Jake’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket, an insistent burr that might have awakened him, might have, except he certainly wasn’t asleep, would not have fallen asleep.
He blinked, trying to ground himself in time and place. Hospital. DeLuca. He needed to call Jane. His eyes flared open, and he scanned the corridor to the left, the right, and then left again.
What?
He stood, inch by inch, understanding this wasn’t a dream. His mind, groggy and exhausted, struggled to make sense of it. Hospital bells pinged. An unintelligible voice squawked over the PA system, then stopped.
“Hello, Detective Brogan,” Jane was saying. Ten steps away now, holding her cell. And not alone. His cop’s brain catalogued the woman with her. White female, approx. 20, dark hair. Who? Why?
“Hello, Ms. Ryland.” Jake, taking Jane’s cue, played along with using their public personas. His phone stopped buzzing as she put hers away. He understood why she was here, but who was with her?
“How’s Detective DeLuca?” Jane asked.
He could see her eyes narrow, read the sorrow in them, understood that Jane—he adored her—was trying to transmit her concern.
“Hanging in. Last I heard. They just took him upstairs, some specialist.” Jake cleared his throat. “Did you … hear about it from the medical examiner?”
Jane nodded. “Half an hour ago.”
“I didn’t want to wake—”
“It’s okay,” Jane said.
This was impossible, an impossible situation. He wanted to throw his arms around Jane, break into tears, have her comfort him—damn it, it was D. Now he had to pretend, because of whoever this girl was, that he hardly knew her.
“Um, Ja—Detective Brogan?” Jane was saying. “I apologize for doing this now. Forgive me, but it’s important. Is it true you arrested Trey Welliver in the Avery Morgan case?”
“Why?” Welliver? Had the kid’s parents called the television station? Or had his lawyer blown the whistle? Could people never shut up?
“I know.” Jane looked apologetic, waved her hand toward the hospital ward. “The ME told me the whole thing, and I am so, so sorry. But this is—” She turned to the girl.
“Yes,” the girl whispered. Looked like she was about to cry. “I’ll tell him.”
What the hell?
“This is Isabel Russo,” Jane said, putting her arm across the young woman’s shoulders. “She goes to Adams Bay. She’s an acquaintance of Trey Welliver. And at the time you think Avery Morgan was killed at her home … well, she knows Trey Welliver could not have been there.”
A wail of a siren ripped through the silence. A blast of sounds, a chaos of noise, more sirens, and a battery of claxons. Jake’s phone buzzed in his pocket, red lights flashed in the hallway. Footsteps, running, white coats.
“Code red code red code red,” an automated voice blasted through the tinny speakers. “One two three,” the robo-voice announced. “One two three.”
Jake drew his Glock. One two three. Code for active shooter.
“Get down,” Jake commanded. “Under that bench, both of you.”
Two more white coats ran by. Direction of D’s room. Doors slammed down the corridor like gunshots. “No. Into that closet.” He slammed the flat metal plate that opened the solid-looking metal door. “Do not come out till I tell you.”
He saw the look in Jane’s eyes, read it, chilled, but there was nothing else to do or say.
“Shut that door!” He slammed his body at it, closed them inside. He could just make out Jane’s face through a rectangular sliver of wire-meshed window. “Stay down!”