He started to hit nine-one-one, then thought of Essie and her family.

She answered on the second ring. “We’re coming! Five minutes.”

“No, no. Don’t. Stay back. I’m shot. I’m shot.”

“What? Reed!”

“Need ambulance. Need backup. Fuck me, passing out again. Need BOLO…”

“Reed! Reed! Hank, stay here, stay with Dylan.”

“Essie, what—”

But she was running, the phone in her hand, and her weapon in the other. “Officer down, officer down!” she shouted into the phone.

Hank picked up his son, gripped Puck’s leash. And prayed.

She made the last quarter mile in under two minutes, running full out while people working in their yards stopped to gape.

“Police officer! Go inside. Go inside.”

She didn’t stop running until she hit the porch of the brick house. Weapon out, she cleared the doorway, swept her weapon toward the stairs leading up, then over.

And saw Reed.

“Please, please, please.” She checked his pulse first, then leaped up to grab cloth napkins artfully folded on the set-for-company dining room table.

When she padded them, put pressure on the wound in his side, the fresh pain shot him to the surface.

“Shot.”

And in shock, she thought. “Yeah, you’re going to be all right. Be still. An ambulance is coming. Backup’s coming.”

“She could come back. Need my weapon.”

“Who? Who is she? No, no, no, stay with me. You stay with me. Who did this?”

“Hobart, the sister. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. Patricia Hobart. Driving—”

“You stay awake. Look at me! You stay with me, goddamn it.”

“Driving a late model Honda Civic. White. Maine plates. Shit, shit, I can’t—”

“You can. Hear that? Hear the sirens? Help’s coming.”

And her hands were wet with his blood. She couldn’t stop the blood.

“Plates, the stupid lobster.” He gasped it out, fighting to stay with her. To stay alive. “Four-Seven-Five-Charlie-Bravo-Romeo.”

“Good, good, that’s real good. In here! In here! Hurry, goddamn it. He’s bleeding. I can’t stop the bleeding.”

The EMTs pushed her aside, laid Reed flat, got to work.

Cops, weapons drawn, rushed in behind them.

She held up her left hand, felt Reed’s blood slide down her wrist. “I’m a cop. We’re cops.”

“Detective McVee. It’s Bull. Jesus Christ, that’s Reed. Who the fuck did this?”

“The assailant is Hobart, Patricia, mid-twenties, brown hair, brown eyes. She’s driving, or was, a late-model white Honda Civic, Maine lobster plates. Four-Seven-Five-Charlie-Bravo-Romeo. Get it out. I don’t know her address—lives with grandparents. Get it out. Get that bitch.”

“Detective,” one of the officers said. “There’s some blood, leading out. She could be hit.”

She looked back at Reed and dearly hoped so. “Alert hospitals and clinics. Two of you clear the house. And let’s move, let’s move!”

*

Patricia moved. And fast. The son of a bitch shot her. She couldn’t believe it! She hoped he died screaming. She couldn’t stop to check, but the bullet had gone in just under her left armpit. And she thought, hoped, right out again. A through-and-through they called it, she remembered as she blinked away tears of pain and fury.

If he lived long enough, the bastard would identify her. Plus she knew she’d bled on the way out, and that meant DNA.

She pounded a fist on the steering wheel of the stolen car as she pulled into the sweep of her grandparents’ driveway.

She needed her cash, her fake IDs, some weapons, her go bag. She’d have to leave the stolen car behind, just take her own until she could ditch it.

She’d planned for this, she thought. She’d planned for it. She just hadn’t expected to hit the road with a bullet wound.

She raced into the house, up the stairs.

It should have gone perfectly, she told herself. She’d cultivated the asshole cop’s Realtor, going through some of the same houses he had. Had drinks—girlfriends!—with the clueless bitch. And she’d been right there, sipping hard lemonade, when the should-be-dead guy contacted dumbass Renee about the house.

Simple after that. Go over Sunday morning, get the code for the lock box, and then kill stupid Renee, take her files on the house, and so on. Then just wait.

But he’d made her. How the hell had he done that?

She let out a weeping whine as she doused the hole under her armpit with peroxide, padded it.

She’d felt it, just in the set of his body, the way he’d studied her face.

He was probably dead, probably dead, she assured herself as she pulled on a fresh shirt, pulled out her go bag, dumped more cash, more IDs into it.

She’d have made sure of it. She knew he’d be carrying—off-duty weapon, she wasn’t a moron. But she’d hit him twice—right side, right shoulder.

How the hell could she be expected to know he’d manage to get his gun out and shoot with his left hand?

How the hell could she know that!

She took two more handguns, her combat knives, a handmade garrote, plenty of ammo, even took the time to grab another wig, some more facial appliances, some contacts, more bandages, and some of the pain pills she’d culled from her grandparents’ supply.

It seriously pissed her off she wouldn’t cash in on the sale of the house, the life insurance policies when her grandparents finally croaked. But she had more than enough to keep her going for years.

Wincing at the pain, she shouldered the bag and started downstairs.

“Patti? Patti? Is that you? Grandpa’s done something to the TV again. Can you fix it?”

“Sure. Sure, I can fix it,” she said when her grandmother thumped out with her walker.

She pulled out a nine millimeter, shot her grandmother, center of the forehead. She went down with a soft whoosh of air.

“All fixed!” she said brightly, then walked into their bedroom, where the overheated air smelled of old people. Her grandfather sat in his recliner, smacking a hand on the remote while the TV screen buzzed with static.

“Something’s wrong with this thing. Did you hear that noise, Patti?”

“I did. Bye-bye.”

He looked up, squinted behind his bifocals.

She shot him in the head, too, let out a happy little laugh. “Finally!”

She was in and out of the house inside ten minutes—she’d practiced, after all—leaving two bodies behind her.

Keeping to the speed limit, she drove to the airport, left her car in long-term parking, jacked a nondescript sedan, and was on her way.

CHAPTER TWELVE

He saw lights speeding over his head and wondered if he was dead. Maybe there’d be some sexy angels to guide him through those lights to whatever.

He heard voices, a lot of rapid-fire voices talking doctor talk. He didn’t think dead sexy angels worried about GSWs or dropping BPs.

Plus dead couldn’t possibly hurt so goddamn much.

Through the pain, the cold—why was he so cold?—the confusion, and the oddly detached wondering about his own death, he heard Essie’s voice.

“You’re going to be fine. Reed. Reed. You hang on. You’re going to be fine.”

Well, he thought, okay then.

The next thing he knew was more pain. His body, his mind, his everything seemed to float through it, around it, inside it. Pain was the name of the freaking game.

Since he didn’t want to play, he let go.

That pain refused to sit on the bench when he surfaced again, and it pissed him off. Something, someone poked at him, and that pissed him off.

He said, “Fuck off.”

Even to his dim ears it sounded like fukov, but he meant it.

“Almost done, Detective.”

He opened his eyes. Everything was too white, too bright, so he nearly closed them again. Then he saw the pretty face, big brown eyes, golden-brown skin.

“Sexy angel.” Sessy ajel.

Those full, soft lips curved. And he went away again.

He went up and down, up and down, not like a roller coaster, but like a raft on a gently undulating river.

The River Styx. That would be bad.

He heard his mother’s voice.

What the hell kind of a name is Yossarian? It’s Yossarian’s name, sir.

Catch-22. Huh.

He drifted away again, had a long dream conversation about death and sexy angels with the bombardier who had a secret.

When the pain slapped him back again, he decided—once and for all—this dead business sucked.

“It sure would, but you’re not.”

He blinked his heavy eyes clear, stared at Essie. “Not?”

“Definitely not. Are you going to stick around awhile this time? I just talked your parents into going down for some food. I can get them back.”

“What the hell?”

As she lowered the bed guard to sit on the side of the bed, taking his hand, he took stock. Machines and monitors, the annoying discomfort of the IV needle in the back of his hand, the raging headache, the sour, metallic taste in his throat, and a score of other irritations under the full-body pain.

“She shot me. Patricia Hobart—driving a white Honda Civic, Maine—”

“You gave us all of it already.”

His brain wanted to shut down again, but he pushed through it. “You get her? You get her?”

“We will. Are you up to telling me what happened?”

“Cloudy. How long?”

“This is day three, heading to four.”