Catch a Shadow (6 page)

He took them from her hand. God help him, there were enough of them. “I'll have to read them,” he said. “I … have to have time to … absorb this.”

“I'll wait,” she said. Her face was all sympathy, and he felt a twinge of guilt. But he had to disappear now. He had already stayed too long. And he had to take the papers with him. He wanted nothing with his fingerprints left behind.

“Is there a restroom?” he said. “I came right from the airport, and the traffic …”

She pointed down the hall. “Take a left, and you'll see the door.” She started to reach for the papers, but he turned and was down the hall, the papers clutched in his hand.

He turned left and saw her watching.
Damn it
. He went in the room, washed his hands, then exited. He looked down the hall. She was talking to the nurse at the desk.

He kept going toward the elevators. Just as the door opened, he saw a security officer get off the elevator and start for the nurse's station. He turned his face as he passed and hurried down the hall to the stairs. He was on the third floor. It would be faster to go down them rather than wait for another elevator.

He took the steps down, two at a time, then turned away from the reception area and went down to the main entrance. He noticed video cameras ahead and turned his head away from their view as he hurried through the doors. In minutes, he was in his car turning onto the main thoroughfare.

Jake ran down what he'd learned. Too damned little, though the burn mark on his arm confirmed Del's identity.

He also knew that no one else had come to Cox's side, and the police had been unable to find a relative. The last and most important thing he'd learned was that no letter had turned up among Cox's possessions. Yet Jake had seen him give the paramedic one. Most likely so had Gene Adams.

He had to find her, and quickly.

If he didn't, Gene Adams would. And, as in South America, Adams wouldn't want a witness.

CHAPTER 5

Kirke and Hal grabbed a quick lunch at the station.

Before they finished the firehouse chili, another call came. Turned out to be the flu.

The next few hours were busy but had little of the drama of the day before. Quirky stuff mostly. A woman hearing voices was transported to the hospital's psychiatric ward. A fender bender with only a few scratches but two irate drivers who had to be calmed.

As they left that scene, she received a call from her captain.

“Kirke, a detective wants to talk to you. Name of Tom Brady. He's investigating the hit-and-run and wants to know if the victim said anything.” He gave her a number to call.

Her heart sank. She didn't want to lie to the police. Neither did she want to admit she had taken something from the victim.

Before she could punch in the numbers, though, there was another call. Transport for a cancer treatment.

Mr. Marsh was a repeat customer, and he grinned when she and Hal arrived at the small house where he lived alone.

“I was hoping it would be you,” he said with a twinkle in his faded blue eyes.

“I missed you, too,” she said. “You're looking better.”

“And you, my dear, are a liar, albeit a pretty one.”

“And you, Mr. Marsh, are a lovely flatterer.”

They waited while Mr. Marsh received his treatment, then there was a call about a child falling from a swing set and breaking an arm. It went that way the rest of the day. No life-saving decisions. No adrenaline rush. Just one call after another.

They ended their shift at the hospital, taking a newborn and her nervous mother to the hospital because of a rash. Kirke made out the run form, then visited the triage area. The reception nurse had changed, and the new one was Sally, with whom Kirke had exchanged more than a few ex-husband tales. Sally looked at her watch and grinned. “Can't stay away?”

“Just wanted to know if there's any word on the woman we brought in this morning. A Susan Whitaker.”

Sally glanced at her computer, then shook her head. “We lost her.”

“Damn,'” Kirke said. She hesitated, then asked, “And the man we brought in yesterday? Mark Cable? I heard he was in critical care.”

“Still is,” Sally said. She lowered her voice. “Word is he's on life support.”

Kirke felt as if she'd been kicked in the stomach. She'd hoped against hope that he would miraculously return to life and solve the problem of the letter.

“Still no family?”

“That's the strange thing,” Sally said. “Ellie said a guy came in and identified himself as the victim's brother. But he left before the police could talk to him. Created a real fuss around here. I've been told to alert security if he shows up again.”

“Is he local?”

Sally shook her head. “Don't know. Ellie said he stopped here, showed her identification, then went up to intensive care. But apparently he wouldn't sign any papers and left before admissions got more information. A detective was in here asking about him.”

“Do you remember the name of the officer?”

“Detective.” Sally corrected as she picked up a card on her desk and handed it to her. “He asked me to call if anyone inquired about Mr. Cable.”

Kirke took it, suspecting she already knew the name. Yep, Brady.

Hal interrupted them. “Finished here? We might make it back to the station before there's another call.”

She nodded and took just a few steps before another call did come in. Just her luck. They were still on the clock, and it was their responsibility.

“Man down,” according to the call. She took down the co-ordinates, and they drove off. Fifteen minutes' arrival time. Near the same street as the hit-and-run yesterday.

Hal uttered an oath under his breath. “Five minutes until quitting time,” he groused. “Just our luck.”

He drove even faster than usual while she checked her bag.
Man down
could be anything. A drunk. A shooting. She looked at her watch again. A few more minutes, and she would be off for three days. Time tomorrow to start her search. She only wished she could shove away a growing sense of worry. Sally's comments had not helped ease it.

The call apparently was false. When they arrived, no one knew anything about it.

It happened all too often. Sometimes a prank. Sometimes a fall, then the person walks away. She hated those calls because it took the ambulance away from real needs.

“Time to go home,” Hal said.

She nodded. She called the dispatcher, telling her they were heading back to the fire station, where another crew would take over the ambulance. Then her cell phone rang.

It was her captain at the fire station. “Have you called Detective Brady yet? I'm getting some heat here. Apparently there's some kind of mystery about your patient.”

“We've been busy, but I'll do it right now,” she said.

She ended the call.

“What is it?” Hal asked.

“That hit-and-run yesterday. The police want to talk to me.”

“Why not me?” he asked.

“I guess because I was first on the scene.”

She thought about telling him about the letter, then she remembered Cable's frantic words.
No police
. There had been such desperation in the victim's voice.
Swear it
. The letter was now back at the station, in her purse, in her locker.

It was fish or cut bait time.

It was not her business.
Tell him
.

It wasn't as if she was breaking the law, she told herself. She'd been
given
the envelope, presented with a task—a dying request—that she'd agreed, albeit reluctantly, to fulfill.

She
knew
it was foolish. A stupid heroine syndrome, a Don Quixote quest.

Kirke dialed the number she'd been given. It must have been a direct line, because a male voice answered almost immediately. “Brady,” he said gruffly.

“This is Kirke Palmer. My captain said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yep. The hit-and-run victim yesterday. You found his wallet.”

“Yes.”

“You're sure it's his.”

“I found it on the floor of the ambulance. We'd cleaned the interior just before we picked him up. Why?” she couldn't help but ask.

“It's a criminal case, and some witnesses swear the car swerved to hit the victim. We tried to find a relative. No one at the address on the driver's license ever heard of him, and they had lived in the residence fifteen years. We checked the license bureau, and there is no such license. The credit card is billed to a mailbox service. No one there knew him.”

He stopped, and the words registered in her mind.
Tell him
, her mind demanded.
Tell him about the letter
.

“We took his fingerprints, and nothing came up. No match. He's not in any files. Not only that, the doctor says he had plastic surgery. This afternoon someone turned up at the hospital and said he was a brother, then disappeared.”

“I don't know how I can help you,” she said.

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Nothing about who he is,” she replied. It was the truth, but certainly not the whole truth. “I asked him his name, but he was too badly injured to make sense.”

She knew then that she was committed to fishing.

“If you remember anything, call me,” he said. “You have the number.”

“Yes,” she replied.

The detective hung up, and the words echoed in her head. A fake driver's license. A credit card with a private mailbox address. A relative who appeared and disappeared.

The ambulance arrived at the fire station. It would take them another thirty minutes to clean the vehicle, restock supplies, and finish the paperwork.

She would be off for three days then. If she hadn't found this Mitch Edwards by then, she would surrender the letter and accept whatever punishment she had coming.

Jake would have liked to stake out the hospital for the ambulance that had appeared at the accident scene. He wasn't lucky enough to find it parked there when he'd left, and after his disappearing act, he didn't think it wise to hang around.

But yesterday he'd noted the number printed on the ambulance. After some difficulty, he found a public phone booth and phone book. Public phones, unfortunately, were a disappearing convenience now that nearly everyone seemed to have cell phones.

He had a cell phone, a prepaid one, but the number would still be available to the answering entity. If the number got in the wrong hands, his movements could be tracked. It was a risk he wasn't willing to take, and a pay phone was cheaper than another disposable cell.

Using a map he'd purchased, he located fire stations in the immediate area. Then he started calling, asking if the ambulance had come from that station. He said he'd found a necklace where an ambulance had been parked and wanted to return it.

He struck out at the first one, but at the second station the person answering the phone hesitated, then said, “It might belong to Kirke. She's out now, but I'll ask her when she comes in. I'll need your number.”

“She's on duty today?”

“Yeah.”

“When does she get off?”

A pause.

“Look, I just want to get it to whoever owns it. It looks valuable. And I'll be away from the phone all day. I don't mind running over there. I appreciate what you people do.”

“Seven,” the person said reluctantly.

“Thanks.” He hung up before he could ask for a name.

He had until seven. She should be safe enough until then. She had a partner and would be mostly in public. Like the military, fire and police personnel took care of their own.

Jake then went to an Internet café. He had one lead to Adams, and that was the car the former CIA agent had driven off in. He'd jotted down the plate number. He would bet his last dollar that the car involved in the hit-and-run was a stolen vehicle, but the one carrying Adams was a different matter. He wouldn't risk being stopped by police.

If Adams was here for a brief stay, he probably got the car at a rental agency. If so, it was a very upscale rental, and Jake started with limousine services. It was a long shot, and he knew it, but he had little else to go on. He went online for limousine rentals, made a list of five, and returned to the public telephone. He started at the top of the list.

“Someone driving one of your cars hit mine and drove off,” he charged in an irate voice. “I got the license number, and I expect you people to pay for it.”

He struck out with the first three companies. Then at the fourth, when he gave the license number, he was immediately transferred to someone else with a confident voice. “Have the police been notified?”

“I was late for a meeting. I didn't have time to wait, but I'm calling them next unless I get satisfaction.”

“What is the number?”

He read off the license number.

There was a silence, then the man returned. “I'll need your name and number—”

“I want the name of the driver—”

“That is quite impossible, but if you leave—”

Jake hung up.

He wasn't going to get more.

But perhaps he'd directed Gene Adams's attention from the paramedic to himself. The manager no doubt was on the phone to him now.

He looked at his watch. Nearly six o'clock.

Kirke
. Must be her last name. When he reached the station, he was relieved to find a fast-food restaurant across the street. He went inside, ordered a hamburger and fries, and chose a seat with a view of the station. It was five thirty, and her shift ended at seven p.m.

The cell phone rang, and he tensed.

He answered it.

“Your parole officer has been sniffing around, wanted to know where you were,” David Ramsey said.

“What did you tell him?”

“That you'd gone fishing before starting the job. He wants you to call him.”