Night’s Landing

Three

Nate climbed off the exam table and continued his argument with his doctor-her badge identified her as Sharon Ling, and she was all of five feet tall and maybe thirty years old-about getting his pants and shoes back and clearing out of the E.R. He’d heard that the news reports had him in surgery, but he’d only needed a few stitches. But apparently that was plenty for Dr. Ling. She wanted him admitted.

“Pants, shoes, whatever paperwork I need to get out of here,” he said. “A couple of Tylenol and I’ll be fine.”

She shook her head not for the first time. “No way. You can go home in the morning.”

He’d turned his weapon and cuffs over to Juliet Longstreet, another marshal who’d arrived on the scene before he and Rob were whisked away. The paramedics had shredded his shirt and jacket. Nate figured he could tuck in his hospital gown and change when he got home. But it was hard to look commanding and tough with a gown flapping on his back end. Dr. Ling had explained that he had a perforating, not a penetrating, wound, meaning she hadn’t had to dig out the bullet that had struck him. The FBI investigators were undoubtedly looking for it somewhere in Central Park. Maybe it was at the bottom of the pond. Maybe the ducks had made off with it.

Nate didn’t give a damn. He just wanted to get out of the hospital.

Dr. Ling didn’t seem to consider the armed deputy posted at the exam room door anything out of the ordinary, probably because she’d treated plenty of wounded criminals. Nate knew from his E.R. doctor sister, Antonia, that it was her job as a doctor to treat the patient in front of her. Period. Meaning Dr. Ling would do her job whether he was a murder suspect or a federal law enforcement officer with fifteen years experience catching bad guys.

She sighed through her teeth. “You are a very determined man, Deputy Winter. At least let me get you into a room for a few hours. You can sit tight until your local anesthetic wears off.”

“Doesn’t it make more sense to get out of here while it’s still working? I can have my feet up in front of the television before I start hurting.”

She seemed singularly unimpressed with his argument. She crossed her arms on her chest and gave him a firm look. “You’re a very lucky man, Deputy Winter. I don’t think I’d be pushing my luck any more today.”

What she meant, Nate knew, was that the bullet that had ripped into the fleshy part of his upper arm had caused a superficial wound that would heal fast. No permanent damage. No surgery. A couple inches one way, the bullet would have missed him entirely. A couple inches another way, it could have nicked an artery or shattered bone.

Luck.

He agreed to sit tight for a few hours.

Dr. Ling handed him his pants and shoes-he’d track down Longstreet for his weapon-and an orderly and the deputy guard wheeled him upstairs.

Nate noticed the dried blood on the knee of his pants and the tops of his shoes.

Rob’s blood.

When he got to his floor, he understood the subtext of Dr. Ling’s stubbornness. Control and security. No media allowed, more armed deputies and a private waiting room for family members and any political, FBI, USMS, ATF and NYPD brass who wanted to check on the two wounded deputies.

No family members had arrived yet.

Thank God.

Nate didn’t think he could deal with Gus and his sisters right now. The politicians and law enforcement types in the waiting room stayed put when he was wheeled past the open door.

They wouldn’t want him off on his own too fast. A sniper had just tried to take out two federal agents in Central Park. All hell had to be breaking loose.

A nurse greeted him in his private room. Nate asked about Rob.

“He’s still in surgery.”

“Any word on his prognosis?”

She shook her head.

After she left, Nate ducked into the bathroom and put on his pants. He dampened a paper towel and scrubbed the blood off his shoes. Nothing to be done about the blood on his pants.

He checked his reflection and winced. “Hell.”

It wasn’t just pressure from his bosses that had compelled Dr. Ling to want to admit him. It was her medical judgment. He looked like shit. He was pale, he had dark circles under his eyes, he’d cut his lip from biting down too hard-no wonder she didn’t want him going home right away.

He washed his face, felt his stomach turn over, almost barfed and decided, okay, maybe he should take it easy. He staggered back out of the bathroom.

FBI Special Agent Joe Collins was waiting for him. “Thought I was going to have to go in there and scrape you off the floor. How you feel?”

“Like I look.”

“I was afraid of that. Up to talking?”

Nate knew Collins, although they’d never worked together. The shooting of two U.S. marshals was a federal crime that fell to the FBI to investigate, with the assistance of the Marshals Service, ATF and the New York Police Department. The marshals handled fugitive investigations and apprehension, prisoner transport, witness protection, the security of the federal judiciary and special operations-evidence gathering in federal criminal investigations was up to the FBI.

Nate nodded. “Sure. Excuse the outfit.”

“You’ve got someone bringing you a change of clothes?”

His uncle Gus and sister Carine would have been contacted by now in Cold Ridge, about a six-hour drive to New York unless they got a shuttle flight from Manchester. Antonia was in Washington. Closer. But she was almost eight months pregnant. Maybe she’d stay put.

Not a chance.

And his brothers-in-law would be at their wives’ sides.

Collins looked tired, but he always did. He had the kind of laid-back demeanor that made people think he wasn’t quite with it-their mistake. He was in his mid-forties, his wedding ring too tight on a knuckle-swollen finger, his stomach pushing against the buttons of his button-down blue shirt. He had a friendly face filled with broken capillaries.

Another FBI agent, straight backed, tense looking, maybe in her mid-twenties, stood silently in the corner by the bathroom.

“Any word on Rob?” Nate asked.

“He lost his spleen,” Collins said. “You can live without a spleen. It’s the blood loss the doctors are worried about. It’s still touch-and-go.”

Nate remembered the paramedics talking about internal bleeding at the scene. He didn’t respond. What was there to say?

“How’re you doing?” Collins asked.

“Fine.”

The FBI agent gave him a look that said they both knew better.

“We walked down to Central Park after the news conference. Rob-Christ, he wanted to see the tulips. Someone shot us.” Nate sat on the edge of his hospital bed. “That’s it. End of story.”

Except he knew it wasn’t. Collins would want to ask why they went into the park, who knew they’d be at the news conference, what they saw-and that was just for starters.

At this point, Nate doubted anyone thought it was a random shooting, a guy concealed somewhere in or around the park with an assault rifle and a silencer, waiting for the right moment, as opposed to the right victims, to shoot.

“He had to have an escape route,” Nate said.

“One thing at a time.”

Collins took him through the shooting step by step, minute by minute. Nate could feel his anesthetic slowly wearing off, the bandage heavy on his arm, the reality of what had happened earlier in the day hitting him. He’d been taking down fugitives for a long time, guys wanted for murder, carjacking, drug dealing, torture, rape and every other manner of violent crime. He’d been shot at before, but never like this-never a sneak attack, never with a fellow deputy collapsing, maybe dying, at his side.

“Deputy Dunnemore called his sister before the paramedics arrived?” Collins asked.

Nate pulled himself back to the matter at hand. “That’s right.”

“You dialed?”

“He had her number in memory. He wasn’t in any condition to talk. I think he just wanted her to hear what happened from him.”

“Then you talked to her?”

“That’s right. Rob couldn’t hold on to the phone. I took it.” Nate related his brief conversation with a shocked, frightened Sarah Dunnemore. “I told her I’d call her back, but I haven’t been able to. I’d need Rob’s cell phone. I don’t have her number.”

Collins wanted to know what Rob said to his sister. Nate told him.

There were more questions. The guy wasn’t leaving a stone unturned.

Nate’s head throbbed, and Special Agent Collins was getting on his nerves. Anyone would. He felt woozy from whatever crap Dr. Ling had pumped into him. A couple of Tylenol and directions to the exit would have suited him fine.

“They’re twins,” Collins said, “Deputy Dunnemore and his sister. You have two sisters, right? You call them?”

“Not yet, no. What the hell, Collins? You suspicious because Rob called his sister? For God’s sake, she didn’t shoot him.”

Collins ignored him. “Okay, you rest. Doctors say they might spring you later on, let you sleep in your own bed tonight. That must sound pretty good right now.”

“Just find the damn shooter. Never mind me.”

“Yeah. We’re on it. You’re not going to get in the way, are you?”

Nate said nothing.

“One last thing,” Collins said. “What were you and Deputy Dunnemore talking about before you got hit?”

“Tulips.”

The FBI agent managed a small grin before he left. Even the stone-faced female agent in the corner had a twitch of a smile.

Nate had his bed cranked up to a sitting position and was lying back against his skinny pillow, his shoes still on and his ankles crossed, when his family descended.

Gus, Antonia, Carine and their new husbands, Hank Callahan and Tyler North.

Collins had left almost an hour before. Since then, Nate had refused all company and stared at the ceiling, seeing Rob’s body jerking up as the bullet hit, hearing his sister’s shocked, frightened voice when Nate had talked to her. He saw the blood on the phone. Heard his own calm voice, as if he wasn’t really there, in the middle of chaos, shot, trying to save his colleague, trying to find the shooter. So much happening at once, but certain things stuck with him, wouldn’t recede.

He hadn’t called the sister back. He couldn’t-her number was on Rob’s cell phone.

Someone must have contacted her by now.

Twins. Nate couldn’t remember Rob ever saying much about her.

The image started replaying itself, like a movie, but Nate pulled himself out of it and sat up straighter. He tried to smile at his family. “I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. All I need is Toto to show up. They let you all in here at once?”

His white-haired uncle, built like Nate, grunted. “It’s Antonia’s fault. She told your doctors you could handle all of us.”

Nate eyed his out-to-there pregnant sister, wearing what at a guess was one of her husband’s shirts. “I can handle the stress, but can you, Antonia? You look like you’re going to have that baby any second.”

“Not for a few more weeks.” Always the doctor, she picked up his chart and scanned it, sighing. “How’s your arm?”

“Anesthetized. I can’t feel a thing. Rob Dunnemore’s the one in rough shape.”

She nodded. “So I understand.”

Tyler North, Carine’s air force pararescueman husband, spoke up. “A wound like that. Chances are he’s either going to make a full recovery or he’s going to die. There’s not much in between.”

Antonia winced. “Ty, for God’s sake-”

But North wasn’t one to pussyfoot around. They’d all been friends since childhood, and Nate appreciated his straightforward assessment. Carine leaned over his bed, the stress of the past hours evident in her drawn, pale look, in the blue eyes all three siblings shared. Carine was the youngest. Her auburn hair was lighter than Antonia’s, Nate’s own hair so dark the red streaks were barely noticeable. Carine had been shot at. She knew what it was like. “I’m glad you weren’t killed,” she whispered.

“Me, too.”

Hank Callahan, Antonia’s husband, slipped an arm around his wife and eyed Nate. “Is there anything I can do?” Once a helicopter rescue pilot and now a junior senator from Massachusetts, Hank, like the rest of them, was used to taking action.

“Get me a shirt. I feel like an idiot in this gown.”

Antonia hissed. “I knew you’d be impossible. Didn’t I tell you, Gus?”

Their uncle stared out the window with its view of the street. He was in jeans and a hiking jersey. He was one of the best outfitters in the White Mountains, content to stay home in Cold Ridge and hike, cook and redecorate the house he’d inherited from his older brother. But Gus had been shot at more than any of them. He’d served a year in combat in Vietnam before coming home, only to end up raising his orphaned nieces and nephew.

He glanced back at Nate. “Why don’t you drive home with me? The mountain air’ll do you good.”

Nate shook his head. “Last time I was home, you served orange eggs.”

“They’re not that orange. You’re just used to New York eggs.”

“I’m used to yellow eggs.”

“It’s what Moon feeds them.”

Moon. Moon Solaire. She was a newcomer to Cold Ridge. People called her the egg lady because she had dozens of chickens in a variety of breeds. She and Gus had been seeing each other for a couple of months. “Moon’s really into chickens, isn’t she?”

Nate was starting to feel sluggish and achy, some of his earlier adrenaline rush wearing off. Or maybe now that his family was there, he could allow himself a letdown.

“Who knew there were that many different kinds of chickens?” Gus said. “I thought she might be one of your people, with a fake name like Moon Solaire.”

“What do you mean, one of my people?”

Gus shrugged. “You know, some lowlife you’re protecting so they can testify against some bigger lowlife you’re not protecting.”

He meant WITSEC. The Witness Security Program. Gus’s rendition of its mission of protecting government witnesses and their dependents was oversimplified and biased, but Nate was in no mood to argue. “Not all protected federal witnesses are criminals, and I’d be surprised if we ever gave one a name like Moon Solaire-”

“I know, I know. She made it up. Ex-hippie. Real name’s Linda.”

Nate didn’t know about the ex.

Antonia touched their uncle’s arm. “We should go.”

Gus didn’t budge, his blue eyes pinned on his nephew. With just a thirteen-year age difference between them, Gus was in some ways like an older brother to Nate, in other ways like a father. “I turned on CNN before the marshals called, and I knew it was you. I’m telling you. I just knew.”

“I’m sorry, Gus. It’s my job-”

“It’s not your job to get shot by some asshole in Central Park.”

Antonia groaned. “Gus! Now’s not the time.” She shifted her attention to her older brother. “You’ll do what your doctors say, won’t you? And don’t be stingy with the pain medication. Take what you need.”

“Got it.”

She wasn’t convinced. “You do not. You’re itching to get out of this bed and go find who shot you.”

“And you wouldn’t be?”

She didn’t answer. No one did, because his uncle, his sisters and the men they’d married were all cut from the same cloth when it came to waiting patiently for others to do what they wanted to do themselves. They simply didn’t.

Nate felt bad about what they’d been through today. He knew what it was like-he remembered how he’d reacted when he learned about the close calls his sisters and brothers-in-law had had last fall. “Where are you guys staying tonight?”

No one wanted to answer that one, either, but finally Ty did. “Your place. Hank and I are heading out tonight, but your uncle and sisters are staying. Gus took a lasagna out of the freezer and brought it down.”

The thought of Gus’s rich, uncompromising lasagna made Nate nauseous. Spending the night in the hospital suddenly didn’t look so bad. Armed guards and medical types hovering over him-or his family.

When his nurse entered the room, his entourage retreated, but Nate could hear them out in the hall. If his bandaged arm hadn’t forced the reality of his situation to sink in, their presence did.

He’d been shot.

He’d damn near been killed.

And Rob Dunnemore-it could go either way with him.

After the nurse left, Nate tried to get the deputy at his door to find who he needed to see about checking himself out.

No dice.

He’d just have to wait.