Fallen (20 page)

She swallowed past the lump in her throat, her heart beating dully as she thanked him and said a subdued good-night.

She had made her choices. It was wrong to feel like this.

Long after the call had ended, she stood with her refilled wine glass in hand, staring out pensively through the window at the glittering cityscape.

Sometime later, the ringing phone woke her from a sleep that had been deepened by the comforting pinot. She’d been drifting in and out of dreams, filmy sequences of herself with Ryan, with Tyler, their lives together displayed to her like favorite, timeworn snapshots. Groggily, she reached for the handset on the nightstand. Her mumbled salutation was met with a hushed abyss that put her on instant alert, followed by three gut-punching words.

“Bitch. Fucking whore.”

“Who is this?” she asked hoarsely, her heart climbing into her throat as she sat up.

The line went dead.

Chapter Sixteen

“J
esus. Can I
go now?” Jimmy Branford sat across from Ryan and Mateo in the precinct’s interview room. Heavyset, with an acne-scarred face and prematurely balding head, he wore his uniform—navy pants and a wrinkled navy shirt with
Dogwood Mall Security
emblazoned on its back. A mobile radio was clipped to his utility belt that holstered a baton but no gun. Shoulders hunched, he regarded the detectives with narrowed eyes. “The mall opens at ten. I’m late for work, thanks to you.”

Ryan wanted to tell him to shut up, but the discussion had gone on long enough. They’d have to kick him. He rose from the table, signaling Branford’s release. “If we have other questions, we’ll be in touch.”

Branford grunted. With a scrape of his chair and an acid look, he slunk from the room.

“So?” Mateo pressed once they’d escorted him down the hall. They watched as he shoved through the lobby’s glass doors and disappeared onto the sidewalk.

“He’s not our guy.”

“You sure? If looks could kill, we’d both be getting zipped into body bags about now.”

Branford’s name had been culled from the APD database. They’d brought him in because he fit the Bureau’s profile—a police academy reject now working in pseudo law enforcement as a mall cop. He’d also performed community service for a prank 9-1-1 call several years earlier, something Ryan wondered if the mall’s management knew about. Based on their questioning, it seemed clear Branford had a chip on his shoulder about his failed attempt at a police career, but Ryan didn’t think he had the aptitude for murder. His slovenly appearance indicated laziness, and he’d been largely uncommunicative instead of confrontational, something he would have expected from a man out to prove his superiority over police. If anything, he seemed slow.

They had interviewed five others with similar backgrounds since the task force meeting on Saturday.

“If you like him for it, we’ll put a flag on him and confirm his whereabouts on the nights of the shootings.” Ryan checked his watch, hoping the rest of Matthew Boyce’s credit card records would arrive soon. They’d filed a motion to compel with the court since one of the card companies had been lagging, citing consumer data confidentiality laws. He had accepted responsibility for going through the transactions, still not giving up on his conviction that there had to be some connection between the victims that went beyond their occupation. He planned to compare Boyce’s charges against the other two deceased officers. Already, they had learned there were no crossover arrests.

Boyce’s funeral was tomorrow. Returning with Mateo to the bullpen, Ryan was aware of the tense buzz inside the precinct. Plainclothes and uniforms were talking about wearing Kevlars off duty and carrying second weapons. He worried the paranoia could cause someone to overreact out of fear. There had been a rise in requests for backup even for simple events like traffic stops.

“Beautiful,” Mateo grumbled as they sat down, jerking his chin toward the glass-walled briefing room. “We knew it was coming. All hail the asshole. Kimmel’s back.”

Seth stood inside the room with the captain and several others, once again in uniform after being cleared by Standards and Protocol. It had turned out the complaining civilian had a rap sheet in another state, effectively tarnishing the validity of his claims with the media. A nervous-looking rookie fidgeted beside Seth, probably his new partner. Seth smirked at Ryan through the glass. Jaw tight, Ryan ignored him and focused on his computer screen, checking his e-mail. Still no credit card records. He looked up again a short time later, overhearing Mateo’s side of a phone call that had just come through.

“We hit pay dirt on Lamar Simmons,” he said as he hung up. “He put one of his girls in the hospital last night. She’s had enough and claims to have information on LaShonda Butler’s murder.”

Rising, Mateo grabbed his suit jacket. “She’s at Mercy. C’mon. At least we can make headway somewhere.”

Ryan glanced to the bullpen’s large erasable board that held the names of homicide victims, the red marker they were written in identifying them as unsolved.

He figured Lydia was working today. He had phoned her last night, something he’d vowed not to do after seeing the photo of her with Varek while flipping through
The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
. The unexpected image in the society column—taken at a fancy fundraising event, the surgeon’s arm around her—had hurt. He had gone for a long run afterward, trying to blow off some steam, but all he’d done was nearly give himself heat stroke in the record temperature. Still, in a weak moment Ryan had called to wish her happy birthday, wanting to hear her voice. He hadn’t planned on seeing her today, not wanting to intrude on any plans she’d made. Mostly, he didn’t want to know if she would be spending her birthday with Varek.

The prospect of finally nailing Simmons offered some consolation, at least.

“Let’s go,” he said, standing.

It was a large hospital. He could avoid her if he chose.

*

Tuesday morning in the ER had been a busy one that showed no signs of slowing down.

“Fracture with a bisection of the femoral artery,” Ravi Kapoor called out as he burst through the lobby doors in front of Lydia. He straddled the patient, the bloodied gurney pushed by two EMTs. His gloved hands kept pressure on a gauze-packed wound above the unconscious woman’s left knee.

Lydia kept pace alongside the gurney, viewing the outcome of an MVA—a motor vehicle accident—on the Downtown Connector. Although the woman’s features were concealed by an oxygen mask, she appeared young, no more than mid-twenties. Her leg was badly mangled. “BP?”

“Eighty over fifty,” another of the paramedics supplied. “Tachycardic with a heart rate of one-thirty.”

Not good. Inside the suite, Lydia went about instructing the rapidly assembling team.

“We need another nurse in here!” someone yelled.

“There’s no time for a cross match. We’ve got O-neg, three units. Get that IV set up now!” Lydia pinned her gaze on one of the male residents as the gurney was being positioned. “Course of action, Dr. Massey?”

He hesitated. “Push two liters of fluid, then administer norepinephrine bitartrate to get the pressure up.”

“Not yet.” Lydia slipped on her safety glasses. She could feel her own pulse take flight. “That’s going to increase hemorrhaging. A shunt will temporarily restore blood flow around the injury—”

“If she doesn’t code first,” he pointed out.

Lydia’s jaw set with determination. “It’s the best way to save the leg and get her up to the OR, stat.”

The IV line was in. Keeping an eye on the heart monitor, she rattled off orders, knowing the plan would go rapidly south if the patient became unstable. She felt butterflies in her stomach. Massey was right. With an arterial laceration, even with the transfusion she was at risk of bleeding out if they spent too much time attempting to save the limb, but they had to try.

Ravi removed his hands from the gauze, and a resident took over for him in a single motion, maintaining pressure on the packed dressing. He climbed down from the gurney. “The kid’s coming in another rig, Lydia. They were still trying to extricate her when we pulled out.”

The radio had advised of the particulars—rear-end collision with a rollover. First driver dead at the scene, the second car with two victims: a mother and child. Lydia ignored the stab of emotion as she made the incision above the injury, carefully clamped the artery and went quickly to work, inserting and connecting the tubing.

Ten minutes later, the patient on the way up to the surgical ward, Lydia tore off her bloodied gloves and headed to the ER’s front. At nearly the same time, the red lights of the arriving second ambulance stained the vestibule walls.

Reaching the automatic doors as they slid open, her heart twisted at the blond ringlets visible at the head of the gurney. The child had been placed in a cervical collar and had a spine board between her body and the gurney padding. Lydia recognized the paramedic as Lynn Reed, a tall, large-boned woman with a nose ring and red hair shorn into a crew cut.

“Six-year-old female with recent loss of consciousness,” Lynn relayed tensely. “She was talking to us when we pulled in and just blacked out.”

Jogging beside the gurney, Lydia made a visual assessment. “Was she restrained?”

“In the backseat in a safety chair that wasn’t properly attached. It came loose in the crash. No discernible physical injury, but her speech was slurred, and she was complaining of a headache. Vitals still in the normal range.”

Lydia rolled her fist vigorously over the center of the child’s chest, attempting to wake her. “Can you hear me, sweetheart?”

No response. She stopped the gurney long enough to pry open one eye and then the other. She frowned at the uneven dilation. “We’ve got a blown right pupil. Let’s go.”

Lydia called to a nurse at the desk as they hurried past. “Let Neurology know we’re on our way up for a CT scan and don’t want to wait.”

As the elevator opened, she heard her name. Abe Solomon, the ER chief of staff, approached briskly from the hall, the tails of his white lab coat flapping.

“Hold the elevator,” he ordered.

The paramedic had entered at the head of the gurney, pulling it inside with her. Lydia pressed the button to keep the doors from sliding closed.

“What do you have?” Solomon asked as he reached them.

“Six-year-old with possible craniocerebral injury from an MVA,” Lydia said.

“Step off, Dr. Costa. Dr. Rossman will take it.” He called the resident over.

“I’ve got this,” Lydia stressed. Her protective instincts had kicked in. “The mother’s in the OR. She has an arterial laceration with significant blood loss. I’d like to stay with her—”

“Dr. Rossman.” Solomon eyed the resident sternly over the tops of his bifocals. Rossman had initially hung back at Lydia’s objection, but he pushed past her with an apologetic shrug. She stepped from the elevator, frustrated.

“She’s seizing!”

Lydia whirled. The child convulsed on the gurney, her thin limbs going rigid and her head jerking off the pillow. But Solomon’s hand on her arm barred her from getting back onto the elevator. He called for another of the attendings, who quickly joined the others, and the doors slid closed.

Anger and embarrassment tightened her throat. It wasn’t the first time she had been pulled off such a case. “I can handle a child emergency. If you don’t think I can do my job—”

“I have full confidence in your abilities, Dr. Costa. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be in my ER.” He cleared his throat, looking pained. “A word in my office? There’s a matter we need to discuss.”

Clearly, it wasn’t a request. With a sense of dread, Lydia asked a passing nurse to try to find relatives of the mother and child. Her back rigid, she followed Solomon down the hall.

*

Solomon’s office was a large, corner space with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of the adjacent university campus. He instructed Lydia to sit in one of the leather wing chairs while he took the seat behind his desk, its top crowded with neat stacks of papers and medical journals, as well as family photos. She waited for the reason she had been brought here.

“How are you, Lydia?” Inside his office, his tone had softened, and he’d switched to a first-name basis.

“I’m … fine.”

“I understand you changed schedules with Dr. Haan yesterday due to an emergency? Is everything all right?”

Feeling deceitful, Lydia repeated the lie she had given Rick. “The emergency wasn’t mine. An old friend from college was having a crisis, so I took the day off.”

At his evaluating gaze, Lydia pulled in a slow breath. “What’s this about, Abe?”

Removing his glasses, he sighed wearily and tossed them onto his desk. “There’s been a complaint about you. Ian Brandt claims you’ve been counseling his wife on matters outside your specialization.”

She wasn’t all that surprised.

“Not a
formal
, filed complaint, mind you,” he added, attempting to soften the blow. “But he did contact one of the board members he’s on good terms with to express his upset. As I’m sure you know, Mr. Brandt’s a recent, substantial contributor. The board member called me.”