Her hands were shaking so badly, matching her legs, and making her feel like she was going to fall down. She frantically texted Grace to make sure she was unharmed. Her niece immediately texted back with an eye-rolling emoji and replied that CC had come over to hang out as soon as she got home from school. She also said the two police officers were still sitting out front in their cars and that their neighbor, the retired CIA operative, had come over twice to check on her. He must’ve recognized the unmarked sedans of the police officers and knew something was going on. Lorena would have to go over later and inform him. At least, she felt like she could breathe just slightly. She told Grace to get the .38 revolver out of her nightstand and keep it close. As soon as her niece was old enough to operate a gun, Lorena had started taking her to the range with her. She was nearly as proficient as Lorena. And she knew enough to keep the small pistol with her with extreme discretion.
When they reached Jack’s vehicle, Lorena nearly swooned. Jack was there to stabilize her. He grabbed her elbow while Lorena looked around quickly to make sure nobody saw.
“You all right, partner?” he asked with concern, his dark eyes meeting hers.
She attempted a nod. Her mouth felt dry like she’d attempted to chew a handful of cotton balls. She couldn’t swallow. Her hands were still shaking.
“How did this happen?” she asked. “And why?”
“Don’t question it like that. Let’s just get to the hospital, all right?”
“Why, Jack?” she repeated.
“Get in,” he said, ushering her inside the Jeep as a few uniformed officers squeezed past them.
He drove quickly, ran a few yellow lights and parked them right outside of the emergency room entrance where he placed his police tag in the window.
“Whatever happens today,” he said, staying her hand on the doorknob, “we’ll get through this. Ok, partner?”
Lorena nodded, took a deep breath.
“Gut up,” he said. “His wife is gonna need you.”
Lorena’s gaze shot to his. Jack’s mouth was set in a tight line. She could tell he was also stressed out, but he was trying not to show it. He squeezed her hand firmly.
“Ready?”
Lorena nodded, this time with more conviction, and they went into the hospital, one of her least favorite places to be.
Jack was right. Louise was a mess. She was surrounded by police officers, some who were trying to offer comfort, others who were trying to take a statement from her. Her mascara had run down her cheeks, her hair was damp as if she’d just gotten out of the shower when she was interrupted by her husband being shot, and she was pale. As upset as she was about Bob, Lorena couldn’t imagine how distraught his wife must be. Louise hugged her for a long time.
“Where is he?” she asked quickly.
“They’re getting him ready for surgery,” Louise told her.
Lorena sprinted through the emergency room doors,
foregoing permission and a shouting nurse, who she saw Jack detain for her. She went straight to the desk and asked for Bob. The nurse tried arguing with her, but one of the older doctors standing behind her nodded to Lorena.
“I’ll take you to him,” he said and rushed her, literally jogging her to the other end of the hall and then down two others. “He’s over here.”
Lorena saw him on a hospital bed outside of an operating room in a hallway with a nurse.
“Ma’am, you can’t be back here,” one of the nurses or doctors or who knew said to her.
“He’s my partner,” she growled. “Back off.”
The young man stepped away and let Lorena pass. Bob had an oxygen mask on his face. He was so pale it scared the hell out of her. She grabbed his hand.
“Hey, kid,” he said weakly.
“Who was it, Bob?”
“Black car,” he said, rasping. “Young person. Short blonde hair. Big sunglasses. Maybe a small man, skinny.”
“Tell me more,” she said, imploring him. “Help me get him, partner.”
Bob’s eyes fluttered closed.
His nurse looked at her and said, “I just gave him a heavy sedative. He’s going into surgery in less than a minute.”
“Bob, tell me more,” she said softly, leaning down close to his ear.
“Gingerbread,” he whispered. “It was him. Silencer. Black car. Skinny. Black ball cap. Girl haircut.”
That was all she got from him before he nodded off. Lorena pressed a kiss to his cheek and straightened. His hand grasped hers tightly, surprising her.
“Help Louise,” he said. “She’s not like us, kid. Help her and my boys. She’ll need your help with everything.”
“I promise,” she said, trying hard not to cry at the implication of his request.
“Go catch this prick, kid,” he whispered and was out.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She wiped them away angrily. His doctor came over to her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll take care of him, Detective,” he said.
Lorena turned her gaze up to his and shot him a warning look. “You’d better.”
He nodded solemnly and Lorena returned it before leaving. The doctor who’d escorted her through the maze of halls to find her shot up partner led her back to the E.R.
“I haven’t told the boys yet,” Louise told Lorena. “They’re at the school playing basketball with their friends. I didn’t even have time to go and pick them up. I don’t know who’s going to pick them up. They’ll be done in an hour and a half.”
“Just leave them at the school,” she said. “Don’t bring them here yet. Not until we know something. When it’s time, Jack and I will go and get them.”
“Right,” Louise agreed with a nod. “Thanks, Lorena.”
“Did you see anything?” Lorena asked. “The last we heard from him, Bob said he was going home to grab a late lunch.”
She sniffed hard and nodded, “He phoned me, told me he was coming home. I was at the gym. I don’t get a lot of time for that what with running the kids everywhere.”
“No, you don’t,” Lorena said in agreement.
“I ran home to grab a quick shower before Bob got home. I wanted to make a nice lunch for both of us because I knew he’d be going back to work until late. He told me he would. He’s been working so much on this case.”
“He has. We all have. We’re working a really tough case,” Lorena said. “What happened, Louise?”
“I heard the shots,” she said. “I was in my robe, just stepped out of the shower. I thought it was firecrackers, but then it dawned on me that the fourth of July was long over.”
“What time was it exactly? Do you know?” Jack asked.
She sniffed again and said, “Two. Wait, almost two-thirty.”
“What’d you see? Anything?” Lorena asked.
“I looked out the bathroom window, our bathroom on the second floor,” she explained slowly. “There was Bob lying in the driveway. I looked to the left and saw a fancy black car speeding away.”
“What make or model? Do you know, Louise?” Jack asked her.
“No, not really. It was shiny, black, maybe foreign,” she said, trying to remember.
“Good, that’s good, ma’am,” he said.
“Who would do this, Lorena?” she pleaded on a sob.
“We’ll catch him, Louise,” she said. “I promise. He won’t get away with it.”
Jeff Rancic came over to them, lured them away from Louise so they could talk in a private waiting room.
“He’s going to surgery?” he asked them.
Lorena nodded, full of nerves but trying not to show it. She’d been to seven police funerals since she made detective. She sure as hell didn’t want to go to her own partner’s. Bob was a good man, one of the good ones like Jack’s sister had described him. She’d been right, too. Jack was every bit as good as Bob. They were kind, conscientious, wanted to put bad people away so they couldn’t hurt anyone ever again, and both always had her back. She couldn’t go to Bob’s funeral.
Jeff shook his head and ran his hand through his already disheveled hair, “Sounds pretty bad. Took two slugs; one to the abdomen, one to the shoulder. Forensics is out there now. Neighbors said they heard three shots. The shooter must’ve missed on the third. Thank God.
“Yeah,” Lorena agreed. “What’ve we got so far?”
“Not much,” he said. “Black Mercedes, just the driver in the car.”
“Gang bangers don’t normally drive cars that expensive,” Jack said. “Could be someone he put away. Could be a drug dealer…”
“It was him,” Lorena said.
“It might not be,” Jack rebutted, trying to be hopeful.
“It was him,” she repeated.
“Your Gingerbread killer?” Jeff asked to which she nodded.
Lorena sighed hard as the same E.R. doctor came over to them.
“Detectives,” he greeted. “I’ve got one of the slugs for you. It almost passed through. I fished it out before they took him to surgery. I was trying to get the bleeding under control, and it was easier to do by removing the bullet.”
He handed a small, sealed plastic bag to Lorena. She stared at the expended .45 slug. Same as the one from the murder of Mr. Adams. They wouldn’t know if they were exact matches to the gun registered to Mrs. Sarchione and stolen by Gingerbread until they retrieved the weapon. She didn’t need forensics on this one, though. She knew they were.
“Thanks,” Lorena said.
“I’m sorry about your partner,” the doctor said. His hospital badge said, ‘Dr. Butler,’ and he had a kind, if not weary, face.
Lorena nodded and the doctor left. She gave the package to Jeff and his partner she couldn’t stand. Their feelings were mutual.
Louise’s sister came to the hospital to be by her side, so Lorena and Jack set up a temporary workspace in the small, private waiting room and shut the door. Neither of them wanted to leave until Bob was out of surgery or they had word on his condition. Louise and her sister sat quietly in the corner and called relatives to alert them to the tragedy.
Then Lorena worked her phone like a teenage girl, fingers flying, texting, talking, burning up the lines. This bastard wasn’t going to get away with this. It was one thing to kill a stranger like some sort of sicko to get at her, but to hurt her friends, forget it. He was a dead man. She made arrangements for Louise and the boys to stay somewhere else, somewhere safe and unknown, not even to the other officers in the precinct. She wasn’t sure, but someone in their team was also leaking information to the press and she was sick of that, too. Their captain was working at the station with their team. He had everyone searching the streets, every bum, every paid informant, every uniformed and plain clothes officer was going to be working this until Bob’s shooter was found. Lorena even called Craig over at the FBI. He was devastated.
“Lorena, you’ve gotta be close,” he said over the line.
She shook her head, “No, we’re not. I’ve got nothing. I’ve got a worthless profile, a suspect who couldn’t have killed my last vic because he was still at a party last night, and a shot partner now.”
“No, you don’t get what I’m trying to say,” Craig corrected her. “You’ve got to be closing in on him. He’s nervous. He’s screwing up. He’s fuckin’ pissed at you,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve never even seen this before. Most of ‘em usually go deeper into hiding and don’t strike when we start closing in on them, lay low, don’t do anything for a long time, sometimes even as long as a year. This guy’s rip roaring pissed off at you.”
“Yeah,” she said softly.
“You’ve either interrogated him, met him, or busted him recently on something else,” he said. “He’s got a real boner for you. Don’t quit now. You’re close. Hell, I’ve worked this case for a few years now and haven’t gotten this close. Review your profile. Look at your evidence again. Do your magic. You’ve got him.”
“Thanks, Craig,” she said and disconnected.
Jack drove her to the school to pick up the boys, even though there were already police officers guarding it now because of what had happened. She just didn’t want them to hear anything about their dad from someone else.
When they got there, Lorena placed her hand on Jack’s and said, “I’ll go. Stay here.”
He furrowed his brow and nodded. A few cheerleaders ran past Lorena to the parking lot, chatting and giggling. They must’ve had Saturday practice. She cringed at what awaited her and took a deep breath. She spotted them milling about, hanging with their friends near the school doors. They hadn’t put two and two together that it wasn’t normal to have three police cars in the parking lot. She nodded to the three uniformed officers near the perimeter of the front of the school building. They recognized her and nodded in return.
“Hey, guys,” she said in greeting to Bob’s sons. Zach’s face fell instantly. He was almost sixteen. He knew being a cop’s kid, that something was wrong. His younger brothers, Adam, thirteen, and Joey, eleven, were still clueless.
“What happened?” Zach asked in a panic.
Lorena hooked her thumb over her shoulder, indicating they should separate from their friends. They walked in a group, the younger boys still oblivious of the situation, to a wide oak tree in the side yard of the school.
“What happened?” Zach repeated, his face going pale and still.
“He’s in surgery,” she said.
“Who? Dad?” Adam asked quickly.
“What happened?” Zach repeated, grabbing his littlest brother around the shoulders and dropping their basketball to the ground. It broke Lorena’s heart to see him trying to be protective of his little brother. They fought. Boy, did they fight. She’d witnessed it often. Punches and jabs were often thrown when Bob wasn’t watching. But they loved each other. And now Zach’s soft brown eyes had turned hard and disciplined as if he’d been preparing for this moment his whole life.
Lorena swallowed hard, “He’s been shot, but he’s in surgery.”
“Oh, fuck,” Zach said, swearing uncharacteristically crudely. “Jesus, Dad.”
“Our dad?” Joey asked, dubious of his big, strong dad being brought low by anything.
“Yeah, Joey,” Lorena confirmed. “He was shot today. He’s in surgery. They’re doing all they can. He’s in a good hospital.”
“Where’s Mom?” Zach asked.
“At the hospital with your Aunt Sally,” she told him. He wasn’t crying, but he also wasn’t holding it together very well. She could see his body starting to quake with fear and adrenaline.
Lorena closed in and hugged them all close.
“Not my dad,” Joey cried.
“Easy, buddy,” Zach told him, attempting to keep him under control.
They stood there crying against her. Adam was trying to hold it together, too, but failed. Joey was nearly inconsolable. He was so young. They stood there so long that Lorena wasn’t sure who was consoling whom. She was glad they couldn’t see her face. She didn’t cry, but her heart was cracking in two. Bob couldn’t leave these kids. They needed him. She prayed hard and fast to her mother and her God to protect Bob and to watch over him. Then she prayed for the sure and steady hands of his physicians that they should heal him. She needed him, too.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Jack standing near them. He was giving them privacy. His back was to them. She appreciated it. Then she realized he wasn’t giving them privacy at all. His head turned to the left and then to the right. In his hand, extended down at his side was his gun. He wasn’t giving them a moment. He was guarding them.