The In Death Collection, Books 21-25

by J. D. Robb

  “Pretty damn good,” he agreed around a bite of it. “Especially if you don’t think about what’s in it.”

  Her laugh was light and blissfully happy. “Let’s not!”

  When they got to the corner, squeezed in by the crowd, he managed another bite. “I didn’t know I was so hungry. Should’ve gotten two.”

  They made it to the curb. He started to step out, when Zana gasped. His fingers closed over her arm like a vise.

  “I spilled my coffee, that’s all. Damn.”

  “You burned?”

  “No. No.” She brushed at the stain on her coat with her hand. “Just clumsy. I got bumped a little. Gosh, I hope this doesn’t stain. Oh, now we missed the light, too.”

  “There’s no hurry.”

  “Tell that to everyone else,” she murmured. “People weren’t pushing so much, I wouldn’t have coffee on my coat.”

  “We’ll get something and—”

  He pitched forward, straight into the path of an oncoming cab.

  The bag he held went flying. The last thing he heard before he hit the pavement was Zana’s screams and the shrill shriek of brakes.

  While Eve waited for the room to be cleared and the sweepers to arrive, she ran a check on Trudy’s debit and credit statements. The charges and withdrawals had just been put through. Spent a few bucks on Friday at the drugstore, she noted. Time stamp confirmed that that came after the socks, after the bank.

  Lining up your ducks.

  Market, too.

  What happened to the bags?

  As she was working out a theory, her communicator beeped.

  “Dallas.”

  “We’ve got a problem.” Baxter’s face held none of its usual sarcasm. “Male subject’s been hit by a cab, corner of Fifth and Forty-second.”

  “Well, Jesus Christ. How bad?”

  “Don’t know. MTs are on-scene. Wife’s hysterical. They were on the sidewalk, waiting for the light. I had them on audio, Trueheart had a reasonable visual. But the corner was packed. He only got a look at the guy doing a header into the street. He got clipped pretty good, Dallas, I know that. Damn near run over. I got the cabbie here.”

  “Have some uniforms take him down to Central until we can get his statement. Stick with the subjects. Where are they taking him?”

  “ER at Boyd Health Center. Straight shot down Fifth.”

  “I’ll meet you there. One of you go in the ambulance with him. I don’t want either of them out of your sight until I’m there.”

  “You got that. Jesus, Dallas. Guy was eating a dog, drinking bad coffee. Then he just flew. MTs are giving the wife something to calm her down.”

  “Make sure she’s coherent. Damn it, Baxter, I don’t want her put out.”

  “Let me get on that. I’m out.”

  She whirled toward the door, pulling it open just as Peabody pushed from the other side. “Sweepers are heading up.”

  “We’ll get them started. We’ve got to go. Bobby’s heading to the hospital. Hit by a cab.”

  “Hit by—what the hell—”

  “Don’t ask, I can’t tell you. Let’s just get this moving, and get there.”

  She went in hot, dodging clogged traffic as her sirens blasted. And doing her best to ignore quick, sharp pinches of guilt.

  Had she put Bobby in a position to be hurt? Two cops on him, a homer with audio. Still not enough?

  “Could just be an accident.” Peabody tried not to whimper as they threaded between a van and a cab with a layer of cheap paint to spare. “People, especially out-of-towners, have road accidents in New York every day. Step out too far, don’t look where they’re going. Gawking at the buildings instead of watching the lights.”

  “There’s no point in hurting him. No point.” She rapped her fist on the wheel. “What does it get you? Roarke’s not going to cough up two mil because some guy he doesn’t know is in the path. Why should he? Why would he? It serves no purpose to hurt Bobby.”

  “You said Baxter reported he was eating and drinking, at the curb. He gets bumped, or slips. It’s sleeting, things are slippery. Dallas, sometimes things just happen. Sometimes it’s just bad luck.”

  “Not this time. No bullshit coincidence.” Her voice was fierce and furious. “We missed it, that’s all. We missed something, someone, and now we’ve got a witness in Emergency.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I made the call, so it’s on me. You make copies of the recording. Get a copy shot down to the lab. I want to be able to hear everything, every voice.”

  She pulled up to the emergency entrance. “Park it,” she ordered, jumping out. “I need to get in there.”

  She strode to the doors, through.

  It was the usual place of pain. Victims waiting to be heard, to be helped. The sick slumped in chairs. The healthy waiting impatiently for whoever they’d come with to be treated, released, admitted.

  She spotted Trueheart, somehow younger in a sweatshirt and jeans. He sat close to Zana, holding her hand, murmuring to her as she wept.

  “Eve! Eve!” Zana jumped up, threw herself into Eve’s arms. “Bobby. Oh, my God. It’s all my fault. Bobby’s hurt. He’s hurt so bad. I don’t know—”

  “Stop.” Eve pulled back, gave Zana one brisk shake. “How bad is he hurt?”

  “They didn’t say, they won’t tell me. He was bleeding. His head. His head, and his leg. He was unconscious.” Tears spurted. “I heard them say concussion, and something broken, and maybe—”

  “Okay, what happened?”

  “I just don’t know.” Now she sank back into the chair. “We were just waiting for the light. We’d gotten some soy dogs and coffee. It was cold, but it felt so good to get out. And I said I wanted to buy a hat, and they were across the street. Then I spilled my coffee, so we missed the light and couldn’t go. We were waiting and he just fell. Or slipped. I just don’t know. I tried to grab his coat. I got my hand on it. I think I did.”

  She stared down at her hand. Eve noted the light bandage. “What happened to your hand?”

  “I spilled the coffee. It splashed all over when I grabbed for him. Burned my hand a little. I started to fall. I think. Somebody pulled me back. But Bobby . . .”

  Zana wrapped her arms around her waist and rocked. “The cab hit him. It tried to stop, but it was too quick, and it hit him, and then he flew back, and fell. So hard.”

  “Where is he?” She looked at Trueheart.

  “They took him to Treatment Room Two. Baxter’s on the door.”

  “Zana, stay here. Trueheart, stand by.”

  She strode through the waiting area, straight by a nurse who called out for her to stop, and swung right when she saw Baxter at a pair of double swinging doors.

  “Goddamn it, Dallas. We were ten feet away. One on either side.”

  “Wife thinks he slipped.”

  “Yeah, yeah, maybe. What are the odds? They’re working on him. Arm’s broken, that’s for certain. Maybe the hip, too. Head took a hard crack. I couldn’t tell how bad, and the MTs wouldn’t say.”

  Eve rubbed her hands over her face. “You get any sense somebody helped him in front of that cab?”

  “Second-guessing myself now. We had a good tail on them, good observation. But it’s insane out there, Dallas. You know how it is this time of year. Sidewalk is a sea of people, and everybody’s either in an all-fired hurry, or they’re gawking and taking vids. You got street thieves making more this holiday week than they do in six regular months. If I had to swear nobody got by us, I couldn’t. The thing is . . .”

  “What?”

  “Just before, she spilled coffee on herself. Said she got bumped. And I got this little tingle, started moving in a little. Then our guy’s airborne.”

  “Fuck.”

  15

  EVE SENT BAXTER BACK TO STAND WITH TRUEHEART, then paced in front of the treatment room doors as the sharp scents and harried sounds washed over her.

  She hated hospitals, health centers, emerg
ency treatment centers. Places, she thought, full of sickness and pain. Of death and misery.

  Of waiting.

  Had she put Bobby here? Had her need to push things forward put him in harm’s way? A personal need, she thought now. She wanted to slam the door on this part of her past, lock it away again. Not only for her own peace of mind, she admitted, but to prove she could. Because of that, she’d taken a risk—a calculated one, but a risk nonetheless.

  And Bobby Lombard was paying the price.

  Or was it just some ridiculous accident? Slippery, crowded streets, people in a hurry, bumping, pushing. Accidents happened every day. Hell, every hour. It could be just that simple.

  But she couldn’t buy it. If she ran it through a probability program and it came up one hundred percent, she still wouldn’t buy it.

  He was unconscious, broken and bloody, and she’d sent him out so she could sniff the air for a killer.

  It could be him, even now, it could be Bobby who’d done murder. People killed their mothers. A lifetime of tension, irritation, or worse, and something snapped inside them. Like a bone, she thought, and they killed.

  She’d killed. It hadn’t been only the bone in her arm that had snapped in that awful room in Dallas. Her mind had snapped, too, and the knife had gone into him. Over and over again. She could remember that now, remember the blood, the smell of it—harsh and raw—the feel of it wet and warm on her hands, her face.

  She remembered the pain of that broken bone, even now through the mists of time. And the howling—his and hers—as she killed him.

  People said that sound was inhuman, but they were wrong. It was essentially human. Elementally human.

  She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.

  God, she hated hospitals. Hated remembering waking in one, with so much of herself—such as it was—gone. Evaporated.

  The smell of her own fear. Strangers hovering over her. What’s your name? What happened to you? Where do you live?

  How could she know? And if she’d remembered, if her mind hadn’t closed up and hidden away, how could she have told them?

  They’d hurt her to heal her. She remembered that, too. Setting the bone, repairing the tears and scars inside her from the repeated rapes. But they’d never found those secrets behind the wall her mind had built.

  They’d never known that the child in the hospital bed had killed like a mad thing. And howled like a human.

  “Dallas.”

  She jerked herself back, but didn’t turn. “I don’t know anything yet.”

  Peabody simply stepped up beside her. Through the porthole of glass, Eve could see the emergency team working on Bobby. Why, she wondered, did places like this have glass? Why did they want people to see what they did in those rooms?

  Hurting to heal.

  Wasn’t it bad enough imagining without actually seeing the splash of blood, the beep of machines?

  “Go back and check with Baxter,” Eve said. “I want whatever witness statements he has. Names of the wits. I want to verify the cabbie’s license. Then send him and Trueheart back. I want that record into the lab. You stay with Zana. See what else you can get out of her for now.”

  “Should we get uniforms for his room? For when they finish in there?”

  “Yeah.” Think positive, Eve decided. He’d be moved to a room, and not the morgue.

  Alone, she watched, made herself watch. And wondered what the girl she’d been—lying in a room so much like the one beyond the glass—had to do with what was happening now.

  One of the med team rushed out. Eve grabbed her arm. “What’s his status?”

  “Holding. The doctor will give you more information. Family members need to stay in Waiting.”

  “I’m not family.” Eve reached for her badge. “Your patient is a material witness in a homicide. I need to know if he’s going to make it.”

  “It looks good. He’s lucky. If getting hit by a cab a couple days before Christmas counts as luck. Got some broken bones, contusions, lacerations. Some internal bleeding we’ve stopped. He’s stabilized, but the head trauma’s the main concern. You’re going to need to talk to the attending.”

  “His wife’s in Waiting, with my partner. She needs to be updated.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve got a material witness on that table in there. I’m at the door.”

  Irritation flashed over the nurse’s face, then she brushed a hand through the air. “Okay, okay. I’ll take care of it.”

  Eve stood by. She heard the rush and confusion of the ER behind her, the beeps and the pages, the clop of feet with somewhere urgent to go.

  At some point someone began to call out “Merry Christmas!” in slurred, drunken tones, laughing and singing as he was carted off. There was weeping, wailing, as a woman was hurried down the hall on a gurney. An orderly streamed by with a bucket that smelled of vomit.

  Someone tapped her shoulder, and she turned, only to have homemade brew and poor dental hygiene waft into her face. The man responsible wore a filthy Santa suit with a white beard hanging off one ear.

  “Merry Christmas! Want a present? Got a present for you right here!”

  He grabbed his crotch, and flipped out his penis. At some more sober yet equally crazed time, he’d painted it up like a candy cane.

  Eve studied the red and white stripes.

  “Gee, that looks delicious, but I don’t have anything for you. Wait, yes, I do.”

  His wide grin faded when she held up her badge.

  “Aw, c’mon.”

  “The reason I don’t haul you in for lewd and lascivious behavior, for indecent exposure—though, hey, nice paint job—and for possibly having the foulest breath on or off planet, is I’m busy. If I decide I’m not busy enough, you’re going to be spending Christmas in the tank. So blow.”

  “Aw, c’mon.”

  “And put that thing away before you scare some kid.”

  “Santa, there you are.” The nurse who’d come out earlier rolled her eyes at Eve, then got a good grip on Santa’s arm. “Let’s go over here.”

  “Want a present? I got a present for you right here.”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s all I want for Christmas.”

  Eve turned back as the doors opened. She grabbed the closest pair of scrubs.

  “What’s his status?”

  “You the wife?”

  “No, I’m the cop.”

  “Cab versus man, cab usually wins. But he’s stable.” The doctor veed his fingers, slid them up his nose to rub the inside corners of his eyes. “Broken arm, fractured hip, bruised kidney. Head trauma’s the worst of it. But barring complications, he should do. He got off lucky.”

  “Need to talk to him.”

  “He’s loaded up. We’ve got him stabilized. Going to send him up for some tests. Couple hours, maybe, things go right, he’ll be able to hold a conversation.” Curiosity washed over the fatigue in his eyes. “Don’t I know you? The cop, right? I’ve worked my magic on you before.”

  “Dallas. Probably.”

  “Yeah, Dallas. You get around. Look, I need to talk to the wife.”

  “Fine. I’m going to put a man on him. I don’t want anyone talking to him but me until I clear it.”

  “What’s the deal?”

  “Material witness. I’m Homicide.”

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah! Icove case. Crazy bastards. Well, your material witness should live to sing. I’m that good.”

  She shifted, watching as they wheeled Bobby out. He’d left some of his skin on the street, she noted. What was left was white as bone. When they cut back the drugs, he was going to hurt like a son of a bitch, but he was breathing on his own.

  “I’m going up with him, until the uniform reports.”

  “Suit yourself. Just stay out of the way. Happy holidays and so forth,” the doctor added as he headed toward the waiting area.

  Eve stood outside again, another floor, another door, while they ran their scanners and diagnostics. And while
she waited, the elevators opened. Zana rushed out, Peabody on her heels.

  “The doctor said he was going to be okay.” Tears had tracked through Zana’s makeup, leaving their trail. She grabbed Eve’s hands, squeezed.

  “He’s going to be okay. They’re just running some tests. I was afraid . . . I was afraid—” Her voice hitched. “I don’t know what I would’ve done. I just don’t know.”

  “I want you to tell me what happened.”

  “I told the detective. I told her I—”

  “I want you to tell me. Hold on.”

  She walked to the uniformed officer as he got off the elevator. “Subject is Bobby Lombard. Material witness, homicide. I want you with him every step. You check the room they put him in, you check ID on everyone—I mean everyone—who attempts access. He grunts the wrong way, I want to hear about it. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Satisfied, she went back to Zana. “Okay, we’re going to find a place, have a seat. I want everything. Every detail.”

  “Okay, but . . . I just don’t understand any of this.” She chewed her lip, looking over her shoulder at the doors while Eve hauled her away. “Can’t I just stay, wait until—”

  “We’re not going far.” She hailed a nurse simply by holding up her badge.

  “Good,” he said. “I’m under arrest. That means I can sit down for five minutes.”

  “I need your break room.”

  “I have a vague recollection of the break room. Chairs, a table, coffee. Down there, make a left. Oh hell, you need a key card. Security’s getting to be a bitch. I’ll take you.”

  He led the way, keyed them in, then stuck his head in. “Okay, I smelled the coffee. It’s not all bad.” He headed off down the hall.

  “Sit down, Zana,” Eve told her.

  “I’ve just got to move around. I can’t sit still.”

  “I get that. Go over what happened.”

  “Just like I told you before. Like I told the detective.”

  “Repeat it.”

  As she did, Eve picked apart the details. “You got bumped, spilled coffee.”

  “On my coat.” Zana picked up the coat she’d tossed in a chair. “It wasn’t this bad. The first time. More spilled when Bobby . . . God, I can still see it.”