Unlucky 13

Chapter 108

My dear husband had heard the gunshots. He had called 911 and then run downstairs. After I told him that I was okay, he took the baby inside, saying he’d be right back.

I sat next to Cindy on the sidewalk. She was pale, and the blood was still spreading across her sweater from what looked like a shoulder wound. I pressed a diaper against the bloodiest place and held it there, hoping she wasn’t bleeding out, that she wouldn’t go into shock.

The waiting was awful.

She looked so damned frail. I wanted to hug her, to hold on to her so that she didn’t slip away. I could hardly stop myself from jumping up and running out into the street to look for the ambulance.

Cindy tried to tell me what the hell she thought she was doing with a gun. But I truly didn’t care.

“You don’t have to explain, Cindy. The bullet you took—that thing was meant for me. If you hadn’t—look. You probably saved my damned life. So, thank you. Thank you very much.”

“Protect my exclusive, okay?”

“Your what? Oh. Of course. Interview me all you want, Cin. I’m exclusively yours. Until the end of time.”

She gave me a wan smile. “That’ll be great.”

I squeezed her hand, and two and a half minutes after Joe’s call, black-and-whites screamed into the street.

Doors slammed. Cops advanced.

I unclipped my badge and held it up. I identified myself to a uniformed cop from where I sat at Cindy’s side.

“Boxer. It’s Nardone. Bob Nardone. You okay?”

Sergeant Nardone asked what had happened, and I kept it simple.

“The shooter was Mackenzie Morales. She’s a fugitive. Wanted by the FBI. I shot her in self-defense.”

I was spelling out Cindy’s name and Mackie’s when incoming sirens drowned out my voice and the ambulance wailed to a stop. Paramedics swarmed around us and questioned Cindy as they lifted her onto a board.

I struggled to my feet, then stepped over to where Morales lay in her bloodied white drapery. No one was there anymore. No one home at all. Maybe Mackie was already checking in at the gates to Hell. “Room key, please. Mr. Randy Fish is expecting me.”

Joe called out to me.

“Julie is with Mrs. Rose,” he said of our neighbor across the hall.

I said, “Great. Joe. I’m going to the hospital with Cindy.”

He said, “Take this.”

He handed me my phone, then put his arms around me. I think I was shaking as I held him tight.

The EMTs were closing the doors to the bus, so I broke away from my husband and told him, “I’ll call you.”

I never made it into the ambulance because Jacobi was standing between me and the doors.

“Jacobi. You see what happened here? It’s Morales. She’s the one who shot Cindy. I have to go with her,” I said.

“You can’t leave, Boxer. We’ve got a fatality here. You know that.”

I had no fight left and it wouldn’t have helped if I had. I said, “I need a minute.”

I climbed up into the back of the bus and said to Cindy, “I’ll see you later. You’re my hero. And I love you. And Cindy? You’re going to be fine.”

I stepped back down to the street. I gave my gun to Jacobi and walked with him to his car.