Her Thin Blue Lifeline: Indigo Knights Book I

by A. J. Downey

  “Hey now, Tennyson isn’t going to help your case with this one, baby. As much as I would love to go there with you, you’re a classy woman, Franco. It kills me to say it, but you’re so much better than a one night stand.”

  Damnit he was smooth and I said, “Twist the knife, why don’t you?” with a wry smile to hide my disappointment.

  He laughed and said, “It’s not all on you. You were just ballsy enough to say it first. It’s been over a month since we had a date that wasn’t interrupted by one or the both of our jobs. That says something. I’d rather stop here with you and have a real shot down the line if I’m lucky, rather than keep trying to cram a square peg in a round hole and get one or the both of us hurt.” I nodded and sighed but before I could say anything he said, “Would still love one last kiss for the road.”

  “I think I can manage that,” I said and the smile he gave me damn near melted me into my pumps.

  The dream-memory shattered and my eyes flew open. I sucked in a startled breath and froze every muscle as the pain radiated through my back and into my chest. I blinked several times and stared at sterile and bland ceiling tiles and went to turn my head in the direction of the curtained sliding glass door that led out onto the floor.

  Agony ripped through my back and shoulder and I let out this god awful strangled noise. The shift and creak of leather, the rattle of a metal buckle.

  “Easy, Chrissy. Take it easy, I’m gonna get a nurse.”

  My vision blurred with pain and tears as a back clad in black leather, a silver shield and indigo blue knight’s chess piece went past. He swatted back the curtain and slid open the door, his familiar voice whisper-shouting, “Hey Merlyn! She’s awake and in a lot of pain.”

  A strong female voice called out gently, “Right with you, honey.”

  He stepped back in and turned around, just as I squeezed my eyes shut against the hurt. Hot tears trickled out from under my lashes and down my cheeks but I didn’t dare try to move, the pain was bad, but moving? I didn’t want to think about it.

  “Easy, Chrissy.” Maddeningly familiar voice! A tissue gently wiped away the tears and I opened my eyes to a pair of steely blue ones that radiated concern.

  “Tony?” I whimpered.

  “You’re okay, you’re safe now.” More fresh, hot, tears leaked out of my eyes. “Shh,” he soothed and I realized I was babbling.

  “What happened; why am I here? What happened to me?” My mind tried valiantly to cling to anything but it was like as soon as I grasped it, it was gone, swirling into the murky haze inside my skull.

  “You were shot, baby. In the back, you were shot twice.”

  “It wasn’t a dream? It wasn’t a bad dream?” Of course it wasn’t, stupid! You were just dreaming of Tony before you woke up.

  But why? Why would I dream of Tony, and why would he be here?

  It finally came to me. A cop. Tony is a cop… tell him I have to tell him.

  “They put my address up on the internet.” I swallowed hard, my voice a little warped but whether it was from the pain or soggy from my tears, I couldn’t tell. One thing I did know was that I had to tell him. I had to tell him everything I knew, because I hurt so bad I surely must be dying and he had to know in case I really was…

  “Jim. Jim Parsons from my office found it. They put my address on the internet, told them to come to my apartment. Sam, Sami said that it was nothing, but I asked her to come over – oh god, is Sam okay? Where’s Sami Lynn?”

  I wanted my best friend, I wanted to know that she was okay, but I didn’t think she was and he wouldn’t answer me… instead, he was holding his phone out in front of himself looking at the screen and I cried, “Why aren’t you listening to me!?”

  “I am, I am, I promise, Chrissy. Can you tell me what he looked like?”

  “Sam, where’s Sami? Is she okay? Is she alright?”

  His steel blue eyes held a deep pity in them but he wouldn’t answer. He was saved from having to by the nurse. A buxom black lady with long thick braids to the middle of her back, came into the room in green scrub pants and a floral print scrub shirt. Buxom, that was a word you didn’t hear anymore but it was the best one used to describe her.

  “Ms. Franco, honey. Do you know where you are?” she said and her voice was loud.

  I ignored her, focusing on Tony, sweat popping out on my brow as I gritted my teeth against the pain and tried to fight back the only way I knew how. Through the system and by being a good witness.

  “Sweatshirt, one of those ones that zip up with a hood, he had one of those on. A red one,” I said.

  “Good, that’s good, baby.”

  “Ms. Franco, honey, I need you to tell me where you’re at,” the nurse called again and I looked at her and tried to focus.

  “Hospital, right? I’m in the hospital.” I flicked my eyes back to Tony and gritting my teeth through another grinding, burning, tearing wave of agony gasped out, “His gun was big, and black… he wore gloves. The plastic kind, but white. Not like those.” I flicked my gaze to the nurse.

  “I’ve got to give her some medicine, Tony. She’s getting distressed.”

  “Okay, okay, Chrissy, what about his face? Can you tell me what his face looked like?”

  I closed my eyes and whimpered and the pain eased off and so did I. As if gravity had ceased and I was suddenly floating.

  “Shit, Merlyn… what did you give her?” he demanded.

  “Morphine, look at her face, you can ask your questions when she’s more stable.”

  “Damnit,” he cursed and leaned down.

  Tony… don’t leave me!

  I tried to speak, but couldn’t. Gentle fingers tucked some stray hair behind my ear and I realized I couldn’t see and then, a heartbeat after that, I didn’t care.

  Chapter 3

  Tony

  “Shit.”

  “Had to be done, sugar.”

  I didn’t take my eyes off Chrissy, willing her to come to, willing her to be lucid and give me more information even though she’d done great and had given me a solid lead.

  “How’s she holding up? Give it to me straight, no bullshit,” I told Merlyn and she sighed.

  “You love this girl?” she asked frankly, and I smiled, smoothing some of Chrissy’s dark hair off from where it was plastered to her forehead. I loved her hair. Thick and silky, like it was some kind of living thing of its own. She was still rocking it long, but it was a different style than the last time I’d seen her.

  “No, we just went out a few times a few years ago… She ain’t got nobody.”

  “Mm-hm,” she sounded like she didn’t believe me, and I huffed a bit of a laugh but what she said next was pretty profound and one of the reasons she made one of the best foster moms this city had ever seen. “Looks like she has you, baby.”

  Fuck.

  I guess she had me there. I didn’t answer, instead I put one hand against the thin hospital mattress by her head, glad she was propped up in a sort of sitting position and I leaned in, pressing a light kiss to her forehead. Merlyn left the room, sliding the door closed behind her.

  I knew that Chrissy wouldn’t know I’d done it and that it could be considered creepy, but I seriously couldn’t help it. My heart went out to her. She’d sounded so scared and so lost as the drugs had taken her under with her pleading, “Tony, don’t leave me!” but I had to leave. I had to catch whoever had done this to her; before he could to it to anyone else, sure, but also to bring him to justice. Although, I didn’t think for a minute that whatever the criminal justice system did to him would come close to making him actually pay.

  “I’ll be back, I promise,” I murmured to her and just took a moment to listen to her strong, deep and even breathing between the blips and beeps of all the monitors and shit they had her hooked up to. I made sure her oxygen tubes were on and comfortably tucked up and over her delicate ears before I straightened up and went back out. I waited for Merlyn who was with another patient and when she came out,
I made her promise to let Chrissy know I’d be back with more questions and to call me when she was awake again.

  “Might be hours, might be a couple of days before you get any kind of coherent outta her, honey. Morphine is a hell of a drug.”

  I nodded and asked her point blank, “She gonna make it, okay?”

  “Surgery was rough, but they got it all. Her body’s under some serious stress and everybody reacts differently. You never can tell with these kind of injuries, baby. Anything could happen, secondary infections, all manner of complications. The way she looks now, I wanna tell you she’s gonna be fine, but I can’t tell you how many patients I thought that and we lost them the next day. All you can do is what any of us can do, wait and say those prayers.”

  I leaned in conspiratorially and said, “That’s why I like you Merlyn, you always give it to me straight.”

  “I know you cops, there ain’t any other way to be with your kind.”

  “Smart lady.”

  She smiled and said, “Go on and get that animal. I’ll call you if there’s any change.”

  “You’re her guardian angel,” I said walking backwards towards the ICU’s exit.

  She looked me up and down, her brown eyes sparkling, but still full of criticism, “Huh! Looks to me like that position is already filled, but I know something else about you cops.”

  “Oh yeah, what’s that?” I asked stopping.

  “You never can have too much backup.”

  I barked a laugh and she shooed me off, fingers sparkling with rings, her long purple nails with rhinestones. The woman sure had some fabulous class to her. God love her.

  I went down to the garage and got onto my bike, replaying the video of Chrissy that I’d taken with my phone. When someone was in that bad of shape, you video documented everything – thankfully cellphones made that possible – because if they died, the video could still be admissible as evidence and even testimony if you had the right district attorney who knew the ropes and could get it past the defense.

  She looked both sallow and wan, which was a feat; and spoke of just how fucked up on the inside she was. Her eyes were sunken, haunted, and exhausted, her expression hampered by drugs and pain, but she was a fighter. A real fighter, trying to give me everything she could.

  “They put my address up on the internet.” I watched as she swallowed hard. “Jim. Jim Parsons from my office found it. They put my address on the internet, told them to come to my apartment. Sam, Sami said that it was nothing, but I asked her to come over –” Her face crumbled and it was a different kind of pain. Even if she didn’t remember with the front of her brain, her subconscious knew what’d happened to her friend. “Oh god, is Sam okay? Where’s Sami Lynn?”

  I didn’t have the heart to answer her as it was happening. Now, I didn’t have the heart to watch that bit over again. Instead, I stopped the video, clutching the phone in my hand and bracing it on top of my leather and denim clad thigh while I thought some things through.

  She needed time enough to heal before dealing with all of that shit. I felt bad as it was that I’d had to push her right after she’d woken up, like that. My reasons may be noble and justified, but I still felt like a steaming pile for doing it. The job at hand wasn’t always a bowl of roses and this case was going to be even uglier than what I typically dealt with. Survivor’s guilt was a hell of a thing.

  I shook my head and put my phone inside my jacket before firing up the bike. It was just after six in the morning. I had just enough time to ride back to the precinct, take a shower, and use some of the clean clothes I had stowed in one of my saddlebags for just one of these occasions. When I got off the elevator on my squad room’s floor, my partner was waiting for me with a cup of coffee that he shoved into my hand.

  “The Lord bless you and keep you,” I muttered testing it carefully before taking a sip.

  He ignored my Mick blessing and said, “Y’know, I was thinking about something. Had me up all night.”

  “How did the shooter know it was Chrissy’s apartment?” I supplied.

  “Yeah, great minds think alike,” he said and I shook my head and took another careful sip of the coffee. Still too hot but it’d be just right after I got done in the locker room.

  “Yeah, well, Chrissy woke up long enough to supply us with an honest to god, solid goddamn lead. C’mere, I’ll get you up to speed.”

  “Heh, your momma raised you right,” he commented. “Praise the lord one minute and use his name in vain the next.”

  “Shut up,” I groused and went over to his desk and sat my happy ass on the corner of it, digging out my phone. He sat down in his chair and waited me out and I cued up the video and handed it to him.

  “Gonna grab a shower and a change of duds, be right out.” I set the offering of the sacred bean down at my desk and hitching the knapsack I’d dragged up here out of my saddlebag higher onto my shoulder, I headed for the detective squad’s locker room.

  A quick, cold shower to wake me up, and because the pipes in this building were old as fuck and the hot water heater as far away as it could get, and I was halfway ready to start the day.

  I had detective casual in the knapsack. A crisp pair of jeans, devoid of any holes or wear on the cuffs and pockets, came out right after a pair of clean boxers and a tee shirt.

  “Jesus Christ, gimme that.” I smirked and handed the button down shirt and tie over to Jaime. “This is why you should drive that truck of yers instead of that moped,” he said shaking it out and pulling down the ironing board from the wall.

  I laughed and pulled on my boxers under the towel I had around my waist. I dropped it and pulled on my clean socks and jeans, next.

  “So what’d you think?” I asked and Jaime tsked.

  “I think she’d better live so we can nail this bastard dead to rights. You know a breathing witness is always the best witness.”

  I snorted, “There are no ‘good’ witnesses; you know that.”

  He picked up the shirt after whipping the iron over it, squinted at it, and laid it another direction resuming bullying the wrinkles out of it with the steam.

  “Woah, aren’t you two all domestic and shit.” Riley Adams, another detective from the squad walked in to drop his shit at his locker.

  “Man, fuck you,” I said laughing.

  “Mm, no… that’s all your partner,” he said shutting his locker door and backing out of the room.

  Jaime ignored the exchange like it never happened and sighed saying, “You need to leave this cynical cop shit to me.”

  “So, you were thinkin’ what I was thinkin’ last night,” he looked up at me and I said, “That this Jim Parson’s needs to be our first stop.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s about right.”

  I tucked in my tee and threaded my belt through the loops of my jeans. He handed over my light blue shirt and I shrugged it on, buttoning it up and tucking it in. By the time I was done with that, clipping my badge to the front of my belt, and holstering my duty weapon after checking the serial to make sure it was my duty weapon, he had my tie pressed and was holding it out to me. I flipped up my collar and looked into the small mirror held onto the inside of my locker door by magnets to get the damn thing right.

  Jaime put the iron in its rack on the wall by the board and made sure it was unplugged. When he folded up the board into its upright position, I had my locker door shut and the lock latched, my keys around one finger and tucked into the palm of my hand.

  “Grab yer phone and yer coffee, meet you by the elevator.”

  “Copy, that.”

  I swung into my blazer I left hanging in the back of my locker and shoved my feet into my street shoes, a pair of good, old fashioned, sturdy Rockport Oxfords in black. I went out into the squad room and swept my phone and my coffee up off my desk and made it to the elevator just as the doors shushed open for Jaime. He stood aside and waved me in and I said, “Age before beauty,” before sucking down some more of the elixir of life he’d brought
me.

  “See if I buy coffee for you ever again, Youngblood,” he grated.

  I grinned behind my cup and got onto the elevator behind him. “That was self-preservation and you know it,” I cracked but I damn sure wasn’t feeling it. The coffee wasn’t even coming close to making up for a night of shitty sleep in a shitty chair at Trinity Gen’s ICU.

  It was going to be a long fucking day.

  ***

  It was almost a relief to get back to the hospital and that shitty chair to put my feet up after the amount of pavement pounding, warrant gathering, and hurry up and wait we’d had to pull. The problem was, we didn’t know if a crime had necessarily been committed when it came to Chrissy’s personal info having been published online. We’d had to do some research. Lo and behold, there was actually a name for it. It was called ‘doxxing’ whatever the hell that meant, and it was a crime, but typically at a federal level.

  Parsons, a paralegal at Reardon, Colfax & Price, the firm that Chrissy worked for, was something of a computer geek and ran the firm’s Facebook page. That’s where the hateful explosion over the verdict had started. He said that it began as a bunch of one star reviews of the firm full of a bunch of typical angry keyboard warrior bullshit. But then, this one guy let slip in one of those reviews that the whole thing started on some fanboy forum for Skip and the Indigo City Anglers, our baseball team.

  Parsons followed the proverbial rabbit hole down into a fucking sewer of the worst kinds that humanity had to offer. Page after page of angry fucking diatribes and threats of everything from torture to rape, to gang rape, to murder. Some of it the grisliest shit I’ve ever read. Enough that Jaime had to bust out the Rolaids all the while Jimmy-boy sat to one side and wouldn’t make eye contact with either of us.

  It’d made me damn uncomfortable too, but my visceral reaction? It’d been more along the lines of being torn between wanting to do two things. Find the son of a bitch who’d done this to her and deliver some street justice by way of a wood shampoo, and the other? Go to Chrissy and never leave her side again, because I don’t give a fuck who you are or what you did or did not do – no one deserved what she’d gotten or what she was getting by way of this fucking bullshit.