system, it was no wonder Nate was insecure and anxious. But what really overwhelmed Luka, what had him now blinking back tears as he thought of their conversation, was how, despite all that, Nate was already turning into a damn fine human being. Eight years old and he was a better man than most people. Including men of God like Matthew and John. Poor Harper. She’d be dealing with whispered innuendos and the fallout of her family’s actions for a long time to come.
“You know, if it wasn’t for Nate and his photos, we’d never have found Beth’s cabin,” Leah interrupted his thoughts. “Tassi’s body could have remained undiscovered for days and Dean could have gotten away with everything.”
“Nate and Emily.” Luka hesitated. “He’s a good kid. Talented.”
“More than that. Special—he’s so
