I stayed bent over the wheel, pedal to the floor. There were a loud crunch and a scream as I hit the shooter’s door with him wedged behind it.
I kept going, flying toward Harrison with driving rain coming through my empty windows. Bullets pinged into my car’s chassis and took out my rear window. One after the other, my rear tires blew out. The gas tank would be next.
My car shimmied and hydroplaned as I came to the end of Harriet, and when I took a hard, jackknifing left turn onto Harrison, I nearly lost control.
Horns blared from all sides and panicky drivers jumped lanes to get out of my way. I couldn’t see much through the rain in my eyes, but the Hall of Justice loomed on my left. I sped to Eighth, taking turns onto one-way streets until I cruised to a creaking stop, halting my battered ride beside two cruisers that were parallel-parked in front of the Hall.
A couple of uniformed cops were standing on the side-walk staring out at the mess I’d made of Bryant Street traffic.
I yelled out to them, “I need some help here.”
My badge was hanging from a ball chain around my neck. I held it up to the window frame.
The cops came over and took a look at me. One said, “Mother of God.” And the other leaned in and asked, “How bad are you hurt?”
My face prickled like I’d been stung by a hundred bees, and I could feel blood trickling down my collar. I was soaked and freezing, but I hadn’t been shot.
“I’m OK,” I said. “There’s been a shooting around the corner on Harriet, couple blocks down. There are multiple heavily armed suspects still on the scene. Call all cars and be very careful. And get an ambulance. Someone got hurt.”
CHAPTER 64
I PHONED CONKLIN from the street, and what I said scared him enough that he and Brady met me before I could reach the front steps of the Hall.
Conklin said, “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“Thanks, but no way. I wasn’t hit.”
He insisted and I shut him down.
“I’m cold and wet and, yeah, shaken up, but not shot.”
We repaired to Brady’s office forthwith. I gave him my gun and he got on the phone and ordered the armorer to get me a new one. Then he called Jacobi.
Conklin found a blanket in the break room and draped it around my shoulders and was pulling splinters of glass out of my cheeks and hair when Claire knocked on the glass. Who called her? Brady?
Claire took one long look and said, “My God, Lindsay. I just heard. Come with me.”
“What for?” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Come with me, sweetie. Come on.”
I grumbled but followed my doctor friend to the ladies’ room, where she said, “You only get out of going to the hospital if I say so.”
I submitted. I took off my clothes.
Claire gave me a full 360-degree inspection, saying “Oh, my God,” at the sight of my bruises. She turned me gently around, lifted my arms, and ran her fingers over my scalp.
Finally, she said, “If you feel good enough to go home, you get a pass.”
“I should be dead,” I said, my chattering teeth biting my words into syllables. “Those shits knew my movements. They waited for me and were determined to kill me. Why? And now I killed one of them.”
“Come home with me tonight,” Claire said.
“I can’t. I’ll be OK, Claire. Brady will keep eyes on me, put cars in front of my place. I’ll be fine.”
Brady was still on the phone when I returned to his office. I sat with Conklin, and as Brady talked to whomever, I sifted through the events of the last half hour. The best outcome would be if the man I crushed behind his car door was alive so that I could get him to talk. God knew, I wanted answers.
Brady took another call. He listened, said, “Thanks,” then hung up.
He said, “The guy you hit with your car, Boxer—”
“Yes?”
“He walked away. Or his friends scraped him up and threw him into the trunk. There was no corpse on Harriet.”
I had a moment of relief, and then the next thought rolled over me like a tidal wave.
We had no suspects or witnesses, no IDs, no plate numbers. The men who’d attacked me could be heading for LA or Mexico or points east, or hell, they could be idling their engines on Bryant, waiting to take another crack at me.
“Here’s your new gun,” Brady said, handing over a Glock identical to my old one. “The chief ’s on the way down.”
Damn it. Now I was going to have to tell this story to Jacobi.
CHAPTER 65
CHIEF OF POLICE Warren Jacobi is big and gray-haired and he walks with a limp because of two bullets he took to the hip on a bad night in the Tenderloin. I was also shot that night, but unlike Jacobi, I remained conscious and called for help. That night Jacobi and I bonded for life.
Over the last dozen years, Jacobi has been my partner, my subordinate, and now my boss. I stood up when he entered Brady’s small office. He reached out and folded me into a gentle hug.
My eyes welled up and I dried them on his jacket.
“I’m OK. I’m really OK.”
He released me and shook his head.
“Boxer, I want you to listen to me. You’re a target. I don’t know why, and from what I hear, you don’t know, either. And I know you weren’t careless or stupid. Regardless, you’ve been beat up and chased and shot at, and next time these guys get you in their sights—I don’t need to spell it out, do I? So don’t fight me. Don’t make me pull rank. Just do what I say. Take some time off. Leave town until we nail these guys.”
As I listened to Jacobi’s litany, something inside me heated up and boiled the hell over. I went off. I just blew.
“With all due respect, Jacobi, that’s a load of bull. It was bad, but I handled it. That’s what the job is. I hardly have a scratch on me. So stop treating me like a victim. I’m fully functional and absolutely sane. This is my case and I’m on it. OK? OK?”
I went to my desk and typed up a report. I handed it to Brady, then went down to the street and emptied my glove box and got my bag out of the front footwell before my fatally crippled Explorer was loaded onto a flatbed truck and taken out to the forensics lab.
Conklin drove me home. I didn’t talk during the ride, but I grabbed his hand and squeezed it before I got out of his car. And then he came around and opened the passenger door. I gave him a look that should have stopped him.
“Shut up,” he said. “I’m going in with you.”
Once inside my apartment, I greeted our nanny and said good night and good-bye to my partner. I showered, then ate something with tomato sauce, I don’t remember what.
I played blocks with my daughter and put her to bed. After that, I rechecked the locks and the security system and looked out at the patrol cars parked down on the street. I put my gun on the night table, and then I got into bed with Martha and fell asleep. I didn’t think and I didn’t dream.
When I woke up in the morning I was madder than I’d ever been before in my life. I understood now that I was being treated like an orphaned kitten not just because I had been repeatedly attacked and almost killed. It was also because Joe had left me without a word.
The men who’d tried to kill me would answer for what they’d done if it was the last thing I did in my life.
And that went for my husband, too.