by Lena Austin
I flipped open the booster seat belt and freed her. “My name’s Apollo. Let’s get out of here, Angel Face.”
Must have been the right thing to say. “You know my name!” Angel dove right into my arms, still clutching her teddy bear. “Let’s go find my mommy, Mr. Policeman.”
Look, I’m as susceptible as the next guy to a cute kid who cuddles. “Yeah, let’s do that.” I pulled her out of the car and carried her away with her face buried in my chest. She didn’t need to see all that blood and gore.
I caught a glimpse of EMTs taking care of Jeff, and that meant he was alive and in good hands. I still felt guilty about not being there for him, but I had a job to do. I hope he forgives me.
EMTs with kits ran up to Angel and me, but as soon as they tried to take her she screamed and clung to me. They backed off when I shook my head and smiled at them. She was fine. Others needed their services a lot more.
I planted my butt on one of the many cement benches in the shade of an oak tree and settled Angel onto my lap like my Dad had done when I’d been hurt or scared as a kid. My personal banshee didn’t seem like much of an angel, but I doubt I’d be any quieter if I’d been shot at while strapped into a safety seat watching my mother and brother die. “It’s okay, Angel. They just wanted to see if the bad man hurt you too.”
The screaming into my uniform front stopped. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so scared! He didn’t hurt me!” I swear she tried to burrow into my chest. “Please go find my mommy, Mr. Policeman. Her name is Marissa Burlingame, and I even know our phone number.” Those big intelligent eyes looked up so trustingly, I probably melted a little. So I have a heart, okay? She certainly was articulate for a little pipsqueak. “But you know it too. Police know everything!”
I caught a glimpse of the woman’s stretcher being loaded up into the ambulance. Another ambulance sped off down the road with lights and sirens going full out. “I think your mommy and Mikey are going to the hospital, Angel. Would you like to go too?”
I noticed the Channel 25 videographer only a few feet away and frowned at her to back up a little. Yeah, they could have their story, but I needed the info out of Angel before they did. Despite her age, she seemed bright enough to give me all I needed.
“Did you get Mommy on the phone already?” Angel smiled up worshipfully. I don’t like using that word, but she apparently believed that I, as a cop, was perfect. I don’t like pedestals, and I don’t like being someone’s hero. The standards are kind of high. “Is Aunt Petey going to the hospital with Mikey? The bad man sat on her an’ beat her up!” Angel stuck out her chin, the epitome of outraged femininity. Men didn’t beat up on women in her world. I’ll bet she still believes in fairy tales too. I envied her.
I finally got what Angel was saying. The woman victim was “Aunt Petey” and not her mommy. “Yeah, I think Aunt Petey went with Mikey because they’re both hurt. Why don’t we call your mommy and have her meet us at the hospital?” I pulled out my personal cell.
Kids are tech savvy little buggers. Using the cell to call her mommy put her in control, and gave her something to think about besides what she’d just been through. The police psych training recommended giving victims that measure of control if they were up to the challenge, and it seemed to work with Angel. “Yeah, you keep me safe, Mr. Policeman. I’ll call Mommy.” Angel dialed the phone expertly, put it to her ear. “Mommy? A bad man shot up Aunt Petey’s car! Aunt Petey and Mikey are hurt! A policeman is taking care of me. Can we go visit Mikey and Aunt Petey in the hospital?” Angel listened intently for a moment and rubbed the back of her hand on her runny nose. “Stop crying, Mommy! The policeman saved us!” She handed the phone to me. “She wants to talk to you now.”
I was grateful to take the phone from Angel. “Thank you, Angel. Mrs. Burlingame? I’m Lt. Apollo Jones, ma’am.” I gave her the pertinent details, snapped the phone closed, and smiled down at my brave little witness. “What do you say we go to Wolfson Children’s Hospital and meet your mommy there, Angel?”
Angel hugged me and smiled for the reporters who surged forward to get her on camera. “Mr. ’Pollo Policeman is my hero! He saved me from the bad man and called for help!”
I never felt less like a hero in my life.
* * *
Man, I do not like hospitals! I have a vague memory of surgery. I fought to breathe, like I was drowning in molasses. Something was stuck in my throat, and I reached up to try and get it out. Cold hands encased in rubber stopped me, but I was weaker than a starving kitten.
“She’s coming out of the anesthetic!” Some guy’s annoyed voice gave the orders. You know the type -- used to instant obedience. I heard a sucking sound and the clang of metal hitting metal. “Hold her down, please.”
“I got it. Good night, Miss Oakes…”
“Gurk!” was all I could choke out, but what I meant to say was more pithy and direct, like “Fuck you!” My arm felt like icy fire, so I guess the anesthesiologist put something in my veins. All I know is, I fell into something soft and gray before someone turned off all the lights.
My body still aches like someone beat the crap out of me and then left me to stiffen up in one place, asleep on my back. I never sleep on my back with my belly exposed. My left foot has a sharp hot spike in it, and I’m fairly sure that’s what they were working on there in surgery. There’s a small bandage on my right temple, and my jaw is really friggin’ sore where that asshole with the red face clocked me. Guess I’m lucky I can remember my name is Pete.
This room is the pits. The walls are a dull putty color that doesn’t exist in nature. The decorator should be shot. Naw, that’s too merciful. The color is depressing. There’s a TV and a wipe-off board. What cheerful moron drew a smiley face in bright red? Probably the dimwit that announced beneath it: Your CNA today is: Andrea. Yippee. Andrea, therefore, was first on my “Let’s Punch Someone” list, especially once I saw the IV drip line.
At least Rat was here when I woke up. “Hey, beautiful! You decided to join the party?” He was sitting in the comfy brown recliner they keep in the corner for guests. I was never so happy to see that handsome, skinny dude with short, black hair and liquid chocolate eyes. His raggedy T-shirt and jeans were rumpled like he’d been there too long. Only Rat can rumple jeans.
Only problem was, once he jumped up to hug me and stroke my un-punctured hand, I could see myself in those dark eyes of his. “Oh, geez, Rat! I look like a three-day-old litterbox!” Look, I’m normally not vain, but I liked the spiky light brown highlights the sun gave me. I’m a chocolate point, so the contrast was cool, ya know? “Talk about a bad hair day. Fernando’s gonna have a whole litter of kittens.” More likely, he’ll shriek like a girl but the haircut the ER team gave me will probably give him a coronary in thirty seconds anyway. I’ll wear earplugs.
Rat chuckled and his whole body relaxed. He heaved a great big sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “That’s my Petey-girl. I hate it when I can’t hear that filthy bitching vocabulary.” He shook a finger at my nose like it was my fucking fault. “Don’t you ever scare me like this again!”
Then and only then did I remember what had brought me to the hospital in the first place. I tried to sit up and learned how sensitive my foot was just as soon as it moved. “Oh my fucking God, Rat! The bastard with a gun hit me!” Okay, so I freaked out. I could hear myself screaming. “The kids! Where’s the car? The kids!”
“Hush, kitten! Easy, Pete!” Rat made a lot of hushing sounds and put his big, rough hands on my shoulders, but it was too late.
I heard the squeaky sounds of nurse shoes at a dead run. A little bitty nurse wearing disgustingly cheerful yellow scrubs pelted into the room with a syringe at the ready. She jammed it into the IV port before I could protest.
Not that I gave a flying fuck. I had horrified visions of Angelina and Mikey, trapped in their car seats while the sounds of thousands of gunshots ripped through the Mercedes’ interior. I’d been buried in the car cushions, but the kids ha
d been protected by zip point shit.
Hot, wet stuff -- probably blood -- had spattered all over me, and a glob of sticky, purplish goo had plopped right in front of my nose. The image wouldn’t leave my head. All I could imagine was that the blood and brains had been Angelina’s and Mikey’s all over the car and me. Yeah, so tell me you wouldn’t be hysterical. I fucking dare you.
Rat pressed me down into the mattress and got my attention. His eyes were all pained, and you could just smell the sorrow coming off him. “Angelina’s okay! She’s with Marissa over at Wolfson. Mikey got hit in a lung. He was critical all night, but they just upgraded him to serious. He’s going to make it.”
I just knew it was all my fault, and I started to cry. Marissa would never let me baby-sit again. I dreamt of having my own litter and owning that cool little bungalow, strawberry kitchen curtains, and…
Chapter Three
Apollo’s blog
I hate recording this blog for the shrinks to analyze, but if that’s what it takes to get back on the streets doing my job, I’ll put up with just about anything. Okay, here goes. What a weird day. I started out watching Jeff’s new wife Pam holding his hand and staring intently into his sleeping face. The sweet-faced brunette didn’t seem strong enough to be a cop’s wife, but there she was, calmly holding his hand with a stack of his favorite crime drama books on the nightstand waiting for him. A plate of Jeff’s beloved peanut butter cookies -- obviously homemade, even to a scorch mark on one edge -- said more than words how she catered to her husband’s needs. She’d probably feed them to him crumb by crumb if that was what it took.
I envied him, and for the first time in my life, I was lonely. I’m a solitary guy by nature, so loneliness in me is like asking a fish to sprout feathers and fly.
Jeff had been in surgery all morning, where a special eye surgeon had done his best to put Jeff’s eye socket back together. Amazingly, Jeff was not going to be blind at all, but just a bit less attractive to the ladies. Not that it mattered to Pam. She’d already declared he’d been too handsome for his own good, and she was glad to see she wouldn’t have to worry about feminine badge bunnies circling her man.
However, she did spare a glance at me and frowned. “You’ve been here all morning. Go home.” She flicked her fingers, shooing me out. “Jeff will probably sleep away the rest of the day, and he won’t be much company until tomorrow at least. Go refinish a desk or something.”
I chuckled softly and left her to care for my partner. Of course Jeff had told his wife how I had a house only so I could have a woodworking shop in the basement garage. I spent my days off rummaging in the abandoned buildings of downtown neighborhoods, rescuing ornately carved mantles, the occasional cabinet set, and once a huge double partner’s desk set made of solid oak so massive I’d had to break down a wall to get it out on the rolling cart I carried in the back of my truck for just such finds. That desk now dominated the small home office I used for my other hobby -- writing a cookbook. If anyone on the force knew how well I could cook, or that I’d once graduated from a culinary school, I’d be teased forever. I wished I had someone to cook with and for. It was no fun cooking for one.
I shrugged to myself. There was no sense in bitching. I’d chosen to switch careers and do something about the crime overtaking the city ever since the Second Depression. There were few restaurants anymore anyway because the rich had moved out to the country and made the private chef fashionable again. Why risk going out in public when you could invite your friends over to your secure home for dinner and a movie in your private theatre? Then you could indulge in whatever kinks and thrills you want with much less likelihood the press will make hash out of your career. I just didn’t want to be anyone’s personal pet chef. Cougar-kind don’t belong in cages.
I stepped into the elevator, but my finger hovered away from the Lobby button. The babysitter was on the third floor, recovering from her foot surgery and a minor bullet wound to her skull. There’d been something so graceful about that one delicate little foot and those hard-working patrician hands. I had to go see if the face matched the extremities. Curiosity killed the cat, but maybe if I got a look…
“Hey, bud. Move or push the damn button, willya?” An impatient pair in loud Hawaiian print shirts fumed behind me, anxious to be on their way. They jammed the Lobby button and gave me filthy looks until the doors opened again on the Lobby floor.
Observing details was part of my training, and I’d noticed a spent coffee cup in the trash bag in the Mercedes. Hmm. I made a purchase at the coffee shop and took the elevator to the third floor. I got past the burly nurse guarding the babysitter by flashing my badge while juggling the cardboard holder with my left. “Aunt Petey” was “Petra Oakes” according to the display behind the nurse’s station.
Okay, so I was wrong to go. I knew it wasn’t smart, and I’d bet someone would say I was compromising the case against me if they decided I needed to be nailed to the wall as a sop to public opinion. I didn’t care. Those graceful, hard-working hands were a contradiction enough to get my interest all riled up. Curiosity might just kill the cat, but satisfaction might just bring it back.
Chapter Four
“Miss Oakes?” The masculine voice repeated himself insistently. “Miss Oakes, I really must insist you wake up. My time is limited, if you please.”
What the hell? I fell asleep again? I cracked one bleary eye, already irritated with whoever this asshole was. With the drugs swimming in my system, I had a tendency to fall asleep at the drop of a sunbeam, even more than my feline nature demanded. My current project had slid to the floor last time, and I’d had to wait for the nurse to come in for a vitals check before I got it back. Sleep did relieve the endless hours of boredom, since they didn’t let patients get a full night’s sleep without at least one wakeup for vitals or another vial of blood. “Then feel free to leave, asshat. I don’t remember inviting you here.”
The prematurely balding man puffed out his chest with self-importance. He straightened his gray business suit and humphed out a breath. “Miss Oakes, I am here on your behalf! The least you can do is hear me out, considering all the trouble I… well, let’s merely say it was very difficult to gain access to your room.”
I was incredibly thirsty, but I licked my lips and pretended to be much more stoned on painkillers than I was. I’d learned long ago to appear helpless and pretty around strangers until I could sink claws and fangs in their flesh. This asshole had just confessed he’d snuck in against the rules, and this didn’t endear him to me at all. I deliberately crossed my blue eyes and left them unfocused. “I… I’ll try. I’m kinda stoned, dude.”
His lips twisted in a cold smile of triumph. Maybe he thought he had a chance to coerce me into whatever it was he wanted. Yeah, like that was legal. “My name is Russell Rose of Rose and Ulster. You may have heard of us.”
“Law firm, right?” I put as much confused dipshit blonde into my tone as I dared without sounding too fake. Like I’d never seen the billboards or the TV ads.
Rose and Ulster were ambulance chasers that made a specialty of suing the civil and federal governments and any business that may have had the remotest connection to the situation. So they wouldn’t care about a quasi-legal coercion of a stoned patient as long as they were the ones committing the offense. Worse, they’d turn on me and take on one of the cops as clients and make me the villainess in cahoots with the dead robber. That asshole was dead and unlikely to argue.
Mr. Rose grinned cheerfully. His gleaming smile was always on the billboards with the slogan, “You can call me Rusty.” Like he was your best buddy. Sure he was. Like being friends with a cobra was a good idea. “Excellent, Miss Oakes. I’m so glad you recognize me.”
That was quite enough of the patronization. I wasn’t in much pain, and I doubted Marissa would talk to these assholes. Beans made enough money to ensure his sister and her kids never wanted for anything their doggie desires could dream of. So this Russ Rose had taken the initiative
to sneak into my room, hoping I’d be drugged and tractable enough to agree to have him represent me in some massive lawsuit. I dropped the stoned Barbie doll routine entirely, since this stubborn bastard wasn’t likely to play by any rules but his own. There was only one way to get rid of him, since I couldn’t bodily give him the heave-ho with a bum foot. I lived for the day they gave me a pair of crutches. “I state you may not record this conversation to sell it to the media, so if you’re wired in any way, you are now in violation of my civil rights of privacy. Are we clear?”
Darling Rusty ground his teeth, and reached in his pocket. “You are no longer being recorded by me or any of my colleagues, Miss Oakes.”
“Good.” I nodded sharply, my blue eyes narrowed and deliberately mean as hell. “I want nothing to do with you or your company at this time. I refuse your services for the purposes of enacting litigation against the police, sheriff, or the city in regards to the accidental shooting of myself. Though I cannot speak for my friend Marissa Burlingame, I sincerely doubt she accepted your services either. It is my further opinion that the police officers are absolutely blameless when it comes to my injuries and should not be held accountable for the same.” I drew a deep breath. “Now, that having been said, I repeat for the last time my polite request for your absence before I start screaming hysterically. Are we clear?”
He turned up his nose and left without a word, but the broad shoulders of a man whose face was in the shadows blocked his way. Rusty Rose shouldered the man out of the way and escaped into the corridors, looking for another victim to suck dry.
The shadowy figure leaned against the wall and gave me the accolade of a quiet “golf clap.” Whoever he was, he was six feet of lean muscle on long, blue-jean clad legs, wearing a well-loved pair of sneakers in need of cleaning. “Thank you, Miss Oakes.”
