Andy leaned back on her knees and thumped her chest gratefully. Bulletproof vest caught the bullet. Day two and already she’d been shot and assaulted with a baton. Lovely.
Where was René?
There. Lying on the ground.
“René!” she called as she stumbled to her. “You better be okay, you useless piece of shit. Still got to teach me that left—”
René coughed.
Andy turned her onto her back. From the blood covering her left eye and the wall, it seemed like someone had slammed her face into it.
“Shut up, Bouchard. I’m okay. Don’t go all soft on me now. What happened to chasing down the bad guys?”
“Your job. I’ve got to check on Hampton.”
René stumbled to her feet, wiping the blood away with her sleeve. She called Jam as she leaned against the wall, getting her bearings. She described the men to David and Iona who were standing by downstairs.
“Cops are three minutes out,” Jam said in their ears.
René nodded at Andy who was still waiting to see if she was okay. “Go. I’m all right. Check on Hampton and leave. And police your brass.” She pointed to the bullet casings. “And your knives. Be quick.”
“Will do. Be careful,” Andy said.
“No problem.” René inhaled sharply as if in pain, and then started jogging to the stairway door, Gerri Hope’s security tags in hand.
* * *
Andy donned plastic gloves and quickly collected the two knives that had missed her target, hoping René would get the other if Black Jacket pulled it from his side on the fire escape. She picked up the casings and rushed inside Hampton’s apartment to check on her, the wailing sirens growing louder.
She could hear the neighbor’s front door inch open carefully.
Arlene Hampton lay on the carpet, sprawled between a set of oxblood leather couches. She was facing the window, her hand outstretched, as if reaching out to the soft, distant scattering of city lights in front of her.
Andy felt for a pulse and found one.
“Fuck it.”
She turned the woman over. That was unexpected. While she was grateful Hampton was alive, it also complicated matters. Andy rushed to the sink to collect a handful of kitchen towels. She applied pressure to the bullet wounds while she spoke to Jam.
“Get the ambulance,” she said. “Hampton’s alive.”
“Shit.”
A minute’s silence. The elevator behind her pinged.
“And tell Isabelle to leave. Tell her to take the car and go to Ma Soeur right now.”
She knew Jam had again cut Isabelle from all comms on this operation when the bullets started flying. No doubt she was going to be livid.
“Will do,” Jam said. “Legal?”
“Yeah. Get Caroline down here.”
The apartment door burst open.
“Hands in the air,” a gruff, testosterone voice bellowed.
“Applying pressure to a bullet wound here,” she said evenly.
“Hands where I can see them!” the voice was nervous. Angry.
“I can’t—”
“Put your fucking hands up! Lock them behind your head.”
More feet, more people arriving.
Andy lifted her hands in the air.