12th of Never

Chapter 104

RICH CONKLIN BRACED himself inside the rear of the ambulance as it sped over the slick streets toward Metropolitan Hospital. He kept his eyes on Mackie Morales, who looked like she’d been catapulted into a brick wall.

Air bags deploy at about a hundred miles an hour, and Mackie had gotten the full blunt force of the bag. She had also been whipsawed during and after the collision as the car was dragged along 3rd Street.

She hadn’t regained consciousness, even though they were traveling in a stream of screaming sirens, the ambulance jerking and swerving around traffic.

Right now, she was immobilized by a C-Spine collar and strapped to a long board to protect her head, neck, and spine. She could have brain damage, internal bleeding, broken bones—all of it was possible.

Conklin reached over and squeezed her hand, got no response. He wanted to hold her, tell her she was going to be okay, and somehow make that be true.

But even as he worried about Mackie, he was completely mystified as to why she had been driving the killer’s getaway car. Had she fired the flashbang into the storage unit? Was she the cop who had bundled Fish into the passenger seat? Why would she do that?

What didn’t he know about Morales?

The ambulance took a hard right on Valencia, a sharp left on 26th Street, then blew into Metro’s ambulance bay. The EMTs had the back doors open the instant the vehicle braked to a stop. Rich jumped down, then ran with the EMTs as they transported Mackie’s gurney into the emergency room.

The ER was noisy and full. Victims of the multicar crash were being treated in curtained cubicles, and those who weren’t in danger of dying had been parked in wheelchairs and on gurneys wherever space permitted.

Mackie, on the board, was lifted onto an exam table in a trauma room. Medical personnel crowded in, began assessing the damage.

The attending physician was about forty, wiry, efficient. Her name was Emily Bruno and she and Conklin had met many times in circumstances like this one.

Bruno said to Conklin, “What’s the patient’s name? What happened to her? Do you know anything about her medical history?”

Conklin said, “This is MacKenzie Morales, twenty-six, single mother, and I don’t know her medical history. She drove the car into that semi outside the ballpark. Two fatalities so far. I’ve got to talk to her.”

Dr. Bruno threw a loud, exasperated sigh.

“Okay, you know the drill, Conklin. Stand back. Turn off your phone. Don’t get in anyone’s way.”

Conklin said, “Understood.”

He stood about eight feet back from the table as the nurses cut off Mackie’s blue cop uniform while she was still strapped to the board, checked her airway, her breathing, examined her head.

Conklin saw the great purple bruises on her torso, the angry abrasions on her arms and chest, a seat-belt bruise from shoulder to waist.

Dr. Bruno flashed a light into one of Mackie’s eyes and said, “Concussion,” but the rest of her words were lost as Morales batted the doctor’s hand away and opened her eyes on her own.

“What happened?” she said.

“You were in a car accident,” Bruno said. “Do you remember it?”

Conklin saw the memory light up Mackie’s eyes. And then the impact of the thought came to her in a rush. She heaved upward and tried to sit up, totally impossible to do, strapped as she was to the board.

“Where’s my baby?” she screamed.

Conklin went to her and said, “Mackie, Ben’s okay. I saw him. He’s going to be fine.”

Did she recognize him?

“Mackie, it’s Richie. It’s me.”

“Oh, fuck,” she said. “What are you doing here?”