The Ex File (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 1) (17 page)

Sean and Dubs were over talking by the SWAT table when a lot of commotion was kicked up by something called ‘white alpha four’.  The detectives looked at each other in confusion until the commander informed them that the snipers had spotted Pia in the fourth window on the ground floor facing them. He didn’t have any info on Ellie, which was disheartening, at least, until the door to the comm. van flew open and Nico summoned him with a crook of the finger.

“Knock ‘em dead,” Dubs said, and then thought about it, “but not literally.”

Sean snorted and looked at his friend, whose pale cheeks filled with a chagrinned blush. “Remember what I said about you being supportive?”

Right before the door closed behind him, the SWAT operators, with the help of State Police SWAT, took up positions and made ready to storm the building as soon as the word came down.

Nico led him through the van and paused outside the door to his enclave. “Okay, here’s the deal. She’s been trying to call you, according to the phone company, but her number has been cut off due to all this. You are here in an advisory capacity only, we clear?” Sean nodded immediately, wanting nothing more than to facilitate Ellie’s safe return. Everything else was secondary. Nico nodded in appreciation for his quick agreement, and opened the door.

‘Everything else’ apparently included Arturo, who was sitting at the small table next to the other negotiator.

“I assume you two can get along long enough to make this happen?” Nico was asking both of them, but looking directly at Arturo. Sean could only guess what sort of bilious rage his former father-in-law had dumped onto Nico.

When they both nodded, he gestured for Sean to have a seat and grab the headset he had plugged in to the box in the middle of the table. They sat in silence as the phone dialed, and they were all provided with notebooks to pass them information if it was pertinent.

“Hello,” Pia answered in a sexy purr. It was a voice that Sean remembered quite well.

“Ms. Mastriani, my name is Nico Verrazzano from the Indianapolis Police Department. Are you okay in there?”

“Oh, please call me Pia, Officer Verrazzano. Like the bridge, I’m assuming?”

Nico’s wide eyes met Sean’s because she was the first person west of Pennsylvania who got the reference. “Yes, actually. The same. You’ve been to Staten Island, I take it?”

“I have family there, yes.”

Sean rolled his eyes as he listened to Pia, the one he knew, exchange pleasantries with Nico for a while as they got acquainted. It was more dinner party than negotiation, very strange. The whole time they spoke, Nico and his compatriot made notes and passed them back and forth between each other.

He dug through his pocket and pulled out his pen.
SWAT?
He held the notebook up for Nico, who promptly shook his head.

Too soon. They are ready to go on my mark
.

Not comforting, but Sean didn’t write that down. Next to him, Arturo sat, looking mute and stricken, like he was listening to a stranger, one he’d thought he’d known, only to find out he’d been greatly deceived.

“So when do I get to speak to Sean?” Pia had apparently tired of the minor verbal games in which she and Nico were engaged. If Sean had thought about it earlier, Nico would have been the perfect guy to whom he could have directed her attention, but even then, that seemed a bit cruel.

“Well,” Nico sounded regretful and shook his head at Sean to remind him to remain silent, “that depends on you. This is a negotiation, after all. Give and take.”

“I see.” Pia sounded disappointed, but only for a moment. “And I suppose you just want me to give you the hostage.”

Nico slid a note to Sean with one word:
depersonalization
. Not a good thing at all. “Ideally, yes, you releasing Ellie unharmed would be an excellent show of good faith.” He used her name to remind Pia that she was dealing with a human being and not an object to be discarded.

Pia’s derisive laugh made Sean’s skin crawl. “No deal. For that, you’d have to give me Sean, and I know that’s not how your game is played.”

Sean sat up straight with volunteering on his mind and was on the receiving end of a scolding finger from Nico. This time he held up his notebook for all to see:
DO NOT
. Sean receded back into his chair; there’d be no trade. “Okay, well then let’s talk about what it would take to get both you and Ellie out of there unharmed. Is there something you want?”

“Sean, of course. I mean, I forgive him. I know I was away for a long time, and a man has needs, but now that I’m back, I want him leave this…” she trailed off, and the tension was so high, Sean caught himself leaning toward the speaker, “
thing
he calls a girlfriend and come back to someone who is worthy of him. Someone who really appreciates him.” That was the second time she’d chosen not to identify Ellie by name, and Sean felt the fear so intensely his fingers began to curl with it.

Nico slid a note to his compatriot, who opened the door only long enough to hand the note off. Then the younger man sat down and put an earpiece hooked to a police radio in his ear.

“And you appreciate him, don’t you?”

“Well, of course. I mean, that’s why I sent her away in the first place. I knew he wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate the depth of my devotion to him with that fat troll at his side. So when he got shot, I had my father send her away. And you want to know the galling thing? The little swine actually left. Like he wasn’t worth her time. And Sean takes
her
back, no problem, after she abandoned him, so I don’t see why he can’t do the same with me once she’s gone.”

Sean blew out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding while Pia spoke. She sounded completely mystified and affronted at his behavior, like his refusing her was some sort of simple misunderstanding between them that could be remedied with Ellie out of the way. Like she’d been before. He turned to look at Arturo, who was staring at his fat fingers folded on the table in front of him. A sweaty pallor had settled over the man, and he refused to make eye contact. That was probably for the best.

Nico’d had a hand over his mouth as he listened to her diatribe and pulled his face taut before he spoke again. “But Ellie leaving would upset Sean, and if you love him like you say you do, wouldn’t that be a problem for you?”

“He’ll get over it,” Pia said dismissively. “He did before. Besides, this isn’t his fault. If she’d listened when I told her to leave him alone so he could come back to me, then she wouldn’t be in this situation. Instead she sent her little minion with that horrible recording… The troll knew what would happen if she defied me. This was her own choice.”

He looked to Nico, now completely terrified for Ellie and unable to do anything about it. Nico was in a note conversation with his partner, and then he held up his notebook again:
In position and on the count.

Sean looked from his academy classmate to the falling night outside. All he could do now was wait and hope.

* * *

Ellie listened to Pia’s half of the conversation with little interest. She could have told them she was completely irrational, and the more she spoke only confirmed it in her mind. It didn’t even bother her when the woman referred to her as a troll and a swine, because her crazy-to-English translator had kicked in a long time ago and all she heard was ‘Threat’. If whoever was on the phone didn’t figure this out soon, she was pretty sure she was going to die, soon, among the tomatoes.

She’d managed to loosen her gag by wetting her lips and letting the moisture dissolve the adhesive on the back of the tape, but that did little more than get some more air into her lungs to stave off her rapidly soaring panic. The more agitated her captor became, the more she gesticulated with the gun, and through work Ellie had seen more than enough bad outcomes from ‘accidental discharge’. Though in Pia’s case, she would lay money it would be accidently on purpose.

Once the person on the other end of the phone brought up the recording, Ellie knew these were probably her last few moments. Pia’s jerky movements, her burgeoning tears as she discussed her meeting with Josh, not surprisingly matching the story Ellie had been told, only served to punctuate her conclusion.

Behind her was a shuffling noise, like a rat maybe, bigger than a mouse but not by much. She wasn’t bothered by rats and mice, but she figured that might not help Pia’s already frantic state.

Pia turned suddenly, and Ellie got the first good look at her eyes in a long time. Wide, wild, they reminded Ellie of a feral cat. “If you’re not going to either put Sean on the phone or send him in here, then we have nothing else to say.”

Ellie refused to release her gaze, hoping that somehow she could communicate to Pia her humanity, her desire to continue living. When she raised the pistol, the room exploded, literally. Behind her, the door she’d been led though exploded into the room, and it got bright. Crazy flashes of light and noise, maddening, vociferous noise. She may have cried out, but maybe not, because she could no longer hear herself. Suddenly there were black clad bodies everywhere with guns. Huge freakin’ guns.

The dock doors came up, cutting the smoke that had filled the room down to a wisp almost immediately and Ellie could see, kind of. Pia’s body on the floor like a crushed marionette, the kind green eyes of the SWAT operator cutting her free from the chair and removed her gag, Sean tearing into the room at full tilt. She rose to meet him, well, tried to, but her legs had turned to rubber and she collapsed into Sean’s arms just as he got to her.

He was crushing her to him, kissing her forehead, her face, and saying something, but her ears had yet to recover, so all she heard was the buzz of at least a hundred different voices and the comforting vibrations of his chest against her ear. She tried to speak, but still couldn’t quite hear herself, couldn’t breathe. Like the excitement had pressed the air right out of her.

Sean’s eyes were so blue, especially now, almost shiny with tears. He looked at her face, his fingers sliding down her cheek, her lips, into her hair, and then his expression changed. She couldn’t hear what he said, but he pulled back from her briefly and looked down. Her eyes followed his and she could see blood, so much blood. Somehow he’d managed to get shot in the melee. She opened her mouth to call to someone, get him help, but then the medics were there, as if by magic.

They stretched Ellie out onto the floor, but she was fine, and tried to tell them so, but there was this cough, this metallic-flavored explosion from her chest, followed by pain, so bad the edges of her vision washed white. Slowly sounds were coming back to her, odd words and phrases like ‘tension pneumo’, ‘stay with me’, and ‘you’re gonna be okay’ which always reminded her of
Reservoir Dogs
, where it was most certainly
not
the case. The medic fit an oxygen mask over her face for some reason, but still no one had checked Sean.

Ellie clawed at the mask and pulled the medic closest to her down to where she didn’t have to speak loudly. “He’s been shot. He won’t tell you, but look at him. This is just an asthma attack or something. I’m fine. That isn’t my blood on my shirt.”

The SWAT medic looked to Sean who was at her side in an instant. “Don’t talk. You’re gonna be fine.” It was the first thing he’d said that she understood, and tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

The paramedics loaded her onto a gurney and prepped her for transport, cutting her shirt away for some reason. Not that she liked the shirt, but she was pretty sure it was a very bad sign. It was only then that she realized that Sean had her blood on his shirt, not the other way around. She met his eyes as he climbed into the meat wagon behind her, her hand stretched out reaching for him, and that was the last thing she saw.

The ride to the hospital in the back of the ambulance was sheer, unadulterated hell for Sean. And he thought his day had been going badly before. Ellie had signed off her broadcast day as soon as he sat on the bench in the back of the medic. She’d reached for him as they cut off her shirt, and as soon as she saw the blood, and knew it to be hers, she’d passed out. He didn’t blame her, she’d had a worse day than his by far.

As soon as she lost consciousness, Sean was directed back to his seat as the medic worked on her. It was like watching a foreign film in a language he only somewhat understood. ‘LOC’, ‘diminished breath sounds’, ‘SATs’, it was all just noise to him, words without sense behind them. He’d try to ask questions, hold her hand, let her know he was there, only to be directed back to his seat with varying degrees of sternness. As much as he wanted to fight them, he knew there was damn little he could do, and was reduced to sitting still, quietly entreating her to hang on and keep fighting. He would never, ever, forgive himself if she succumbed to her injuries.

The paramedics put a flap over the hole in her chest with the hope that it would reinflate the lung, and though they discussed putting a tube down her throat when she lost consciousness, she held her own and continued breathing without their intervention, just to spite them. Though it was only about five minutes tops to the hospital from the scene, it may as well as have been five days. Josh had led the caravan of police cars to the hospital, and was out waiting when they arrived.

Ellie was wheeled into the emergency room and whisked off to x-ray, and she never woke up. The speed at which everyone was moving told Sean all he needed to know. She wasn’t at death’s door exactly, but she might be coming up the block toward his house.

Right before they wheeled her away to operate, he smoothed her curls back from her forehead and kissed her. The whole time, he never left her side. The day faded into a blur after that, and there was talking, so much talking. Talking to homicide, to his supervisor, to the brass, the critical incident response team, Sean was all talked out by the time they showed him to her private room in the ICU. Honestly, he was grateful for the privacy.

He kissed her cool forehead before taking the chair closest to the bed. Ellie looked small and frail. Tubes and wires everywhere, and a hint of heavy gauze padding taped down on her shoulder peeping out from under the neck of her gown. She was, however, still breathing on her own, other than the oxygen tube under her nose. Sean expected nothing less, though, from his girl. While she may have avoided conflict in general, she would stand and fight when she had to. “And oh lord, baby girl, you have to,” he laced his fingers with hers on the bed as he got comfortable, “for me.”

Sean had sent the nurse to get Josh and Dane from the quiet room, because he knew El would want to see them when she awakened. Dubs had been kind enough to head to his house and take care of Guinness, so all Sean had to do was sit with her tonight.

Since she’d gone into surgery, his mind kept replaying his fight with Josh, more to the point, the conversation immediately prior. Sean supposed that he’d always known she’d loved him, it was in everything about her when they were together. Her smile, her laugh, obviously her kiss. He also thought back to his life before Pia. The time they’d spent together, just enjoying each other’s company, keeping each other sane when the world around them rebelled. He couldn’t honestly say what he’d have done if she’d told him she’d loved him then, but he knew what he would give to have that conversation with her now. And they would, just as soon as she opened her eyes.

Her hair was a raven bramble around her head, like the worst case of bedhead, ever, and if she woke to that, she would not be happy. He made a mental note to ask the nurses if they had a brush or something. A smile canted about his lips as he traced her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. She looked the same, if a little pale, but nothing different than her normal, vibrant self. He wasn’t quite so lucky.

While he hadn’t really noticed the aftereffects of the tussle he’d had with Josh in the alley while El was still in the building, now that he’d had a chance to relax a bit with her upgraded condition, he was feeling every ache and bruise acutely. The nurse who’d taken him to the room had offered him another ice bag for his face and maybe some tape for his ribs. He’d declined, but was now thinking better of it.

Josh hadn’t looked so good, either, and even worse than he did immediately following the fight. He’d had the benefit of Dane working on him not too long afterward, but Sean hadn’t been so lucky. They really didn’t get a chance to talk until El went into surgery and the nurse had shown him to the misnamed ‘quiet room’ to wait.

Misnamed because it seemed everyone on the department had been crammed in there, intent to wait with him. Awash in people, white shirts, members of the mayor’s entourage which only boded really bad things, detectives, and guys from the district all in the chairs and at the tables, all awaiting word on her condition. The only open spot had been the chair between Dane and Josh.

Though they hadn’t had a chance to talk since the fight, the atmosphere between Sean and El’s friend had relaxed considerably. “Critical mass?” Josh asked without looking up from his phone.

“Reached that a while ago,” Sean replied with a rueful laugh. From the corner of his eye, he saw the younger man nod in response, maybe sympathy. Figuring now was as good a time as any, he’d bitten the bullet. “I’m sorry.”

It was Josh’s turn to snicker. “Me, too.”

Sean had been gratified to know that when El woke up, no matter how irritated she would be about their brawl, it was settled and they could both focus on her recovery. “She’s gonna be pissed.”

“Like we’ve never seen,” Josh agreed immediately.

They’d both looked at each other then and it felt good to smile, for at least a moment. He’d been starting to worry he’d forgotten how. Now that he knew she was going to be okay, his lips curled a little easier. All he needed was for her to open her eyes, and he would be okay again.

The floor nurse ushered Josh and Dane into the room, and brought Sean an ice pack anyway. He’d told the staff they were family and though it was now well past visiting hours, they all took chairs and sat in vigil around her bed. Quiet slithered in and covered every inch of the room, and his eyes drooped with every drop from her IV. Before he knew it, he was dead to the world, his fingers still linked with hers at her bedside.

* * *

The quiet was unnerving, the bed uncomfortable, and what in all fuck was up her nose? Ellie reached for the nasal canula with her right hand, only to ignite a symphony of pain from her shoulder to her chest and down her arm. The pain left her breathless, but she knew better than to cough, or breathe too deeply, though why she didn’t really recall.

Her left hand was bound somehow, and she opened her eyes a little and found Sean, his fingers twined with hers, with his eyes closed and his mouth opened as he slept in the chair next to her. At the end of the bed, in opposite corners of the room were Josh and Dane, both sleeping soundly as well.

“What… happened?” She tried to poll the whole room, but her throat was on fire and felt like it had gone five rounds with a belt sander. She needed water and an explanation, not necessarily in that order.

Ellie squeezed Sean’s hand with hers, though she felt weak and still so tired. When he turned his head toward her, his eyes half open, she tried again. “What happened?” Her words felt thick and fuzzy, but she could at least string them together with one breath, which was an improvement.

Sean remained still for a moment and then blinked and shook his head. “El?” he asked the question softly, almost like he didn’t want to fully commit to it if he were simply dreaming, running a hand through his hair and turning her way. When he met her eyes, her dark, clearly stoned eyes, he practically jumped out of his chair. “El!”

At his exclamation, the other two occupants of the room stirred. Dane, in a tight navy blue IAFF shirt and khakis, and Josh in his requisite pale blue polo and jeans. They were all talking at once, and Sean was covering her face in kisses, and she found she was way too high on the pain meds to follow any of it coherently.

The nurse came in, a saucy little redhead in Betty Boop scrubs, checked her vitals, and got her a glass of water, for which Ellie was eternally grateful. She left with a warning to the whole room to keep it down and—to her especially—to not push herself physically.

Ellie waited until Dane shut the door and sat back down. “So is someone going to tell me what happened? I’m real close to asking for more pain meds, and I have yet to hear a good reason why.” She was gratified to hear that her voice got better with the water, but it was still not up to par.

She looked to Josh, who looked to Sean, who looked to Dane, who had the sense to cross his arms and say, “I am so not involved.”

After playing musical dirty looks, Ellie wiggled until she was sitting up more in the bed. “Fine. We’ll start with an easier one.” She looked hard at Josh before returning her attention to Sean. “What happened to your face? Faces, whatever.”

Another looked passed between Josh and Sean, a kind of mental conversation that had Dane rolling his eyes. It finally ended when Josh shrugged and Sean nodded. Ellie looked at him expectantly.

Sean’s cheeks flushed as he ran his fingers through his hair then rolled his head around his shoulders. “See… what had happened was—”

“Oh, it’s like that?” ‘What had happened was…’ was a kind of department-wide code for ‘I did something spectacularly stupid that seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.’ At his hangdog expression, she began to laugh. Laughing was quite possibly the worst idea ever, as each giggle was a new tidal wave of pain. As she calmed herself, the bed dipped behind her as Sean rubbed her back and Josh held her hand.

Before Dane could make good on his threat to get the nurse, she held up a hand and resituated herself in the bed. Groping on the table next to her, she came up with a box of tissues and dabbed her eyes. “Damn. That was unexpected.”

“You’re okay now?” Dane was standing with his hand on the doorknob, ready to go at the first sign of distress.

She smiled at Josh’s boyfriend, grateful to have him in her life now as an extension of Josh. “I’m fine.”

The big guy nodded and let go of the handle, only to be hit by the door opening. “What the hell, man?” he asked, rubbing his shoulder while looking marginally affronted.

“Good, you’re awake. I was hoping to get a chance to speak to you.”

Pia’s father closed the door behind him and crept a little further into the room, seemingly buoyed by the stunned silence of the group.

Sean recovered himself first and stood up, positioning himself between Arturo and Ellie. “Get the hell out of here. You are not welcome.”