David hung up, blinked again at the photo on his phone. “The Couples Killer,” he said quietly. “Name is Mitch Haven. ID’d but they don’t know where he is.”
“Nasty-looking SOB,” Sam muttered. Ramu sputtered something in Hindi and gave an exaggerated shudder. Neither looked tired any more.
Sam got imploringly in David’s face. “Listen, if this is lull time you gotta sleep. What can you do if you’re blitzed with fatigue?”
“Ditto,” Ramu pleaded, touching David’s shoulder. “Go to bed. Try to sleep, sleep.”
David did. Tried to, anyway. Returned to their on call room, dimmed it, placed the two cell phones on the floor near his head and lay, staring at the ceiling. Rolled over, cussing softly, and stared at the night light. Time passed. He checked his watch: 10:05. His nerves were too frayed to sleep. He missed Jill terribly. Missed her warmth, missed how just talking to her could calm him. She was the same. Whatever the stress, they just listened to each other and talked, hugged, and comforted until-
Beeep went one of the phones. He froze.
Lifted his head and looked at them. It was the old black one. He recognized its different sound.
This was it. Mitch Haven calling. The phone beeped again.
He grabbed and answered. “Yeah?”
“Hiiii.” The voice dragged out the word, whispery soft.
David sat upright, his heart rocketing. “You have a name? What should I call you?”
“Don’t be coy. You’ve known my name since your lovely Jill led the cops to my place.”
David’s heart exploded. The bastard saw Jill there. There was a silence, as if Haven was testing the air between them. “Your cop friends got your phone trapped, David?” he finally said. “Of course, so I should welcome them. Greetings, listeners! Having any luck finding me? Doesn’t look like it. Two more dead at the movies. And two new ones you don’t even know about yet. Such incompetence. Well, I gotta go now. Bye.”
The line went dead.
A stunned moment passed. David sat up, feeling his pulse throb - and his phone rang again.
“Me again, from a different burner phone, ha! Now the cops have to start all over. Hey cops, did I just screw up your computers? I can keep doing this, y’know.” There were traffic sounds in his background.
“What do you want?” David’s lips were dry.
Plaintive: “I wanna play. See, I’m giving you a second chance to be my friend despite your sweetie’s perfidy.”
“Because?” The hands were ice.
“Because I want to play our game. Catch me, only like Paintball. We’ll just wing each other, but whoever gets the other one wins. You feel challenged?”
“I don’t shoot people.” David was on his feet now, shaking.
“Of course you shoot people. I told you, I’ve seen your marksmanship on YouTube. So I’ve re-thought this because I really want to be friends.” More traffic sounds. “Play Catch Me Paintball with me, you’ll see I’m the superior marksman.”
A force took hold of David, got him moving to the door. “Where are you?”
“Closer than you think.” The taunting voice seemed to smile. “Well, I must go now.”
“Wait.” Keep him talking. David was out in the hall, moving, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Promise you’d just wing me? This couples thing is bullshit. What’s the real reason you kill?”
“Because I was betrayed.”
“Who betrayed you?”
“Everyone in my whole damn life. Including your Jill today. Truthfully I almost shot her but didn’t. Isn’t that proof I’m your friend? Say thank you, David. She took my home from me.”
David’s heart dropped.
“Touch Jill and I’ll kill you,” he said with slow, quiet fury. He entered the stairwell, started quickly down. Closer than you think impelled him. Almost shot her drummed in his brain.
“No, you won’t. I’m the sharp shooter, remember? I’ve gotten every prize in the book. Listen, I’m trying to be nice. I could blow your head off-”
A siren sounded on Haven’s end. Through the glass wall of the first floor landing, too.
The same siren. The high whoop whoop of an ambulance.
David said fast, “Wanna have a pissing contest over that? Speaking of pissing, how’s your poor, hurting little weenie?”
Then pocketed his phone and ran.
Through a short hall, then out a side door to the ambulance bay, bright with orange sodium lights and blazing emergency vehicles. He looked wildly around. Saw uniforms he knew, looked out to the darkened sidewalk, saw pedestrians. Faces averted, minding their own business.
Except for one. A big-shouldered, garish woman shooting a glance back at him, crossing the avenue against traffic, ducking oncoming cars.
Mitch Haven. It had to be.
David raced madly to the bay’s entrance, shouting to two cops who followed.
“That’s him!” David pointed, and plunged into the traffic. A car and then a cab screeched their brakes. Big Shoulders was almost across. David heard the cops running behind him yelling into their radios; Alex and those listening must be hearing too, because suddenly blue-and-whites were coming from everywhere. David caught up to Big Shoulders, tackled his knees from behind and pulled him down hard to the asphalt.
The figure spun and grappled with him. In the glare of stopped headlights David saw a grotesquely painted face, lipsticked lips sneering as he aimed his readied gun. David caught his wrist and twisted it hard, slammed the arm down to the pavement as the gun went off. Yards away, a patrol car swerving in from a side street slammed into a white van which slid into a cab. David ducked as a fender flew past him. For seconds the steaming mess blocked those in pursuit. Just as a young cop from the trashed patrol car closed in.
The grotesque-faced figure sprang up, clutching his hurting arm still holding his gun, and ran.
He made it to an alley on the other side. David and the young cop were just yards behind. “Stop or we’ll shoot!” the cop yelled. Big Shoulders turned, got his arm up and shot first. The cop cried out and fell.
David stopped in his tracks.
Oh God, no. He saw the cop bleeding heavily from his chest. Kneeled to him as two others in uniform, groaning, dropped to their knees and shone their lights. Others continued pursuit. It was all a blur.
Breathing hard, David yanked off his scrub top and covered the wound, applied pressure to stop further blood loss. “Shine the lights closer,” he huffed. Both cops did, one of them howling into his radio for transport. Both were near tears.
“The blood’s dark,” David encouraged as he continued applying pressure, checking the carotid with his free hand. “That’s good. Means a vein got hit, a big vein but not as bad as an artery getting hit - they spew bright red blood.” The injured man moaned. “See? He’s breathing on his own. No need for CPR.”
Others were arriving. Someone put a police jacket over David’s shoulders. He’d been shirtless, and suddenly realized he was cold. He looked up as shouting men in uniform cleared the traffic mess and got an EMS truck across the avenue. It was backing up – beep beep! - getting closer in the alley. EMTs were already jumping out and running to them with a gurney.
He helped load the injured man, one free hand still pressing his bloodied scrub top to the wound. In the truck, EMTs got an IV going and a blood pressure cuff on while David, on one knee with his hands bloodied, kept applying pressure, checking the vitals and carotid. The cop looked sweet-faced and so young. Maybe twenty-three. David’s heart cried for him.
Another cop got into the truck.
“We’ll hustle him right into Emergency,” David said. The truck started to move and the siren wailed. “He’s gonna make it.”
The cop nodded grimly.
He’d just heard on his radio that Haven had escaped.
26
Woody Greenberg burst into the scrub room to tell Jill. He was so distressed he couldn’t get the words out. “Killer…David chased…cop shot�
�Emergency…”
Jill stared at him, trying to absorb it. She’d been decompressing from the delivery she’d just finished, and her overburdened mind froze. She stood with her hands limply dripping at her sides, but tears just…came.
“Hey,” Woody said, grabbing a sterile towel and her hands and wiping them for her. “The cop’s gonna make it. David’s okay but feeling lousy. Blaming himself.”
The first thing they’d all learned in med school was: Emote, and you’ve got two problems.
Yeah, easier said.
Minutes later they were pushing through Emergency. Grim cops were all over, even more of them outside the cubicle Jill raced to just as David came out.
She gasped and flew to him, her eyes shut tight and squeezing him around his neck. He dropped his face to her shoulder, but his embrace felt limp. She pulled back and looked at him. His skin was cold and clammy. His neck and chest between his open jacket were smeared with blood not his.
“My fault,” he groaned. “Cop’s twenty-four years old. Name’s Sean Webb. He would’ve been okay if I’d stayed in the damned room, kept the bastard talking-”
“We hadn’t gotten him,” Alex Brand said, coming up to them. “Had just isolated him to the nearest cell tower when he shut down.”
“And Sean was lucky,” Woody cut in feelingly, using gauze to dab at a scrape on David’s brow, scrub away the blood on his neck. “The bullet just nicked an intercostal vein, bypassed the lung and exited so no surgery required. A grazing injury that will clot and heal.” He admired David’s police jacket and ran to get a new scrub top.
They had withdrawn to a bench near the cubicle. David dropped to it and Jill sank down next to him, squeezing his bloodied hands. They were so cold. He seemed out of it. Didn’t seem to realize he needed to wash.
She looked up at Brand. “I thought this SOB was such a marksman.”
“He spun running and shot simultaneously,” Alex answered. “That would throw anyone’s aim off, especially in a dark alley.” He looked back to David. “We’ll get this guy,” he consoled. “If Nina Cortez hadn’t called you, we’d still be nowhere.”
David inhaled, managed a sheepish smile for Jill. “Your East Fourteenth visit...”
Woody was back with a scrub top. Jill helped David into it – he was still a sweaty mess – and handed Brand the police jacket.
He filled her in on what she’d missed. The Cortez visit had yielded the killer’s prints and DNA. His name was Mitch Haven, an Iraq war vet too but dishonorably discharged. Was in Beth Willis’s unit, a support type kicked out just weeks after she was sent home.
“Mitch Haven…” Jill grimaced, repeating the name. Alex showed her Haven’s face on his phone and she felt herself shudder. The killer’s eyes bore into her from the photo. “Yow, nasty,” she managed. “Not her type even to be friends with.”
“She may have known him a little. Think we can ask her?”
“Tomorrow,” David muttered. “She’s sleeping now.” He still sounded a little numb. Jill added that Beth had never mentioned Haven as someone who’d bothered her, and she was unlikely to know his whereabouts now.
Woody was now pacing and reassuring frantic Tricia on his phone. Kerri Blasco was yards away, talking to detectives Ted Connor and Ray Zienuc. All three looked as if they’d just heard new, alarming news.
Alex went to them.
David glanced that way, pulled in a deep breath, and looked back to Jill. His bloodied hands drooped. His eyes were dark, hollow and scared.
“Our pal Mitch called me again, said he saw you at Cortez’s.” A pained hesitation. “Said he almost shot you.”
Jill’s face went slack, and then she frowned. “He wouldn’t have,” she said.
“Jill.”
“He wouldn’t have because it was broad daylight and there were cops with me who would have chased him and spoiled his fun.” She squeezed David’s hands. “He was just taunting you. We’ve become his toys.”
“Jill.” David’s eyes were desperate. He looked about to plead or holler when Jill’s phone chirped.
It was Sam MacIntyre. “Just got an update,” he told her. “Sean Webb’s going to make a full recovery, the hospital may only keep him three days. How’s David?”
“Morose, self-blaming basket case.”
A groan. “Listen,” Sam said. “Another delivery just came in, but ignore it if you get called. Ramu’s with me and we’ve already said we’re taking it. Calm David, stay with him.”
“Sam, you don’t have to-”
“David hasn’t slept for thirty-four hours and this has been a hell of a thing. Get him to sleep.”
“Okay.” Jill saw Kerri heading toward her. “But I get the next admission.”
“We’ll see.” A hesitation. “No, turn your phone off. Ortega and Holloway are available too. Sleep, both of you.”
Jill hung up and Kerri was there, announcing that they had to run.
“Two more victims found,” she said. “Transvestites. Looks like that’s where Mitch Haven got his new female disguise.”
David looked at her as if he hadn’t heard right. “Trannies?”
A nod. “Even left us a Catch Me, Fools note. And his prints all over, showing he knows we got them from the Cortez place, taunting it’s not going to help.”
She started to go, then turned with tight-lipped determination on her face. “This guy is smart, haughty, but we’ll get him. Try to calm. Get some sleep.”
27
It was 11:05. Jill waited while David showered and changed scrubs in the ER doctors’ lounge. When he emerged, he looked there again, but still troubled. Furious, in fact, muttering about Mitch Haven. “Bad enough bragging about stalking you…now it’s about almost shooting you.”
He was on a locker room bench and she was toweling his hair dry. “I’m going to give you a sedative,” Jill said.
“Don’t need it. I so hate that sicko. I really think I could kill him.”
She tossed the towel into a bin and tugged his arm. “C’mon. Bed…”
But on their way up they stopped to look in on Beth. They were surprised. She was awake and crying.
“Oh! Sorry,” she wept. Her room was dimly lit. She was up on an elbow mopping her eyes, and gave them an embarrassed smile. “PTSD strikes again. I had a nightmare.”
She spoke low to avoid waking Ricky in his cot. They stepped around him, Jill making a pained sound and grasping Beth’s hand. She squeezed back appreciatively. There’d be no mentioning Mitch Haven and their own nightmare on First Avenue, not now.
David asked about the dream. “It helps to talk about it,” he said gently.
A shudder. “I saw myself trying to bandage a bleeding soldier in a sandstorm.” Beth’s voice was a shaky whisper. “The sand kept filling his torn-open belly, and blasting all over the surgical tent and the boy was screaming…”
She flopped back onto her pillow, more tears coming. “God, does this ever end?”
“Give it time.” Jill’s heart ached terribly for her, she’d been through so much worse. David was himself again, feeling her pulse, checking her monitor. “Physical injury heals,” he said somberly. “Emotional struggles are the worst.”
Not for the first time, Jill found herself realizing that feeling intensely for someone else’s pain goes a long way towards lifting your own.
She watched feelingly as Beth swiped at an eye, seemed to search for words. “I’ve been told it eases off if you struggle your heart out, try to get your life positive again,” Beth said. “Hell, I was trying.” Her gaze moved away for an instant. “I so miss the support sessions at the VA.”
They saw her glance toward her closet. Its door was open. Street clothes that hadn’t been there before hung from hangers. A wine-colored sweater, black slacks, a matching black jacket, a long gray coat.
“Pretty clothes,” Jill said. “So soon? You have to stay another two days.”
Beth swallowed. “My friend Ginny Russo visited at eight, brought s
tuff from my apartment. I want to get outta here.”
Jill saw David eye an empty travel bag on a chair. “Ginny knows where everything is in your apartment?” she asked.
“Sure, she’s been there enough.” Beth forced a grim smile. “Really, I’m ready to leave. Exercised three times today. Walked up and down the hall, kept telling the nurse I didn’t need her, but she said hospital rules.”
“Doctor Levine?”
A nurse stood in the doorway, apologizing for the interruption but she’d seen David enter, had a question about a patient.
David went out to her.
And Jill eyed the empty travel bag again. “I was going to call Ginny Russo,” she said. “Didn’t get the chance.”
“About bringing stuff?” Beth asked.
“No…well, I’m not sure.” Jill glanced at the closet again. “The clothes could have waited,” she said. “What was the rush?”
A sigh. “I told Ginny just having them here would make me feel better.”
Jill reached and gently pushed a curl of damp hair off Beth’s forehead. “Which would make you feel better? Your clothes or your gun? Did she bring you your gun?”
Beth blinked, then her face scrunched guiltily. “Oh, please don’t make me answer that.”
“You just did. And I’m happy you’ve got it. Where is it? Under your pillow?”
Beth’s eyes locked on Jill’s. “Yes,” she said. “Where I always keep it. Safety’s on, of course. I just…can’t be without it. It’s training. I’m a…survivor, dammit.”
Jill was ebullient and hugged her. “Good for you.” They heard David’s voice approaching the door, finishing his discussion with the nurse.
“Are you going to tell him?” Beth looked anxious.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jill told her. “You did good, don’t worry about it.”
Soon afterward they were back in their call room. Jill darkened it, and David half-fell onto their floor mattress. He hugged his pillow to his face, then gave a start and jerked back up. He was wired again.
CATCH ME (EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller, Book 4) Page 12
