Knock Out

25

THEY'D JUST CLIMBED INTO the Porsche when Celine Dion’s beautiful voice out the theme from Titanic on Savich’s cell phone.

“Savich.” He listened, then said, “I’m betting on a twenty-two and a Bren Ten, ten-millimeter auto ammo. Yeah, verify when you know.” He slipped his cell back into the pocket of his leather jacket. He met Sherlock’s eyes.

“You wanna know something fantastic? The deputy is alive, out of surgery, and we can head up to Overlook Hospital in Pamplin, try to speak to her. The hospital is filled with her family and cops. The sheriff said we’re to go directly to the ICU on the third floor. He’ll meet us there.”

“It had to be Victor and Lissy, on their way down here. I wonder why she’s alive?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure hoping she can tell us.”

Sherlock said, “The license number was off an old Impala, right?”

He nodded again.

Sherlock closed her eyes, remembering clearly getting shot herself wondering if she would die. “What’s the deputy’s name?”

“Gail Lynd. She’s been in law enforcement for six years. She’s married, two small kids. As for the deputy they killed, he also had a family.”

“We’ve got to get them fast, Dillon, before they kill anyone else.”

“My gut keeps telling me Victor will head for home, for Winnett, North Carolina, though I know that doesn’t make sense. We were right about Fort Pessel, but they’re not stupid. Everyone and his mother are looking for them. But they’ve got to go under for a while before they try for me. Maybe Victor knows a place to hide in or near Winnett. I want to get home, though, after we speak to Gail at the hospital.”

When Savich pulled into the parking lot in front of the hospital Galen called again, told him about the break-in at Kougar’s Pharmacy in Fort Pessel, and the couple dozen stolen Vicodin. “Maybe that’s why she fell asleep.”

Sherlock and Savich walked the long third-floor corridor. The walls were a light green, meant to be restful, she supposed, but it didn’t work for her. She felt itchy, jumpy. They passed some uniformed of-ficers and what must have been family in the waiting room but didn’t slow or look in.

The sheriff wasn’t waiting for them.

Nurse Dolores Stark eyed them and their creds over her bifocals. “The sheriff had to leave on an emergency.”

Sherlock said, “Talk to us about Deputy Lynd.”

Dolores, an ICU nurse for twenty-three years, tough as her mother-in-law, said with a big smile, “She got through surgery, both of them. Dr. Lazarus worked on her for four hours, and then had to go back in for bleeding. They lost her twice but got her back. She’s going to make it, barring anything else coming down the road we’re not expecting. I’m not sure she can speak right now, they just extubated her a couple of hours ago. Ah, Dr. Lazarus, these are Special Agents Savich and Sherlock, here to see Deputy Lynd.”

Dr. Lazarus didn’t look happy. But neither did he look like he’d spent the night inside someone’s chest. He wasn’t rumpled, didn’t have any bags beneath his eyes, like he wanted to fall over and sleep for a year. Instead, he looked like he’d just waltzed in from the golf course but had shot too many bogies. “You can’t,” he said. “She’s not up for it yet. Maybe tomorrow. Call me.”

Sherlock gave him a lovely smile, walked up into his face. “Would you like to accompany us, Dr. Lazarus? We’re hopeful she’s with it enough to give us information about who shot her. What room, Nurse Stark?”

“Room Three forty-three,” said Dolores.

Savich and Sherlock walked quickly down the hall, Dr. Lazarus on their heels. “Wait! You can’t do this. I can’t allow—”

Savich waved Sherlock on and turned to say easily, “You can monitor, Dr. Lazarus, all right?”

When they walked in, it was to see Sherlock bent over Gail Lynd, her fingertips lightly stroking her forearm. “Gail, can you hear me?”

No response.

“You see, she’s not—”

“Gail? Can you hear me? I’m Special Agent Sherlock, FBI, and I really want to find the yahoo who shot you and throw him in the Mariana Trench. That deep enough for you?”

Gail Lynd moaned.

“That’s it,” Sherlock said, and continued to lightly rub her finger-tips over Gail’s forearm. “You don’t have to open your eyes, but I would like to see you, if you can manage it, and you to see me.”

Deputy Gail Lynd managed to open her eyes. She looked up into blue eyes the color of the August sky. “The Mariana Trench should he fine,” she whispered.

“It’s good to meet you, Deputy Lynd. We both have blue eyes. Call me Sherlock. Do you think you can tell me what happened last night?”

“Last night? It was just a moment ago, no, it was—” Gail felt some-thing wonderfully cold and wet rubbing lightly against her mouth, and she licked it. Sherlock turned to Dr. Lazarus, who looked like he wanted to leap on her to protect his patient. That made her smile a bit. “Water?” she asked him. “A little bit?”

At his unsmiling nod, Sherlock held Deputy Lynd’s head up a bit and put a straw between her lips. “Just a little bit, we don’t want you to get sick to your stomach.”

“Thanks,” said Gail Lynd, her voice a croak. She blinked, surprised she could actually speak.

“Are you in pain?”

Gail thought about that a moment, then shook her head. “No, fact is, I feel dead from the neck down.”

“Probably a good thing,” Sherlock said. “Now, Gail, I don’t want you to overdo. If you get tired or there’s pain, tell me and we’ll stop.”

She started slowly, but ended in a rush.”... and I heard the shot saw Davie go down, and I went running toward the Impala, yelling at Davie, and then this young guy leans out of the driver’s side and he shoots me.” She looked at Sherlock, her eyes pooling with tears. “No one ever shot me before. I know what it’s supposed to be like, you know, we discuss it, but it wasn’t like I thought—it slammed into me like a sledgehammer, knocked me backward. I saw him coming down over me. I heard the girl yelling at him to shoot me between the eyes because if I didn’t die right away, I could live long enough to tell someone. Her mother told her that.” She broke off, held very still for a couple of moments, raised her eyes to Sherlock’s face. “Her mother,” she whispered. “This is what her mother told her to do.”

“Thankfully for the world, her mother is dead,” Sherlock said matter-of-factly. “Did she say anything that might help us find them?”

“She was crazy, Agent Sherlock. I don’t know about him, but that girl was crazy. I couldn’t do anything except lie there, helpless. It was ... horrible. To wait, knowing you’re going to die. Just waiting, and hurt so bad you can’t really accept it, not really, and you wait.”

Sherlock gently wiped the tears that were seeping out of the corners of Deputy Lynd’s eyes. “You want to rest now?”

“No, no, let me finish it. I want you to catch these two. The thing is, when the young guy—she called him Victor—when he came back down over me, I knew he was going to shoot me right between the eyes, I knew it, and I was helpless. Helpless.”

No one said a word. Dr. Lazarus stared at the young woman whose life he’d managed to save. Sure, he’d been inside her chest, taking out the bullet and repairing her lung, he’d watched her heart stop twice, but now he was inside her head, living her memories with her of being shot with that bullet, of what it was like to almost die, and know it. He didn’t think he’d ever forget this moment as long as he lived. He took a step back from the big FBI guy in front of him. He rubbed his hand over his chest. It hurt to listen to her, hurt—

“It was so weird; he winked at me, twice, and he fired, only the bullet hit the pavement maybe six inches from my head. I heard her yell. ‘Notch that boy’s belt!’—something like that. I heard Randall— he’s the dispatcher—yelling on my cell, and I knew in that moment that maybe I had a chance.” She raised her eyes to Dr. Lazarus. “You saved my life?”

He nodded, wordless.

“Thank you, Doctor. Agent Sherlock, will you please get these two killer kids?”

“Yes, we’ll get them.”

“The girl, Lissy, she shot Davie?”

Sherlock nodded.

“She would have shot me between the eyes too.”

Again, Sherlock nodded.

“I wonder why he didn’t?”

Because Victor knew Lissy couldn’t see what he was doing. Sherlock closed her hand around Gail’s, squeezed just a bit. “That is an excellent question. Maybe there’s something in him that can still be redeemed.”

Sherlock leaned close. “I know it was horrible. You will always remember this as being horrible, but you know what? The shock of it, the pain, the hopelessness of what you felt, it will fade when you begin to laugh again, when you smile at yourself in the mirror, when you hug your kids. I was shot not long ago, and you know what? It is beginning to fade. Never forget, Gail, you survived. I’ll be checking on you. You get well, no setbacks, okay?”

Gail Lynd managed a smile as she closed her eyes.