Sunlight stabbed his eyes as he stepped out of the garage, and he almost fell back into the comforting dimness. Keep going. Bowing his head, he shouldered through the crowd of commuters and looky-loos blocking the sidewalk. People lifted their cell phones over their heads and he tried to puzzle out what they were doing. He finally realized they were trying to film the body on the sidewalk. He took care to stay behind the amateur photographers, who were probably hoping to sell their filmmaking efforts to the nightly news.
“Must have been a crash,” a man’s voice said from behind him.
“No, I heard it was a jumper,” a soprano voice said with ghoulish interest.
Paul kept going, keeping his pace at a fast walk—a man late for a meeting, not a hit man fleeing a botched assassination. Three blocks from the debacle, he could hear the sirens, or maybe it was the hunting call of the hawks, and imagined the commotion and confusion as traffic backed up and emergency vehicles tried to reach the scene. Pausing in the shade of a glorious chestnut tree, he held a hand to the stitch in his side. His breath came in short gasps. He felt hot, then cold, as if he was standing in front of an oven set to broil with the door open, then in front of a freezer gaping wide. He shook. Against his will, he sank to his haunches against the tree trunk, wrapping his arms around his shivering body. His bag fell to the ground with a muffled thud.
“You okay, mister?” A wino with a week’s growth of stubble peered at him. A camo field jacket rank with mildew topped several layers of clothes that had seen their heyday in the Nixon years. His breath made Paul want to puke. A faded medal swung into Paul’s view and he forced his eyes to focus. A Purple Heart.
“Should I call a medic?”
Paul’s teeth were chattering too hard for him to answer the old vet, but he tried to shake his head.
“You don’t look too good,” the wino said, squatting so he was eye level with Paul. “I got a buddy wi’ da malaria and he shakes like you when an attack gets him. You got malaria?”
“Don’t let the hawks … ” Paul felt himself listing to the left, and then everything went black.
44
Sydney
Grit pressed into Sydney’s cheek as she breathed in a mix of dirt and exhaust. A flattened wad of chewing gum smudged the pavement inches from her nose. She tried to take a deep breath, but the weight on her back forced the air out of her lungs. She squirmed beneath Reese, short of breath from her sister pushing her into the sidewalk. Her breasts were squashed painfully to her chest and a throbbing ache told her she’d landed hard on her hip bone. A wet warmth pooled on her back. Had Reese peed on her? “Reese?”
“Hit … roof.” Her voice was a burbly whisper.
“Oh my God.” It was Reese’s blood soaking into her back. Sydney maneuvered her arms out from under both their bodies and managed to get her palms flat on the sidewalk. She tried to push up but couldn’t budge her sister’s dead weight without injuring her more. She couldn’t be dead. “Reese?”
No reply.
Sydney stretched her arms out in front of her face and grasped the leg of a newspaper box bolted into the sidewalk. The metal cut into her palms as she pulled with all her strength and felt her body slide out from under Reese’s. When her torso was free, she twisted around to sit and face Reese. Her hands supported her sister’s shoulders, to keep her face from smashing into the sidewalk, as she edged her legs free.
She dragged in a deep breath. Reese lay prone, her face mashed against the rough concrete, her baseball cap in the gutter. The fall had knocked her sunglasses off and she looked younger, more vulnerable without them shielding her eyes. Sydney willed her to wake up, look at her, but Reese’s eyes remained closed. Her hands extended to either side and the fingers of her right hand flopped inches from a gun. Had she fired one or both of the shots? It didn’t matter. Sydney didn’t see a wound or blood on her sister’s back and allowed herself to feel hopeful. Maybe she wasn’t hurt too badly. She reached for the wrist nearest her and put her fingers over the pulse. Reese’s skin felt clammy, but her heart was beating: onetwothreefour. Too fast.
Sydney needed to call 911. She looked around frantically, but her purse, containing her cell phone, had disappeared.
“Someone help, please,” she appealed to the milling crowd. “Call 911. Is anyone a doctor? I think she’s been shot.” The sound of approaching sirens told her someone had already phoned for help. Thank God.
No one stepped forward. Sydney reached up and grabbed the hand of a middle-aged man standing a step away. “Help me lift her.”
The man gaped at her, then dropped reluctantly to his knees. Gently, they turned Reese over. Sydney gasped at the sight of the blood pooled beneath her—it looked like gallons—and still leaking from a wound in her abdomen. One hand flew to her mouth and she blinked back tears. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
Without stopping to think, she ripped off her blouse, balled it up, and placed it over the wound. Blood soaked through it frighteningly fast and Sydney pressed down harder, barely feeling the warm trickle on her face.
“Maybe we should put her feet up?” her impromptu helper suggested. “Doesn’t that help with shock?”
“Thanks,” Sydney said.
He elevated Reese’s feet and propped them on his briefcase.
“And we need a blanket. Does anyone have a coat, anything?” she appealed to the people still milling about. A woman handed over a cardigan sweater and a twenty-something man passed across a pinstriped suit jacket. Sydney kept her hand pressed tightly to the makeshift bandage as her helper draped the sweater over Reese’s legs and folded the jacket to place under her head.
“Thanks,” she whispered again. She pressed down harder, praying the EMTs would come, praying Reese would be okay. She’d lost so much blood. Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die …
“Syd.” The single word made her jump. Reese’s eyes were open. They seemed glazed at first, but then her awareness seemed to sharpen as she focused on Sydney’s face.
“Oh, thank God. You’re going to be okay,” she told her sister, putting a gentle hand on her cheek.
“ … saying about victims and murderers?” Reese whispered. The corner of her mouth twitched as if she were trying to smile. “Guess I’m a victim after all. But not you.” Her eyes fluttered closed and her head listed to the side.
“Reese! Reese!” Sydney stroked her sister’s face repeatedly. “You’re not a victim. You’re going to be okay. Just talk to me, Reese. I’m right here. Right here. I’m not going anywhere, but you have to talk to me. Reese!”
After what seemed liked decades but was probably no more than another minute, the ambulance pulled up and EMTs jumped out, scattering the small knot of onlookers.
Sydney yielded her place to an efficient woman in a blue jumpsuit who opened a bag and got to work. Soon an IV line snaked into Reese’s arm and the medics were loading her onto a gurney. Sydney glanced around and saw a skinny man reaching for Reese’s gun where it lay forgotten on the sidewalk.
“Hey!” She lunged toward him and he scuttled back into the crowd. Gingerly, she picked up the gun and, spotting her purse under the newspaper box, put it in. Reese wouldn’t want her gun in the hands of a junkie or a mugger.
A screech of tires and the whoop of a siren announced the arrival of the police. Two pairs of uniformed officers jumped from separate squad cars and the crowd immediately began to disperse, few people wanting to be tied up for hours giving witness statements. The two closest cops, a young white officer with jug ears and an older black man with grizzled hair wearing a sergeant’s chevrons, assimilated the basic details in seconds from the EMTs and latched onto Sydney while the other cops rounded up witnesses.
“You were with the victim, ma’am?” the younger officer asked, pulling out a notebook. He had the earnest look of a young Ron Howard. Sydney named him “Opie” in her head. “Your name?”
“She’s not a victim,” Sydney said fiercely, then held up an apologetic hand. “Where are they taking her?” she asked as the ambulance pulled away from the curb, its lights and sirens clearing a path through the traffic like the prow of an icebreaker cleaving the polar seas.
“Howard University Hospital. But we need to get a statement from you.” The black cop’s nametag read Morrison and his voice held a Southern drawl. He shook off a homeless man trying to get his attention by tugging at his sleeve. “Later, bub.”
“But someone’s real sick. He needs a medic,” the unkempt man said.
“Donnelly!” Sergeant Morrison beckoned to another cop and she hustled over and led the bum, carrying what was probably all his worldly goods on his back and in a gym bag, to the curb.
“I’m going to the hospital,” Sydney said. She needed to be with Reese. She had a shivery feeling that the first shot she’d heard had been a bullet meant for her. And her sister had taken it. The least she could do was sit vigil at the hospital. She started for the curb, intending to flag a cab, but with a look at his partner, Opie said, “We’ll drive you.” He picked up the abandoned cardigan that had warmed Reese’s legs. “Maybe you should put this on.”
Suddenly conscious that she was standing on a busy street in her lacy bra, Sydney slipped her arms into the sweater and buttoned it with trembling fingers. The ride in the back seat of the police car passed in a blur of self-recrimination, chatter from the radio, and the smell of sweat and vomit from a previous occupant. When they pulled up at the Emergency entrance, Sydney tumbled out of the car and raced for the triage desk.
“My sister,” she gasped. “Where is she? How is she?”
“Her name?” the nurse asked. She wore yellow scrubs dotted with flowers and had blond hair pulled back in a low ponytail. A stethoscope hung around her neck, along with a hospital badge.
“Reese Elizabeth Linn. The ambulance just brought her in. She was shot.”
The nurse pursed her lips, clicked a few keys, and said, “She’s going into surgery. You can go up to the waiting room on the third floor. It may be a few hours.”
Sydney didn’t move. She wanted more from the nurse, but she didn’t know what. Reassurance? Direction?
A man’s voice behind Sydney said, “Ma’am? My little boy’s real sick.”
She turned to see a thin, twenty-ish man holding a fever-flushed toddler against his shoulder. She blinked at him. Oh. He wanted her to move. The encounter reminded her of the crowded deli and the dad who needed to get his kids from daycare. With an apologetic noise, she stepped aside and looked blankly around a waiting room stuffed with runny-nosed children, coughing senior citizens, a man cradling his wrist in one hand, and several people staring blankly at the wall as if they’d lost all hope of ever setting eyes on a doctor. You should’ve gotten shot if you wanted fast attention, Sydney thought, threading her way through the room to the hallway to call Connie.
With a shaking hand, she dialed her mother’s number. It went to voicemail. At the beep, she choked out, “Reese’s been shot.” The words hammered through her self-control and she started to sob. “Someone tried to shoot me and they hit Reese. You need to come. Howard University Hospital.”
She swung away from the phone and found herself face to face with Opie and Sergeant Morrison.
“We need to get a statement from you, ma’am,” Sergeant Morrison said.
“Okay.” Sydney told them what she knew as they found the elevators and rode to the third floor. When the elevator doors slid open, she dashed down the hall toward a sign proclaiming Surgical Waiting Area, saying over her shoulder, “Call Detective West. He knows what this is about.”
45
Sydney
Ninety minutes later, Sydney reclined on a padded gurney, watching blood flow from her vein into a collection pouch. Her left hand slowly squeezed and released a rubber ball as the technician bustled around checking the amount of blood in the pouch, making a note on a form, pulling a small can of apple juice from the refrigerator. Reese was still in surgery. When she’d asked what she could do, a nurse had suggested she donate blood. Turned out she and Reese were both O positive. It gave her some comfort to think that her blood might help save Reese’s life as she’d saved hers.
“My God, what happened?” The worry in West’s voice matched his expression as he charged into the room, flashing his badge at the nurse who moved to stop him.
“Someone tried to shoot me and my sister saved me,” Sydney said, feeling again the thump between her shoulder blades that sent her to the ground.
“Tell me.” West pulled up a metal-legged chair and straddled it.
Sydney filled him in on everything she remembered, mostly things she’d already told Sergeant Morrison and his partner. “Someone is trying to kill me,” she finished, “and it’s because of that phone call.”
“Excuse me.” The technician in his white lab coat wedged himself between West and Sydney. Withdrawing the needle from her arm, he put a cotton ball into the crook of her elbow and said, “Apply pressure and hold your arm straight up.”
Sydney did as commanded, swinging her feet off the gurney so she faced West. She became conscious of how she must look, her bare legs scraped and dirty, her hair hanging in a tangled mass around her face, the cardigan and summer skirt splotched with Reese’s blood. She tucked a hank of hair behind one ear and fought back tears.
“I’ll find you something else to wear,” West said.
He disappeared but returned while she was drinking her apple juice and munching the cookie the nurse forced on her. He bore a set of hospital scrubs, Dr. Seuss characters on a pink background. “Here. I’ll be in the waiting room. We have to talk.”
As soon as he left, Sydney stripped off the ruined clothes and shoved them into the container marked Hazardous Waste. She never wanted to see them again. Taking a quick sponge bath at the sink, using paper towels that left gritty brown bits where she scrubbed too hard, she slipped into the scrubs. They looked incongruous with her sandals, but she didn’t have any other shoes and was reluctant to go barefoot in the hospital.
“Better?” West asked when she appeared in the waiting area.
“Much.” She tried a smile. Anxious relatives of other patients who’d looked up when she entered went back to reading, handwringing, and quiet conversations. Armchairs upholstered in calming blues and deep greens were grouped around parquet-topped tables. Prince William, with his arm around Kate Middleton and his face splotched by a coffee ring, grinned up at her from the cover of a magazine on the nearest table. The rich scent of brewed coffee drifted from a beverage bar tucked into a corner. Natural light streamed from a high window and nourished the peace lilies and ficuses in chunky ceramic planters. “Do you know how she is?”
West shook his head. “Still in surgery, I think. But she’s young, fit … that’s in her favor.”
“Reese Linn? Next of kin for Reese?” A plump woman in surgical scrubs, hair scraped back from a high forehead, hovered in the doorway leading back to the operating rooms.
Sydney took a step forward. “Me. She’s my sister.”
The doctor motioned them into a private alcove and introduced herself as Dr. Tarkanian. She gave West a sharp look when he identified himself as a detective. Sydney’s legs shook and West put an arm around her waist to steady her. She leaned against him as if he were a longtime friend, but straightened and pulled away when she remembered. He was a cop, here to investigate the shooting, nothing more.
“How is she? Is she going to be okay?”
The doctor tightened her full lips. “It’s too early to tell. The bullet nicked her liver and tore a hole in her intestine. We had to resection it. And she’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Oh my God,” Sydney said, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment of prayer. Reese had to live. She’d never forgive herself if she … She opened her eyes. “Ca
n I see her?”
“Briefly. But she’s still unconscious.” The doctor took off at a brisk pace, ponytail bouncing against her neck, and halted at the nurse’s station where she left them with the charge nurse, a fortyish Filipino man. He gave her a badge and escorted them to Reese’s room, leaving them at the door. “Just five minutes, mind.”
“I’ll wait right here,” West said, giving her a reassuring look.
Sydney edged into the room. Reese lay on her back with a sheet tucked under her armpits, and her arms, tan against the white sheets, resting atop them. The sheet rose and fell as she breathed. An IV line snaked to the vein in her left hand. Reese’s long-fingered, competent hand seemed fragile in this setting, almost as if the needle were draining it of life rather than pumping in vital fluids. The skin seemed to have shrunken to fit the bones, outlining them clearly. Sydney put out a tentative hand and stroked her sister’s middle finger. No response. A variety of machines blinked and chirped, monitoring blood pressure, pulse, and heaven knew what else. Tearing her gaze away from her sister’s hand, Sydney studied the machine’s green, blue, and yellow lines, but they revealed little. She turned her eyes to Reese’s face.
Tears filled her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Ree-ree,” she told her sister. “Sorry for getting you mixed up in this, for getting you shot. For hating you. I was so stupid! For everything. Just be okay, please? Earl needs you. And you need to finish renovating your house, and, and go to Nana Linn’s cabin—we could go together—and … ” Sydney stopped her babbling by biting down hard on her lower lip.
Close Call Page 21
