Elizabeth hated to admit it, but Pritchard sort of had a point. Still, why couldn’t she do both? She could help here today and return to Boston tomorrow. But before she could put that thought into words, Pritchard had already turned his focus to an evidence bag filled with some charred wires that had just been handed to him. He had moved on. His newest agent, courtesy of the mayor, was now supposed to do the same.
Elizabeth walked away. She knew enough to not feel sorry for herself. How could she? She was literally stepping over the dead. As much as she tried not to, she couldn’t help gazing at those bloodstained white sheets and the outlines of the bodies they covered.
Suddenly, Elizabeth stopped. One of the sheets was folded back a bit, maybe from a gust of wind. She could see a toddler’s hand, a little girl. It was so small. There was a pink Hello Kitty bracelet around her wrist, and all Elizabeth could do was picture the day it was given to her and how much that little girl loved it and how happy it made her. She probably never wanted to take it off, not ever.
Elizabeth froze at the thought of this girl, her legs going numb. The only thing she could do was stare straight up into the heavens. Her years as a detective, the brutal crimes she’d seen, had tested her faith in God to the point where she truly didn’t know if he existed. What god would allow this little girl to die? What god would make all the people who loved her suffer?
Elizabeth wanted to cry. Instead, she screamed.
In the corner of her eye, she’d seen something. Lots of them. They were in the sky and coming her way. Everyone’s way.
The attack wasn’t over.
CHAPTER 6
“INCOMING!”
Elizabeth yelled at the top of her lungs, her arm rocketing into the air to point north, directly over the building at One Times Square where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.
Everyone around her turned, their necks craning to follow the line of her finger. What they saw coming toward them looked like geese in formation, only these weren’t birds. They were drones. Each one was about to drop a bomb, some sort of IED. Hell, you could even see the wiring.
Shoot ’em down! Shoot them all down!
No one screamed it. No one had to.
Elizabeth reached for her gun, as did everyone else who was carrying. She unloaded the clip of her Glock 19, the sky filling with lead. Pop! Pop-pop-pop-pop!
BOOM!
The force of the blast knocked Elizabeth hard to the ground. The second blast—BOOM!—kept her there as shards of glass from the windows roughly thirty floors above rained down on her. There was no time to take cover. She rolled onto her back, changed out clips, and resumed firing. How many are left? Three? Four?
Whoever was controlling the drones could see what was happening. As soon as the first was hit, the others scrambled.
Elizabeth whipped her head left and right, trying to keep track of them. There was now one hovering directly over her.
Single rounds weren’t cutting it. There was no way to shoot them all down before—
Shit!
The drone above her released its bomb as Elizabeth fired off the last round in her clip without connecting. She was at ground zero and a sitting duck.
The empty clicks as she continued to pull her trigger sounded like a countdown to her death. All she could do was roll underneath a FedEx truck a few feet away. It wasn’t nearly enough protection. She closed her eyes.
BOOM!
Elizabeth felt the blast, the heat singeing her face and hands as the truck buckled and nearly crushed her. It hurt like hell, but it was the best pain in the world because she could feel it. She was still alive. How the hell?
Maybe there was a God.
CHAPTER 7
ELIZABETH SLID out from beneath the truck to see what had saved her—but not before hearing it first.
The sound of the gunfire was different, though muffled through her blasted eardrums. The pop-pop-pop had been overtaken by the metallic zip of submachine guns. The cavalry had arrived in the form of the FBI SWAT team that had been canvassing the perimeter beyond Times Square. One of them had hit the bomb directly over Elizabeth as it dropped, a bull’s-eye that had saved her life.
In a double-wedge formation moving up and down Broadway, the team continued to fire. Another drone was obliterated followed by one more, both before they could drop their bombs. Elizabeth’s already wobbly knees buckled as she fell to the concrete again from the bombardment, her ears ringing so loudly they were stinging. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t do anything.
Finally the SWAT commander yelled out, chopping his hand through the air. The rest of his team held their fire. Everyone else with any ammo left followed suit.
All eyes remained looking up. Ten seconds became twenty, then thirty. It seemed like forever.
One by one, shoulders began to relax. Guns were holstered. The barrels of the SWAT team’s Heckler & Koch UMPs were lowered.
Elizabeth felt a tap on her shoulder and turned. An EMT was talking to her, but it was nothing more than his lips moving. She still couldn’t hear. Slowly, she began making out some of the words. The rest she could fill in. He was asking her if she was okay.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Elizabeth lied. She really didn’t know for sure. Every part of her hurt.
He pointed to a row of medical tents set up along the nearest cross street. He was saying she needed to be looked at by a doctor.
Elizabeth nodded. It was the most her body could muster. That and hopefully putting one foot in front of the other. At least as far as those tents. She gently pulled up her pant legs, the bloodied fabric of her slacks sticking to her skin. Some of those cuts from the falling glass were well beyond Band-Aids.
She wanted to thank whoever had saved her life, but all the SWAT team members looked alike, as they always did in their combat gear, and now they all were doing the same thing—trying to clear the area. Just because a second-wave attack had been thwarted didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a third.
They were ushering any nonessentials down the stairs of the subway entrance at 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. All press and any onlookers were getting the hook, even the uniformed cops who weren’t part of the investigation. Elizabeth watched for a moment before spotting Evan Pritchard moving against the flow like a salmon swimming upstream. He was talking on a satellite phone, oblivious to anyone and anything. It figured.
Elizabeth shook her head and began walking toward the medical tents when she stopped on a dime. The sound was faint. A sort of revving. Like a tiny lawn mower that wouldn’t start.
Her eyes darted, searching for what was making the noise. She kept looking and looking until—there, in the middle of Broadway—she spotted one of the drones that had been shot down. The bomb it was holding was still intact. It was live.
The rush of adrenaline pushed away the pain as Elizabeth started running. Not away from the bomb but toward it.
“Pritchard!” she yelled. He was walking straight for the damn thing and had no idea. “PRITCHARD!”
Others could hear Elizabeth. They could see her waving her arms frantically for everyone still in the street to get back. The SWAT team was now running for cover, corralling the last of the civilians down the stairs to the subway.
For Christ’s sake, Pritchard!
Elizabeth ran past the drone, picking up as much speed as she could before barreling into her boss. Never mind that he was built like a brick house. She knocked him clean off his feet, wrapping her arms around him as they rolled toward the curb. He didn’t know what the hell was happening, only that he was severely ticked off.
But there was no time for her to explain. Elizabeth scrambled to her feet, pulling Pritchard toward the subway entrance and literally pushing him down the stairs with her.
“What the hell are you doing, Needham?” barked Pritchard as they slammed into the concrete landing ten feet below. He was grabbing Elizabeth with both hands. He was practically shaking her. “Are you insane? You could’ve killed me. You could’ve goddamn
ki—”
BOOM!
CHAPTER 8
I FRANTICALLY tried again to reach Tracy on his cell. There was still no service.
Pacing back and forth alone in the apartment just made the pain worse. I had to do something, and the worst part was that I knew exactly what I had to do.
Still, I stalled. I turned on the TV to watch the news coverage as if, what? I forgot where Times Square was?
Wait. Hold on. A second-wave attack? When? How? Christ …
The image of Lobby Bobby downstairs came flooding back to me in an instant. I had spoken over him in my haste to get answers. I couldn’t help it—I was so desperate to know where Tracy and Annabelle were.
Before the first, he’d said before I cut him off. Before the first attack, he’d been trying to tell me.
There was no thinking as I turned away from the TV. One step, then another toward the door. Down the hall. Into the elevator.
If I’d been thinking, I would’ve known that going to Times Square, or however close I could get to it, wouldn’t change anything. I’d be no closer to knowing if Tracy and Annabelle were okay. I’d just be closer to the actual place they might have perished.
The elevator door opened to the lobby. I was looking down, before my head immediately shot up—all because of the most beautiful, wonderful, amazing word I’d ever heard spoken in my entire life.
“Da-da!”
It was Annabelle. She was in her stroller with Tracy behind her. Our little girl was smiling, her baby teeth looking like little white Tic Tacs. I was overcome.
“Anna-banana!”
I took one step out of the elevator and dropped to my knees so I could kiss her and kiss her some more. Then I popped up to hug Tracy. I mean, a real bear hug. God knows the scene I was making, not that anyone could see us around the corner in the elevator bank.
“Where were you two?” I asked. But all that really mattered was where they weren’t.
I was so relieved to see them alive that I hadn’t taken a good look at Tracy. As much as he was happy to see me, there was something not quite right. He seemed to be in a daze. As it turned out, he was still shaken up.
“We were supposed to be there,” he said. “We would’ve been right in Times Square at the moment those bombs went off.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Tracy shook his head. He still couldn’t believe it himself. “I forgot my wallet.”
He said it so softly I wasn’t sure I heard him right. “Your wallet?”
“We took an Uber and were almost at the Disney Store when I realized I’d left it in the apartment.” He peeked over the hood of the stroller to glance at Annabelle digging into her little baggie of Cheerios. “And you just know you can’t escape a Disney Store without buying something. So I told the driver to turn around. A few minutes later, probably right when we would’ve been walking into the store, we heard the explosions. I’m still in shock.”
He looked it, all right. “You went to the Needle, didn’t you?”
That’s where Tracy always goes to clear his head—the obelisk in Central Park, otherwise known as Cleopatra’s Needle. By staring up at the city’s oldest outdoor monument, originally built in ancient Egypt, he’s able to remind himself that whatever’s bothering him, this is just a blip in time. Or, as a Persian Sufi poet once wrote, this too shall pass.
“Yeah, only this is the first time the Needle didn’t really do the trick,” said Tracy. “I’m still numb.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“I tried calling you,” he said.
“Me, too,” I said.
“All cell service was—”
“Shut down, I know. It still is.”
“I used that old pay phone at that Greek diner on 83rd and tried to reach you on campus. Someone in the psych department said you left as soon as you heard the news.”
“You’d told me that you and Annabelle were—”
“Going to the Disney Store,” he said. “I know.”
We both smiled. We used to make fun of couples who finished each other’s sentences. Now we were one of them. Again, I hugged him.
“What a day,” said Tracy. “What a horrible, scary day.”
“Tell me about it,” came a nearby voice.
We all knew who it was even before we turned to look. Even Annabelle knew. It was her favorite “aunt” in the world, although Annabelle was still working on her name. Actually, in that moment it sounded absolutely perfect.
“Liz-bet!”
CHAPTER 9
IT WAS the middle of the afternoon, but this was no time for coffee or tea. We never even entertained the thought of beers. Instead, we went straight to whiskey once we all got up to the apartment. Johnnie Black, heavy pours. Elizabeth, Tracy, and me.
As for Annabelle, it was sugar-free apple juice in her favorite sippy cup. Straight up.
“Guys, are you sure it’s okay?” asked Elizabeth as we settled in around the kitchen table. “My staying here?”
Gingerly didn’t even begin to describe how slowly she was moving. She was bandaged to the hilt on her arms and legs. They were cut up pretty badly, and she had some seriously bruised ribs. In fact, all of her was bruised.
“We’re more than sure it’s okay,” said Tracy. “Stay here as long as you like.”
To think, it wasn’t too long ago that Tracy questioned my feelings for Elizabeth. Now they’re BFFs.
“It should be only one news cycle, two at most,” she said. “Then they’ll move on and leave me alone.”
The terrorist attack—make that multiple attacks—on Times Square would be a story for weeks and months, as well as remembered forever. Elizabeth was referring to the video now making the rounds on the news and YouTube and everywhere else. Somehow a freelance cameraman captured her saving Evan Pritchard’s life. She was being branded a hero, and all the news networks suddenly wanted to shove a camera in her face.
“They were literally camped outside my apartment building, at least a half dozen satellite trucks,” Elizabeth said. “I told the cabbie to keep driving.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about the new job?” I asked.
“It literally just happened. Monday morning I was in Deacon’s office at City Hall; Monday afternoon I was officially part of the Task Force,” she said. “Apparently the mayor has some pull. Go figure.”
Elizabeth had been promoted to detective first grade after the Dealer case but Mayor Edward “Edso” Deacon knew he had to do more. For good measure, I’d been sure to remind him.
“He did promise to help you,” I said.
“And he kept his promise,” she said. “Go figure again.”
“Now Deacon’s going to exploit you like crazy, isn’t he?” asked Tracy. Although it was hardly a question. More like a given.
“Yeah, but at least I won’t be a campaign prop,” said Elizabeth.
Fortunately, Edso Deacon didn’t have another election any time soon. His days of running for mayor were over.
“Thank God for term limits,” I said, raising my whiskey.
We all leaned in to clink glasses. Elizabeth let out a moan. Moving only a little had her reaching for her ribs in pain.
“Here,” I said, pouring her a refill. “More medicine.”
“Do I look as bad as I feel?” she asked.
I was all ready to be the diplomat when Tracy couldn’t help himself. He always tells it like it is. Or maybe it was the whiskey kicking in.
“You look like s-h-i-t,” he told Elizabeth before glancing at Annabelle in her high chair. He always made sure to spell out curse words around our little girl. I was still forgetting to the point where Tracy was threatening me with a swear jar.
Meanwhile, Annabelle was blissfully still going to town on her apple juice. She looked so happy, and I was relieved that she wasn’t old enough to know what had happened today in her newly adopted hometown, so to speak.
The world she’s growing up in scares me like crazy. Is she really
that much safer here than in the Nyanga township of Cape Town?
Before I could dwell on that too long, my cell started beeping with a flood of incoming texts and phone messages. Within seconds, Tracy’s cell was doing the same, followed by Elizabeth’s. Service had been restored.
Like teenagers, we all buried our heads in our screens, but it was something Elizabeth muttered that had me stopping to look at her. It was only one word, and barely a word at that. Still, that’s all it took.
There wasn’t much I didn’t know about Elizabeth Eliot Needham by now. The facts as well as the quirks. She was her high school’s homecoming queen in Crosspointe, Virginia—a reluctant one at that—and a criminology major at the University of Maryland, where she ran track. She had one sibling, an older sister who lived in Boston. Her mother, Brenda, lived in Seattle, and her father was “somewhere else” ever since he cheated on Brenda when Elizabeth was a teenager. The guy was essentially off-limits as conversation topics went, which actually told me everything I needed to know about Elizabeth’s relationship with him. I didn’t push.
Then there were those quirks. The meticulousness—everything in front of Elizabeth always had to be neat and tidy and perfectly lined up. She loved pizza but hated tomatoes. She barely made any noise when she sneezed. Oh, and she could sing the alphabet backward as if singing it forward. I’ve tried and tried and I still can’t do it.
But above and beyond all that was the one fact that doubled as a quirk. Elizabeth absolutely, positively lived for working cases.
So nothing piqued her interest more than something that might help her solve one. On her phone right then had come something—I could tell—and all it took was that single little word.
“Huh,” she’d said.
CHAPTER 10
“WHAT IS it?” I asked.
Killer Instinct Page 3
