Taking a towel off the rack, Jan applied direct pressure to stem the bleeding. “How’s that?”
Leaning back against the shoe rack, Delta sighed. “Better.” Placing her hand over Jan’s, Delta helped put pressure on her leg. “Damn that asshole and his fucking stars. I should have blown his head off.” Feeling the throb bang her head like a drum, Delta felt weak. “How are you?” she asked, squeezing Jan’s hands beneath hers.
“Honestly?”
“Uh-huh.” Her world slowly started spinning, and Delta knew it was simply a matter of time.
“I think I shit my pants.”
Delta smiled and nodded, glad that Jan had stayed with her. “When you thought he was really going to break your neck?”
“No. When I thought you were really going to send a bullet whizzing past my ear.” Jan pressed harder as the towel turned a bright red.
Delta shrugged and watched as the blood dripped off the towel. “Too close to call.”
“You weren’t bluffing, were you?”
“Nope. I was sure he’d kill you first, just out of the meanness of it. I could never live with myself if I just stood there and watched him snap your neck.” The walls seemed to breath in and out with Delta, and her head was beginning to float off her shoulders.
“You really think he would have?”
Delta nodded. “Killed you? Yep. Even if it was just to make a point. The guy’s a control freak. He wants us to think he’s got this whole damn thing under his thumb.”
“Does he?”
Delta grinned a drunken grin. She was sure the walls were moving. Or maybe she was. It was getting harder and harder to tell. “Not anymore.”
“Well, thanks for keeping me alive. For a minute there . . .”
“Wasn’t even close.” Jan’s face was becoming fuzzy, and Delta knew it wouldn’t be too long before she passed out.
“Maybe not, but I’ll be sure to have my kids and my husband thank you anyway.”
“Hey, that’s what we’re about.” Taking a deeper, slower breath, Delta was almost ready to let herself succumb to the waves of nausea rolling over her. “Did he say anything to you while you were in here with him? I mean, why did he do this? Why you?”
“Don’t you get it by now? The asshole admires you. I think he likes you.”
Delta shook her head but wasn’t sure if it moved. She didn’t quite feel like she was in her body anymore, as grayness and unconsciousness pounded against the shores of her mind. Any moment now, her world would fade to black.
“No . . . I don’t . . . get it.” In the dismal blackness that enveloped her, Delta heard Jan’s last words.
“He said he wanted to meet the woman brave enough to track down and face a man as dangerous and as brilliant as he is. He said you were the last of the true champions, or something to that effect. Can you believe it? The guy thinks you’re great.”
Delta could not answer. As the last particle of consciousness gave way to the dark reality of unconsciousness, Delta focused her last bit of energy on Jan’s face and whispered, “And I was just kidding about you being a shitty partner.”
“No kidding.”
Slumping against Jan’s shoulder, Delta exhaled her final conscious breath. “No kidding.”
As the last stitch was sewn into her leg, Delta winced. The star managed to cut a five-inch gash in her thigh that was one inch deep. Even with the pain medication, her leg throbbed like she was in the bass section of a stereo speaker.
In the far corner of the room Jan sat filling out report forms and glancing over every now and then to see if Delta was all right.
“That’s about it,” Dr. Leslie Weeks said, tying up the last bit of thread. “I know I’m wasting my breath on you, Delta, but I do need to warn you that because of the location of the stitches, you should stay off your feet for a few days to let it heal. Give yourself a day or two for it to mend. It’s pretty deep, and you’ll risk infection if you push too hard. I’m going to cut you loose for a few days, all right?”
Delta’s immediate reaction was one of displeasure. Then she realized that being off work might actually give her more time to hunt Elson down. Maybe there was a silver lining on that star Elson embedded in her.
Dr. Weeks winked at Delta. “I can imagine the trouble you’ll get yourself into if you’re not working.”
Delta smiled. She had always liked Leslie. Ever since she stitched Delta up after a riot broke out, she made sure she always came back to Dr. Weeks.
“I’ll be back to check up on you in a bit. For now, lay your head back and rest a minute. You’re done fighting crime for the night.”
Delta grinned. “Thanks, doc. You do good work.”
Dr. Weeks smiled a near perfect smile. “Wait till the department gets my bill.”
Leaning her head back, Delta closed her eyes and fought the desire to scratch her stitches. She remembered the first time she got stitches; she was five, and she ran under a garage door that had a bolt sticking out. The bolt caught her square on top of the head, but she just kept running. If she remembered correctly, they were playing kick-the-can, or something similar. As she thought back to the second time she got stitches, Delta barely heard the door open and someone sitting down on the chair beside her.
“Had a rough night, eh, Stevie?”
Slowly opening her eyes, Delta looked up at the ceiling and not at Leonard. “What do you want, Leonard?”
“How are you feeling?”
Delta lowered her eyes and squinted at him. For all of his rough edges, Russ Leonard really did care. “Like someone tried to make a shishkabob out of me. Did you get him?”
Leonard averted his eyes as he shook his head. “The bastard had a fucking helicopter waiting for him. He just grabbed a hold of this rope and away he went.”
Delta remembered hearing the chopper blades shortly before seeing Elson. “A helicopter?” “Can you believe it? Dropped a line, he grabbed it, and away he went. We couldn’t shoot at it and have it crash on the streets below.”
“So, he got away.”
Leonard nodded. “I’m tellin’ ya, Stevie, I’m gettin’ really tired of this shitbag.”
“You and me both, Russ.”
Leonard scooted the chair closer. “Then work with me, Stevie. Give me everything you have on this guy.”
Delta closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Her leg was on fire.
“Come on, Stevie. You know the kind of trouble I could get you in for withholding evidence in a case like this.”
As the pain travelled up her leg, Delta shook her head. “I’ve got nothing to tell. We have a psycho loose.”
“Bullshit.”
Jan rose from the chair. “Sergeant, Delta is telling you the truth.”
Leonard looked at Jan and shook his head. “I figured you for smarter than falling for Stevie’s bag of tricks, Bowers. She’s snowed you, too, and look where it almost got you. Laying on a slab next to Helen.”
Delta jerked her eyes open and her head forward and immediately regretted doing so. “Back off, Leonard. You had your chance to work with me and you fumbled. Leave us alone.”
Leonard shook his head. “Can’t back off now. Everyone from the Chief to dispatch wants to know how it is that you and this Elson guy referred to each other by name. You have a lot of questions to answer when you leave here, Stevie.”
This revelation hit Delta hard. She had forgotten that piece. Of course everyone would be wanting answers by now. It was clear to everyone that this case had developed into something more than a serial killer. Downtown would want to know just what that development was.
“Can you explain that to me, Stevie? Because in a few minutes, the big bosses are gonna be breathing on your ass so hard, you’ll think you’re in a hurricane.”
Delta looked at him and grinned. “Lucky guess?”
Leonard snorted. “The way I see it, maybe you’ve had more than one contact with our nutcase.”
“And maybe you should have listened a little harder, Leonard. The way I see it, we came to you with evidence, and you shooed us away like we were some wet-eared rookies. Try explaining that to the Chief.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Stevens. This is a homicide case you’re messing with. Right now, you’re standing in the way. You may be getting closer to the perp who’s pulling the jobs, but you sure as hell ain’t preventing these deaths from happening. It’s time to stop playing amateur detective and give me everything you have. And, in case you’re the least bit confused, this isn’t a request.”
This made Delta laugh. “Leonard, if the Chief and the Captain really wanted to know how Elson and I knew each other’s names, they’d be in here right now. don’t bullshit me. You started with nothing, you have nothing, and you’ll finish the fourth quarter with nothing. I needed your help and came to you ready to deal. Maybe if you would have compromised a little, my partner’s life wouldn’t have been threatened tonight. So don’t go telling me what you’re going to do to me, Leonard, because you’re full of shit.”
Leonard was suddenly on his feet. “Now look here, Stevens—”
Before he could say another word, Jan was right in his face. “Back off, Leonard. Back way off.”
Leonard sneered at her. “don’t go looking for trouble, Bowers.”
“And don’t you even think about harassing the cop who saved my life tonight.”
“She’s the reason your life was in danger in the first place.”
“That shows just how little you know about this case, Leonard.” Jan stood on tiptoe so she could be in his face.
“I know enough.”
Jan’s voice rose to a level Delta had never heard. “Delta is one hell
of a cop, and you know it. If she wasn’t, I’d be on a slab in the morgue right about now. She’s closer to Elson than you’ll ever be by scratching your balls and waiting for a clue to walk through the door. Connie and Delta came to you, and you burned them. You turned them away because what they had to offer wasn’t concrete enough. Well, take a good long look at that star over there, and you tell me if that’s concrete enough.”
“That’s where you’re mistaken—”
“Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. I’m alive because Delta knew which door to pick. I’m alive because she was able to bluff him into going for the stairs, instead of killing me. I’m alive, you narrow-minded, pig-headed man, because for the past two weeks, she’s done nothing but eat, sleep and drink this case. He’s in her head. You can’t force that kind of knowledge out. You have to possess it yourself. Delta owns it, so just back the fuck off.”
Leonard backed away from Jan and sneered hard at Delta. “You’re both nuts. I’ll have both your badges before this thing is over, hero or not. This isn’t your own personal case, Stevens. As usual, you’re breaking all of the rules the rest of us swore to uphold. And those you don’t break, you make up. Well, I swear, this time it’s gonna cost you. This time you’ve crossed the wrong guy. You get in the way of my investigation again, and I will have your badges.” Turning on his heels, Leonard stalked out of the room.
Stunned, Delta stared, slack-jawed, at Jan. “Is that how you discipline the children?”
Jan stomped across the room and looked out the tiny window in the door. “Oh, he’s just an arrogant asshole.”
“Well, thanks.”
Jan walked back over to the bed and slid her hand on top of Delta’s. “No. Thank you. When Dennis heard the call on our police monitor at home, he said he sat down and prayed. When I called to tell him I was all right, he cried. Right then and there. I’ve never heard him cry like that. He said he didn’t know how to thank you.”
Delta bowed her head a little. “Leonard was right on one point. You wouldn’t have been in trouble if it wasn’t for me. I shouldn’t have put you in that position in the first place.”
“Not true. We went after a perp. A perp, Delta, who strangled a young man in a bowling alley. don’t blame yourself, Del. It won’t do us any good.”
Delta shrugged. “I didn’t mean what I said, you know, about you being a crummy partner.”
Jan grinned. “The word was `shitty,’ and I know. I’m your partner, Del. For better or worse, we went into that situation together and came out together.
That’s
what we’re all about.”
Suddenly, the door burst open again, and a tall, shapely, red-headed woman strode through the door with Leonard in tow.
The moment Delta saw her, a smile slipped easily across her face. The emerald green eyes with a hint of gray and the intense gaze were features Delta started admiring long ago. District Attorney Alexandria Pendleton was one of the most striking women Delta had ever met. It wasn’t enough that her beauty stopped people in the street, but her poise and her presence were larger than life. Her confidence, her strong sense of self entered the courtroom before she did, and Delta thought that was what made her such a damn good prosecutor. She had gone for, and received, the maximum sentence for Miles’s murderers; a gift Delta held most dear.
When their eyes met, Delta noticed a slight curl to Alexandria’s lips. They had worked closely together during the trial, and Delta admired the work ethic of the city’s first female District Attorney. Alexandria Pendleton was thorough, swift, efficient, and uncompromising. She dug deep and left no stone unturned. Delta wondered what stone she was turning over now.
Taking her jacket off, Alexandria turned and nodded to Delta. “I see you’ve gotten yourself into another tight spot, Officer Stevens.”