by Radclyffe
“Head injury,” Jay said quickly. “Four-centimeter forehead laceration. She’s oriented and moving all fours.”
“Loss of consciousness?” The medic quickly strapped a blood-pressure cuff on Olivia’s arm and pulled out an IV setup.
“I don’t need that,” Olivia said, waving away the IV. “I’m a doctor. I tripped and fell. I did not lose consciousness. You’re needed elsewhere. I’m all right.”
The EMT flashed a penlight in Olivia’s eyes, seemed satisfied, and looked at Jay. “What about you, you hurt?”
“Bumps and bruises,” Jay said.
“Okay—we can wait to transport.” The medic tore open a clean four-by-four gauze and pressed it to Olivia’s forehead.
Jay brushed his hand aside. “I can take that. She’ll need sutures.”
“Right now all the vans are full with level threes and fours,” he said.
Olivia grasped Jay’s arm. “I don’t need to take up space in an ambulance. My car is right here.”
Jay nodded. “Okay, I’ll drive.”
The medic said, “If you’ve got wheels, and she can walk, you might as well.”
Olivia said, “I can’t leave. I’ve got—”
“You’re not staying, Olivia,” Jay said. “Osaka and Markham are here. They can handle things for now. You’re hurt and you need attention.”
“I’m fine, it’s just a bump.”
“It’s a bump that needs stitches, and you might need a head CT. We’re going to the emergency room.”
The medic quickly packed his gear. “If you’re staying, get to cover in case the nutjob shooting at us starts again.”
Olivia tried to get up. Her headache ratcheted up a notch and she winced.
Jay’s arm came around her. “All right?”
“Yes, nothing too terrible. I need to speak with my people if I’m leaving.”
“I’ll get someone,” Jay said, leading Olivia to the shelter of one of the big fire trucks. “Stay here.”
A minute later Jay returned with Kim Osaka, one of the senior medical examiners, and Olivia handed the scene over to him. Officers directed them through a gauntlet of SWAT members to her car.
Jay backed out through the torturous labyrinth of stopped vehicles and crawled through the snarled traffic surrounding the crime scene until she reached a cross street that was open. Breathing fully for the first time since whatever the hell had happened, she glanced at Olivia. Just having Olivia beside her helped quell the anxious fear clawing at her ribs. “How do you feel?”
Olivia held the gauze against her forehead. A bloody patch the size of a quarter spotted the center. “I’m fine, really. A headache. I never lost consciousness. If you head to the ME building, we could put some Steri-Strips—”
Jay snorted. “Really, Olivia? That’s down to muscle. It needs sutures. I know what I’m talking about.”
“I know that,” Olivia said quietly. “All the same, the ER will be busy with patients who need attention a lot more than I do. I’m not so vain that I’m worried about how this is going to look.”
Jay gripped the wheel and stared ahead, using the demands of driving in the insane traffic to keep her nerves at bay. When Olivia’d cried out and crumpled to the ground, Jay thought her world had ended. The adrenaline rush still hadn’t ebbed, and every muscle was jangling. Her fear was coming out as temper, and that wasn’t Olivia’s fault. “There’s nothing in the world that could make you any less beautiful, but you’re still getting sutures.”
“Jay,” Olivia said quietly, “I’m really all right.”
Jay blew out a breath. “Okay, I know, but it’s just—”
Olivia slid closer and rested her hand on Jay’s thigh. “Are you all right?”
“Physically, yeah, fine. Maybe a couple of splinters here and there.”
“What do you mean, splinters? Are you hurt?” Olivia unsnapped her seat belt and tugged at Jay’s jacket. “Where? Let me see.”
“Would you please get back over there and put your seat belt on,” Jay said, calmer now that she could see Olivia was really all right. Nothing was going to take her away. “Some kind of debris hit me, I’m not sure what it was. Stings the back of my neck, that’s all.”
“Pull over. I want to look.”
“Liv,” Jay said, exasperated and relieved and wanting to laugh. “Have you looked around? I couldn’t pull over if I wanted to. People are double-parked, trying to get closer to see what’s going on, and the ones who aren’t parked might as well be. We’re crawling here.”
“You know, I’ve got a med kit in the back of this car. You can take care of my forehead at my office.”
Jay shot her a look. “You have suture and lidocaine back there? Because you know, Liv, you’re not dead, so you might feel it.”
Olivia smiled. “Do you know when you get aggravated with me, you call me Liv?”
“Do I.” Jay shook her head, the desire a living thing inside her. “Actually, I think I call you that when I’m aggravated and when I’m trying to seduce you.”
Olivia caught her breath. “I think it’s the first at the moment.”
Jay thought better than to tell her the desire was a constant. “We’ll be at the ER in fifteen minutes. I know all the shortcuts. If I could just get through this last block, I’ll have you taken care of and home in an hour.”
“I’ll need to go back to the scene.”
“No, you won’t. At least not for a little while.” Jay maneuvered down an alley and came out on another block, cut back the way she’d come, hit another alley, and blessedly found a reasonably free through street that would take her north and west toward the hospital. “Not until we’re sure you’re feeling all right.”
“I’ve got to handle this DMORT situation,” Olivia said grimly. “I can’t believe they’re trying to take over our scene.”
“I bet they’ll try playing the terrorism card.”
“Because of the bomb,” Olivia said.
“That’s what I figure.”
Olivia grimaced. “That doesn’t really make any sense, either. We won’t even know what the incendiary was until the fire marshal signs off on the scene. It could have been a furnace that blew up.”
“So there’s something else going on we don’t know about.”
“That’s more than likely. The feds rarely communicate exactly what they’re doing and have very little respect for our jurisdiction.”
“All the same,” Jay said, jumping behind a police cruiser clearing a path for an ambulance toward the hospital, “not much is going to change down there for a few hours. Let’s at least take care of that laceration and your headache before you head back into the fray.”
“What headache?”
Jay laughed. “The one you’re trying to hide.”
Olivia sighed. “Are you always this stubborn?”
“Only where you’re concerned.” Jay covered Olivia’s hand where it still rested on her knee. The pressure was so light she might not have noticed if it was anything else. If it was anyone else touching her. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Olivia, and the contact settled her more than anything else could have. Olivia was here, beside her, and Olivia had reached for her.
*
Dell was having a great dream featuring Sandy in nothing at all, doing unspeakably outrageous and unspeakably exciting things to her while she lay helpless, her arms and legs tied to a bed. She was just getting to the part where she begged when her phone rang.
“Damn,” Dell muttered.
Sandy flailed on the bedside table for Dell’s phone, came up with her own, dropped it, and handed Dell’s over. “Here.”
Sandy put her head under her pillow as Dell answered. “Mitchell.”
“Hey, sunshine,” Watts said, sounding scarily cheery. “Time to climb out of the rack. Somebody blew up one of MS-13’s clubs.”
Dell sat up, wide-awake. “Whoa. Okay. I’m on my way. Where?”
Chuckling, Watts gave her the information. “You c
an take time to get dressed, you know. None of us want to see your skinny bare butt.”
“Ha ha.” Watts hung up and Dell kissed the back of Sandy’s neck. “Gotta go, babe.”
“What is it?” Sandy mumbled, her head still under the pillow.
“One of the Salvadorans’ clubs got hit.”
“What was it? Drive-by?” Sandy pulled the pillow off her head, turned on the light, and squinted in the glare.
“They’re thinking a firebomb. Pete Gonzales called Frye when he asked around about the club and found out it was one of MS-13’s main meeting places.”
Sandy pulled the pillow off her head. “You think it’s Zamora retaliating?”
“Good bet. Reports of shots fired too.” Dell collected her clothes. “Looks like the war’s started, babe. Might be a coincidence, but—you think?”
Sandy scoffed and jumped up. “Coincidence my ass. I’m coming.”
“Okay, but get your vest on.”
“Always do.” Sandy kissed her quickly. “And you keep your head down, Rookie.”
*
Jay parked half a block from the hospital and flipped down the visor. Maybe Olivia’s on-call placard would save them a ticket or tow. She really didn’t care. “You sure you’re okay to walk over?”
“Really, I’m fine. It doesn’t even hurt all that much.”
“Let me know if you feel dizzy.”
Olivia linked her arm through Jay’s. “I promise, if you promise to stop worrying.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to trust me on this,” Olivia said. “I wouldn’t lie to you. I never have.”
“I know.”
Olivia leaned against Jay, not because she needed to, but because she felt Jay’s anxiety and wanted to comfort her. And because the connection warmed her in a way she couldn’t reject. “When we get there, I want to take a look at your neck.”
“You first.”
Olivia laughed. “All right, deal.”
When they reached the ER, Jay had to admit Olivia had been right. The place was a zoo. The waiting room was full and the ER board had a name in every slot. Some of the rush was probably just the usual late-night ER traffic, but other patients had to be the least injured victims from the bar. The trauma unit was likely going to be full with the more serious casualties.
Jay flagged down a nurse who was hurrying by with an instrument pack. “Hey, Suli, can I grab a spot to take care of this?”
“As long as you don’t need a cubicle. They’re all full.”
“Thanks!” Jay took Olivia’s hand. “Come on, all we need is someplace for you to lie down so I can get a look at this.”
“Are you planning to take care of this yourself?” Olivia said.
Jay raised a brow. “At least until we get to the stitches part.” She squeezed her right hand. “I don’t trust myself to do anything else.”
“Jay,” Olivia said gently, “I would trust you to do anything.”
“Thanks,” Jay whispered. She pointed to a lone stretcher tucked away in a hallway by the fire exit. “Over here.”
Olivia obediently climbed up on the stretcher while Jay grabbed gloves, gauze, and a bottle of sterile saline from a treatment room. Her forehead stung as Jay cleansed it, but she could tell the wound was more of a nuisance than anything else.
“At least it’s got a good orientation,” Jay muttered, replacing the wet gauze with a dry one. “Here, hold that. I’ll see if I can find someone to get this closed up.”
“I don’t mind waiting. Everyone’s taking care of people who are a lot more seriously injured.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Olivia sighed. “I’ll be here.”
Jay hurried around the corner to the trauma bay and found the controlled chaos she expected. All three acute treatment tables were occupied. X-ray and respiratory techs clustered around with their monitors and machines, residents and fellows and nurses worked over the prone bodies, and Ali directed all of the action with the absolute calm of a conductor of a symphony orchestra. Jay waited until she could catch her eye.
“Hey,” Ali said as soon as she saw her, “have you seen Beau? We’re getting reports there were shots fired out there.”
“Yeah, I saw her,” Jay said, “maybe forty minutes ago. That was after whatever the hell went down out there happened. She looked okay.”
The tension around Ali’s jaw relaxed. “Thanks. Thanks.” Ali’s gaze sharpened. “What are you doing here?”
“Olivia’s hurt. She’s in the ER.”
“Why isn’t she here?”
“She’s okay. It’s a forehead laceration, but it needs sutures. Can you spare anybody to close it?”
Ali glanced over at the three beds. “Unless we get another acute case, things are under control here. If you get things set up, I can run down and do it.”
“Ali, no,” Jay said. “Just give me one of the residents for fifteen minutes.”
Ali laughed. “Jay. You think it will take me fifteen minutes to close a forehead laceration? You assist, and I’ll get it done in five. They can spare me here for that long unless something else comes rolling in.”
“I owe you.”
“The hell you do. Go get ready.”
“Okay. Give me five minutes.”
Jay grabbed a suture set from the rack by the door on her way back to where Olivia waited on the gurney. “Ali’s going to come down and close this up in a minute. Why don’t you lie down.”
“Ali Torveau, the trauma chief?”
“The very same.”
Olivia frowned. “Jay, really. This is—”
“She’s a friend. It’s okay.”
“All right. Thank you.”
Jay opened the tray and got gloves for Ali and herself. Her hand was at least steady enough to cut suture. Once she was set up, she sprinted to the unit to let Ali know she was ready.
“You have any idea what’s going on out there?” Ali asked as she followed Jay. “The victims are mostly burned, but a few are missing body parts. Looked like a bomb went off.”
“Reports were pretty conflicted, although an explosion took out the bar. How many did you get?”
“Between the ER and the trauma unit, probably a dozen, most thankfully not too seriously injured. What about you?”
“Looks like whoever was close to the focus of the blast absorbed most of the damage. There are half a dozen dead on scene.”
Ali shook her head. “It’s crazy.”
Olivia sat up straight as Ali approached. “Dr. Torveau, I really appreciate this. I told Jay—”
“Hi,” Ali said, gently resting a hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “I’m Ali. I’ll get this taken care of in a couple of minutes. And I insisted.” She glanced at Jay. “After all, Jay’s family.”
Olivia settled back, accepting she couldn’t argue with both of them. Jay’s family. And what did that make her? “All right, yes. Thank you very much.”
Ali gloved up, injected the area with lidocaine, and loaded the suture Jay had pulled for her. She was quick, quicker even than Jay had ever been, and as Jay cut suture for her, she thought of all the times they’d done this together. She missed the camaraderie more than anything else, and that was a revelation. The work she did now challenged her as much, satisfied her in different ways, and she was learning to be part of a new team. And Ali would always be part of her life.
“That was less than five minutes,” Olivia observed as Ali pulled off her gloves.
Ali laughed. “You needed the sutures, but fortunately, the laceration was straightforward. You won’t have much of a scar.”
“I’m not worried about that. Now if you would just tell Jay I’m fine and don’t need to be babysat?”
Ali glanced from Jay to Olivia and shook her head. “I could, but you’ve probably noticed by now that she’s on the stubborn side. I think you can expect a little hovering for a couple of hours. I’d recommend you not go back out into the field until you’ve had something to eat
, some Motrin, and an hour or two for your system to settle down. You are going back out, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
Ali glanced at Jay. “I think a meal and some pain pills are the best you’re going to be able to do.”
Jay lifted a shoulder and smiled at Olivia. “Okay, I’ll take it.”
“Good,” Ali said. “I’d better get back in there. Take care of each other.”
Ali disappeared, and Olivia sat up slowly. “She’s very fond of you.”
“Yeah. She knows how I feel about you.”
Olivia caught her breath. “Does she.”
“Come on,” Jay said, thinking she was ahead so far and that was enough for now. “My place is around the corner. It’s not much, but I actually have some food. It’s closer than your place, and we won’t have to fight the traffic so much.”
“All right, for an hour.”
“Ninety minutes,” Jay countered.
Olivia laughed. “You win this one.”
Jay held out her hand. When Olivia took it, Jay knew she’d never be happy until she won it all.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Sorry to wake you up, Lieutenant,” Carmody said.
“It’s quite all right, Sergeant, I’m in the car.” Rebecca slowed to let a black van with Medical Examiner stenciled on the side in tall yellow letters inch past. “What do you have?”
“I heard about the blast in South Philly, and the location tweaked something in my memory. There’s been a real uptick in activity the last few days, so it’s taken me a while to rerun the tapes.”
“You hit something?” Rebecca slid her sedan to the curb behind an idling police cruiser. Yellow crime-scene tape blocked the street half a block ahead. She shut off the engine, checked her watch. Five a.m. Carmody must’ve been working all night.
“I think I might have caught a conversation we can use,” Carmody said. “At least, I got a name for you.”
Rebecca straightened. Names were like gold. Names meant individuals they could pressure for more names, more threads to pull. “Go ahead. Read me what you’ve got.”
“Okay,” Carmody said, excitement lacing her voice. “This is Spiro Pavlou outside Zamora’s office yesterday. He’s talking to one of Zamora’s captains, the same one who reported on Mary Ann Scofield a while back. Carlos Faro.”
