Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) (33 page)

This morning, I barely had time to cross my
fingers, whistle, or anything else. The one-way traffic was
cooperative, and we were across in just a few seconds
. Ron hung a hard right on Thorndyke and then a
quick left-right combination on Hayes and Twenty-Eighth. “Our
turn is just up ahead!” he said. He didn’t
slow down, but he did reach over and kill the
siren. “Then it’s two streets over and up a
few houses.”

Finally, he slowed, and we entered the neighborhood
. The houses were small, well-kept single-family homes with
front yards and a strip of grass between the street
and the sidewalk. Single-width driveways cut through the grass
strips at regular intervals, although many of the homes had
long since converted their carports or garages into living space
. Twenty seconds later, we turned north on Twenty-Sixth.

“That
’s it,” Yoshi said, pointing. “It’s the white house
on the left—the one with the dark green shutters
.”

“Where?”

“Right up there,” Yoshi pointed. “Fourth house up. See
the blue van on the side?”

“Got it,” Ron said
.

As Ron had predicted, ours was the first police car
on the scene. Ron killed the flashing light and coasted
up slowly. When we were parked against the curb across
the street, he turned off the engine.

“Now we wait
,” he said. He grabbed his vest and had just finished
wriggling into it when we heard a muffled woman’s
scream come from the subject house.

“Shit,” Ron said. “Okay
. Plan B. Now we go.” We all piled out of
the car. “Yoshi,” Ron called as he drew his sidearm
, “You got the back. Don’t go in until I
call out. I’ll take the front. Danny, you watch
the street and direct traffic. Anyone gets past us, they
’re all yours. But don’t come inside unless I
call for help! Got it?”

“Got it!”

Yoshi sprinted for
the side of the house. I ran around the car
and placed the flashing strobe back on the roof. No
point in secrecy now and besides, I wanted the next
police officer to know that at least some good guys
were already on the scene. I drew my sidearm and
found some cover between the front of Ron’s car
and the Toyota parked in front of it. I ducked
down and watched the house.

Ron took up a tactical
position to the side of the front door, then banged
on it hard. “Seattle Police!” he yelled. “Open up!”

The
only response was an immediate scream from the woman inside
.

“Hey! What’s going on?” a voice behind me demanded
.

Startled, I spun around and saw an elderly gentleman standing
in the doorway of his home, right behind our car
and directly across the street from our subject.

“Get back
inside your house!” I yelled. “Police business!” He took a
quick look around, and he must have seen the vest
or else he saw that I was holding my 1911
in my hand. Something registered with him, and he turned
right around and scurried back inside. I turned back just
in time to see Ron jump in front of the
door and give it a hard kick. The flimsy door
folded a little in the middle, but didn’t open
. “Shit!” he said. He backed up and kicked it again
, harder. Ron’s a big guy, and this time the
latch sprung and the door flew open. Before it could
bounce back, Ron leapt in, yelling, “Seattle Police!” as he
did. Then, he disappeared from view and things got quiet
.

I strained to see or hear anything from the house
, but there was nothing. In the distance, I could hear
sirens approaching—backup was only a minute away. Up close
, I could hear the quiet crackle of the police radio
in the car. But from the house, I didn’t
hear a thing.

Until suddenly, without warning, there were three
gunshots inside the house.
Boom! Boom!
And then, a
split second later, a higher-pitched
Boom!
Almost immediately, a
woman ran screaming hysterically from the front door. She was
completely nude and her arm was covered in blood.

Holy
shit! I jumped out from between the cars. “Over here
!” I yelled. “This way!” The poor woman was confused and
disoriented. When she heard me call out, she stopped screaming
and looked around; then she appeared to get a bit
of a grip as she focused on me. “Come on
!” I yelled, beckoning her with my arm. “Over here!” I
could actually see her eyes drop and focus on the
big, blocky “POLICE” lettering on my vest. This must have
made the difference and caused her to turn in my
direction. I ran out into the street to meet her
. “Hurry!”

While she ran over, I continued watching the door
of the house, my 1911 in low ready position, ready
to defend her as she crossed. Thankfully, no one else
came out the front door.

“Here,” I said, as she
drew near. I holstered my weapon, grabbed her arm, and
rushed her back to the space between the cars, mostly
out of the line of fire from the house. Once
there, I stripped my vest off and took the coat
off that I was wearing underneath. “It’s okay,” I
said. “You’re safe now. Put this on.” I draped
my coat around her. I’m tall and she was
short, so the coat covered her well. The poor woman
was doing her best to regain control, yet she was
still sobbing and shaking. “He cut my finger off,” she
sobbed. I looked down and saw where all the blood
on her left arm was coming from. Shit!

“Here,” I
said. “Let me see.” I carefully took her injured left
hand and looked. Her ring finger was cut clean off
at about the level where she’d normally wear a
wedding band. Instantly, I was back in Afghanistan with Alpha
Company as I surveyed her wound. Blood was seeping from
the stump, but not gushing. This was good—the wound
didn’t need a tourniquet. I stripped my shirt off
and used it for a bandage. “Hold this for a
second,” I said. “Tight! Hold it tight.” The cotton shirt
made a pretty fair improvised bandage, but now I was
down to a T shirt, and it was a chilly
November morning. I slipped my vest back on—at least
it was something.

“Are you Katherine LaRue?”

She nodded. “Yes
.”

My God. I tried to reassure her. “You’re safe
now, Katherine. You’re going to be fine. Here, let
’s keep some pressure on your finger.”

Seconds passed. I
crouched down beside her, with my left hand helping to
hold the bandage, right hand with a tight grip on
my sidearm, and eyes focused on the house across the
street as I waited for Ron, waited for backup. “You
doing okay?” I asked.

Out of the corner of my
eye, I saw her look up at me. She didn
’t answer.

I turned for a moment and smiled. “Katherine
! You’re going to be fine.” Tears rolled down her
face. She was clearly in shock. At that moment, two
police cruisers came flying around the corner, one from either
direction. Thank God. ‘‘Katherine, I gotta talk to these guys
for a quick second, but I’ll be standing right
here.” I stepped out between the cars and yelled to
the patrolmen as they unloaded, guns drawn. Good thing I
was wearing the vest. “Two officers still inside!” I pointed
frantically to the house. “Shots fired! Bad guy’s still
inside too! I don’t know the status! I’ve
got the female victim over here! We need a medic
!” One officer dove back into his cruiser and grabbed the
radio. The other hustled over to us.

While I spoke
to him, three more squad cars pulled up. A sergeant
took charge, and the officers immediately moved to clear the
house. They entered front and rear simultaneously. I was very
worried about Ron and Yoshi—I couldn’t figure out
why I still hadn’t seen or heard anything from
them. The obvious concern was that they’d been caught
up in those gunshots. I wasn’t able to dwell
on it for long, though, because I was busy tending
to Katherine, talking to her, reassuring her, holding her good
hand while I held the bandage on her injured one
, all the while waiting for the paramedics to arrive. A
couple of minutes later, I noticed an officer run out
of the house. “We’re clear inside, but we got
an officer down!” he yelled. “We need those paramedics over
here ASAP!” My heart went cold.

It seemed like it
took forever, but it actually took only about five minutes
for a whole army of people to roll up, including
three paramedic teams and, ominously, a coroner van and a
medical examiner unit. I had no idea what was happening
inside except that there were sure as hell a whole
lot of medics running in and out, carrying orange and
yellow cases of gear.

Meanwhile, one team of paramedics ran
over to us to take care of Katherine. First thing
, they handed me my coat back and wrapped her in
a blanket. Then, they gently helped her up onto the
gurney they’d rolled out with them. “How long ago
did this happen?” the lady paramedic asked as she unwrapped
my blood-stained shirt and started examining Katherine’s hand
.

“J-j-just a little while ago,” Katherine stammered.

“We
got here about twenty minutes ago,” I said.

The paramedic
nodded. She lifted Katherine’s hand and looked at it
from all sides. “Well, Katherine,” she said, “I know it
may not feel this way right now, but as far
as cuts go, this is a good, clean one. The
reason that’s good news is that nowadays, there’s
about a 90 percent chance that the surgeons can reattach
your finger for you, especially if it just happened a
little while ago. We’ve already got the officers over
there right now looking for it. We’re going to
find it.”

Katherine had been looking at the paramedic, her
head raised. As the paramedic finished speaking, Katherine let her
head drop back to the gurney, tears still flowing down
her face.

“You’re okay, Katherine,” I said to her
, holding her right hand. “You’re okay.”

She nodded, but
bit her lip and didn’t stop crying. I can
’t begin to imagine the horror she’d been subjected
to over the past four days. I actually cringed at
the thought of it.

“Do you know what’s happening
inside?” I asked the medic. I was very worried about
my friends. One of them, at least, was hit.

“Yeah
, I think I heard them say there’s one DOA
and one wounded.”

“Any idea who?”

She shook her head
as she continued to work on the bandage. “Sorry.”

A
couple of minutes later, two paramedics appeared at the front
door, walking backward, guiding a gurney. The injured man on
the gurney came out feetfirst, so I was unable to
make him out until an instant later. I saw Ron
pop out the front door, leaning over Yoshi, who was
flat on the stretcher. A large dressing covered a wound
on the right side of his neck. Ron was reaching
forward, tightly gripping Yoshi’s hand.

“Shit,” I said quietly
. “Katherine, I’ll be right back. I gotta go check
on my buddy.” I squeezed her hand and then let
go and walked over to Ron and Yoshi as they
started to roll his gurney to the waiting ambulance.

I
caught Ron’s eye, and he gave me a quick
nod and a thumbs-up. “I bashed the door in
,” he explained, “and when I got inside, the fucker saw
me coming and started to run out the back. He
ran right into Yoshi. Guy got two shots off at
Yoshi before Yosh fired back one time, I think, and
put him down.”