Edge of the Heat 2 (Westwood Harbor Corruption)

by Ladew, Lisa

  “No Jerry, I’ll do it later, I gotta find Craig.”

  Jerry looked to Beth for help.

  “Emma,” Beth said. “Let Jerry clean you up. I’ll start calling around and figure out where he is and what’s going on. It will be faster than you just running around with no idea where to go.”

  Emma knew they were right. They ducked into a trauma room and Jerry spent a few minutes cleaning the cut out well and then gluing it shut with skin glue. He bandaged it up tight and admonished her to keep a close eye on it for infection.

  Emma watched the door the whole time for Beth’s return. True to her word, she was back in 4 minutes.

  “He’s in the ICU, room 1214 but no visitors allowed, and no word on how he is.”

  “Perfect, thanks Beth, they’ll let me in,” Emma said, sighing her relief. He had made it through surgery.

  As Jerry was cleaning up the mess they had made, his radio crackled. Dispatch was swamped with calls and not enough available paramedics.

  “Looks like we are out of here Em, good luck.” Jerry kissed her on the cheek. Beth gave a wave and a smile and they were out the door.

  “Thanks guys!” Emma yelled after them. She took off at a jog to the elevator.

  In the ICU, she rounded the corner towards room 1214 and saw two beefy looking men with short hair, wearing dark sports coats and dark pants sitting in uncomfortable-looking metal chairs in front of one of the doors. Emma immediately got an FBI vibe from them. Not that she knew a lot of FBI officers, but she watched TV. How strange, Emma thought. Is that room 1214?

  As she got closer she could tell it was. She had planned on just walking in the room like she belonged, not stopping at the nurse’s station for permission. Well, maybe that would still work.

  She walked up to the men and said “Excuse me, I need to get inside.”

  The men looked at her. “No one gets inside but the doctor and the nurse,” the man on the left said.

  Crap! What now? She was getting inside that room, she didn’t care what it took.

  “Look, I’m his fiance, I need to get in the room and just check on him.”

  The men exchanged glances. The one on the right smiled a little and crossed his arms. The one on the left was the spokesman apparently. He said, “Our orders are no one gets inside but the doctor and the nurse. Not even fiances.”

  “Well who are you? Orders from who? What gives you that right?” Emma demanded, feeling very put out at this information.

  The man on the left sighed and stood up. He was only a bit taller than Emma, but very wide through the chest, with thick, jet-black hair and a 5 o’clock shadow. He put his hand in his coat and pulled out a badge.

  “We are FBI agents investigating the attempted murder of Craig Masterson. No one goes in but the doctor and the nurse. Period.” He spoke the period with finality and leaned forward getting in her face a little.

  Emma hated confrontation, but when she got upset she could go toe to toe with anyone. And she was getting very upset. This agent didn’t have a clue what she had been through to get here.

  “Look, I want to see my fiance. Just for a second. I won’t hurt him, and I won’t try to kill him. You can come in with me. Just let me in!” She kept her voice low so it didn’t carry to the nurses station, but mustered every bit of authority she had.

  “No.”

  Emma thought for a second. She didn’t have the energy to flirt, and that wouldn’t work anyway. She could go away and steal a nurses uniform, but they’d already studied her face.

  “I want to talk to your boss,” she finally said.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean no? You have to tell me who your boss is. You are a public employee!”

  The big man shrugged and sat down again.

  Emma paced for a second. Then she came back to him, hands crossed over her chest to keep them from shaking. “Look. I saved him OK? He’d be dead if it weren’t for me. There was nobody guarding him up at the wildfire. No one could even find him until I looked in the woods and found him. If it weren’t for me he’d still be lying on the ground, covered with burnt wood, probably completely bled out!” Her whole body started to shake with the last few words. She didn’t want to have to admit this to herself, much less say it to a complete stranger.

  The two men exchanged a glance again, this one much more urgent than the first. The agent who hadn’t spoken whipped a phone out of his breast pocket and made a phone call.

  “We need you here,” he said and hung up.

  Emma looked from one face to the other. “Well?” she demanded.

  “Just sit tight,” the man with the phone said. “You’ll get to meet our boss in a second.”

  The door at the end of the hall opened. They could all feel it and hear it but couldn’t see anyone around the circular hallway yet. The two men sat up straight in their chairs. The one on the right stood up and crossed his arms over his chest. Nervously? Emma wondered.

  Emma watched the hallway. Around the corner walked a wall of a man. He looked nothing like Craig, but reminded her of Craig anyway. Where Craig was fair this man was dark. He was a bit over 6 feet tall, like Craig, and had a similar, muscular build. His jeans and form-fitting t-shirt were impeccably neat and crisp. He wore heavy workboots, but glided over the ground without making a sound.

  The second agent walked over to him and said a few things in his ear, gesturing once to Emma. This new agent’s eyes never left Emma’s. She could feel them searching her very soul, demanding answers of who she really was. She squirmed a little, not liking the feeling. Most people took her at face value. She was cute, she was smart, and she was good. This man seemed to already think she was none of those things.

  He walked over. “Miss Hill, my name is Agent Kinkaid. Would you come with me please?”

  “To where? Why?” she retorted, not wanting to leave without at least getting a peek at Craig.

  “To my office, so I can interview you regarding how you found Craig Masterson.”

  “I want to see him first.” She mentally dug in her heels, preparing to insist.

  He nodded his head slightly to the agent left in front of the door. The agent stood up and cleared a path. Emma couldn’t believe it. She ran to the door and pushed it open.

  The room smelled of antiseptic. It was small, only big enough for one bed, a chair, and a dizzying array of medical equipment. The beep beep beep of his heart monitor greeted her. Regular, her paramedic brain thought. She walked slowly over to the bed. He was covered with blankets and she couldn’t see his face but she could tell already he had a breathing tube down his throat, taped to his face. Tears formed in her eyes.

  She walked up to him and put her hand gently in his hair. His eyes were taped shut. The right side of his face was swollen and bandaged. The right side of his head was shaved and she saw another bandage near the back of his head where she’d felt the lump.

  Her hands snuck down to his arm. His brachial pulse was strong. Good. She looked back at the door. Agent Kinkaid had followed her to the foot of the bed and was watching her intently, a strange, sad look on his face.

  She checked the monitor for his heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation. They all looked good. She really wished she could get a look at his chart. She leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Craig, come back to me please.” She stayed bent over for a moment, smelling his scent and willing him to stir.

  Nothing.

  She straightened. “I am ready,” she said to Agent Kinkaid. “Thank you,” she added as an afterthought.

  He nodded and motioned her towards the door.

  ***

  Emma followed Agent Kinkaid into a small, windowless room in the basement of the hospital. She sat down in the metal chair opposite a tiny desk with only a phone and some paper on it. “The hospital lent me this office to set up operations while we investigate this crime and protect Firefighter Masterson,” he said, noticing Emma looking around in confusion.

  Emma ope
ned her mouth to ask why the FBI was involved but the Agent spoke again, quickly. “Tell me exactly how you found him. Don’t leave anything out. Even the smallest detail could be important.” He grabbed a pen and hovered his hand over a pad of paper on the table.

  Emma thought back to this morning at 10 o’clock. 12 hours seemed like two lifetimes ago. So much had happened between then and now. Now that she had seen Craig was in no immediate danger and now that she was sitting, exhaustion overtook her. Hunger raged a quick second. When was the last time she had eaten anything? Or drank anything?

  She started to tell how she had headed up the mountain and her conversation with the Captain. When she recounted exactly what she had said, the agent’s eyes narrowed and he interrupted her.

  “Wait, Craig hasn’t been threatened lately,” Hawk said.

  Emma thought back. Why had she said that? Her thoughts were thick and slow. Her vision started to blur and she felt nauseous.

  Her head pitched forward and she fell slowly out of her chair. She tried to stay upright but had no strength in her body at all.

  Once on the ground, her vision cleared and her head swam less. Agent Kinkaid swore under his breath and was around the small desk in an instant. “Are you OK? What happened?”

  “I haven’t eaten or drank anything in 24 hours. I need some food and water.”

  “Are you sure that’s it? Should I go get a doctor?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position. “I just need something to drink especially. Some food would be good too though.”

  He jumped up and practically ran behind the desk. He came back out with a thermos and a bottle of water.

  “Here,” he said, kneeling down and thrusting them at her.

  She uncapped the water and drank greedily. Her throat hurt as it went down but it was still the best water she had ever tasted. She opened the thermos and smelled. Heavenly. “Chicken noodle?”

  He smiled, the first one she’d seen. It changed his face from hard and stern to pleasant, inviting. “Yep. My best friend made it. He’s a fantastic cook.”

  Emma wondered if that was code for lover. Probably not, but could be. She poured some soup and sipped it. Her stomach woke up and demanded more. She tried not to slurp.

  A thought struck her. “Wait, she said, looking at him. How did you know my name? And why is the FBI investigating this? Why not the local police?” Another question hit her in the gut. “And why was Craig wearing a bulletproof vest?”

  Agent Kinkaid eyed her, smile gone, face not giving an inch.

  He stood up and walked back behind the desk. “I understand that you have questions Miss Hill, but I need mine answered first. When you think you are ready,” he said with an air of finality.

  Emma pushed herself back up onto the chair. Her brain was working again.

  “I guess I didn’t start at the beginning before. The reason I thought that something criminal might have happened to Craig was my ex-husband said something that made me scared for him.”

  This time Emma started from the night before. She told how she had been leaving the Crystal Creek wildfire after fighting it all day. She had heard someone yell in the smoldering woods and went in to investigate. She had found the hunter with the broken leg, built a travois to carry him out, and almost pulled him completely out of the fire when a falling tree had knocked her head-first into a rock, knocking her out. Craig had found her, put her in a helicopter and promised to pick her up at 8 o’clock in the morning. For some reason this part embarrassed her but she pushed that aside.

  She watched the agent’s face closely as she told the story. Something was going on here and she wanted to find out what. Agent Kinkaid was a closed book, but when she told him how she had first seen Craig and thought for sure he was dead her eyes teared up. She could have sworn the agent’s did too. Stranger and stranger.

  He asked many questions about the forest and the clearing and the building and even exactly how Craig was laying on the ground. Occasionally he made a notation on his pad.

  When she got to the part where she put him in the helicopter she stopped talking.

  “So what happened to your arm?” he said, motioning to her bandage.

  “That happened after I left the scene. My day just got worse and worse.”

  “Tell me. Even if you don’t think it’s related it could be.”

  The car! Thinking about getting pulled over made her realize the hospital’s car was still sitting on the side of the road. Maybe Jerry would go get it for her.

  When she shared how she had been pulled over Agent Kinkaid’s jaw clamped down in what looked like anger. He sat up straighter in his chair, leaning forward and peering into her soul again. Emma started to feel nervous. She wasn’t sure where this was going.

  “What was the officer’s name?”

  “Jeffries.”

  A look of recognition crossed his face. He muttered something under his breath. Emma thought it was “Bastard”.

  “What were you arrested for?”

  “I still don’t know, he never told me.”

  “Where are the papers you signed when you left?”

  “Uh, I think I left the manila envelope in the ambulance with Jerry.”

  “Call him and ask him to bring them here,” he said, leaning over the desk to hand her a cell phone.

  Emma did. Jerry said he would be by as soon as he could.

  He motioned for her to go on.

  When she finished telling the part about the woman who had sliced her he asked for a complete physical description of her. Emma struggled to remember every detail. When she recounted a mole she had remembered on her face the Agent nodded in recognition again.

  “You got lucky there. You were probably meant to get a much worse lesson than that cut on your arm.” When he said the word lesson he mimed quotation marks in the air.

  Realization hit Emma like a load of bricks. “Are you saying that someone put her up to it?”

  “Yes, I am. Look Miss Hill, you need to know what you are dealing with here so you can protect yourself. Can I trust you to keep quiet about something and not even tell your friend Jerry?”

  Emma nodded, struck silent with fear.

  “Good, because this is important. If you can’t keep quiet, more lives may be in jeopardy because of it. I am investigating corruption in the Westwood Harbor police department. Your ex-husband, Norman Foster, and his friend, Peter Jeffries, are both very high on my list of dirty cops. Jeffries prefers to use other criminals to do his dirty work. This is not the first time I have come across a story like this. The last person lost part of her ear and has a very big scar on her face. She missed losing an eyeball by about a half an inch.

  Emma’s hand crept to her right ear, then just under her eye. Horror filled her.

  “Now finish your story and then I will find you a place to stay tonight.”

  Chapter 5

  Norman entered the station high on life. He couldn’t wait to hear the day’s events. He’d had a few calls on his cell phone while he was busy but he chose to ignore them. He preferred to get his news the old fashioned way so he could see the emotions on people’s faces firsthand. Fear was his favorite emotion to see. Incredulity, his second. Both made him feel powerful, and very much in control.

  He took the elevator straight up to his office. No one that he passed greeted him or looked at him. Most of the lower ranking officers were scared of him but a few were on his payroll. Many of the sergeants and above hated him and how he did business, but some tolerated him because they recognized him as one of their kind. Funny thing about being a cop - not many could retire after 20 years of service the same person they were when they were hired. The least affected had become bitter, hard. 20 years of dealing with people who spit on you and tried to stab you and bite you would do that to anyone. The most affected had become criminals themselves and just didn’t know it. And then there were cops like Norman. Cops who got into police work because of the
power and authority it wielded. Cops who started out shrewd and conniving. Cops who knew very well where the line is between cop and criminal, but think that criminal-in-a-cop-suit is more fun.

  Norman’s thoughts were cool and calm, like his demeanor. After his romp with Chloe and Lydia he had showered, shaved again, and put on freshly pressed slacks and a polo shirt. He spent little time on his dark hair, he didn’t need to; it tamed itself. He felt relaxed and ready to put on a show of shock at the news of a dead firefighter and an arrested ex-wife. Of course she wasn’t arrested for the big crime yet. He had only started to fuck with her. When he was done with her she’d be begging to take him back, because he could protect her. And he would protect her. He’d get her out of jail with a little help from more planted evidence and Senator Oberlin, but only after he’d completely broken her mentally.

  He practically rubbed his hands together at the thought, but stopped himself. He had a reputation to protect.

  On his desk was a note from Jeffries. I need to see you now! Find me. Norman frowned. That sounded like bad news. He went down to the Receiving Desk to look for Jeffries and nose around a little.

  Sergeant Daly was at the desk. “Where’s Jeffries?” Norman growled.

  “Doing paperwork somewhere. Check out back,” came the reply.

  “Anything going on today?”

  “Nah, nothing major.”

  Norman’s eyebrows raised imperceptibly. Nothing major?

  “What’s going on with the Crystal Creek fire?” he prodded.

  “Nothing, I think it’s almost out.”

  Norman grunted. Nothing? This sergeant would know if any of his officers had been sent up for a missing person or a dead person. Where they still conducting the search on their own? Most of the day was gone.

  He left the room, looking for Jeffries. He found him in his car parked behind the station.

  Jeffries saw him coming and shook his head. Norman’s pace quickened. Just what in the fuck did that mean?

  “I managed to fingerprint her but then I sent Cassandra in to fuck with her and she got sliced up on her arm. The Sergeant made me release her to the medics.”