Sean said, “Now!” He grabbed Peter and propelled him toward the open door.
“Peter!” Alexis shouted.
Sean heard gunfire and a searing bolt of pain shot up his calf. He rolled into the car; Peter stumbled and hit his head on the pole.
“Stay down!” Sean shouted.
Sean pushed back the pain and trained his gun toward the closing door. He saw Alexis’s stunned expression. Then she raised the gun to fire again, aiming at Sean, not Peter. Two teenagers ran behind Alexis toward the exit, preventing Sean from having a clear shot.
Sean rolled away from the door as Alexis fired again. The bullet hit the side of the train as the doors closed.
No one else was in the car. Peter lay on the floor, unmoving.
“Are you hurt?” Sean asked.
Peter didn’t say anything.
“Peter! Are you injured? Dammit, were you hit?” Sean crawled toward him.
“I’m okay,” he said, voice cracking. Shock.
“Are you sure?” Sean looked for visible signs of injury. Peter had a bump on his forehead from hitting the pole. Other than that, he was fine.
Sean waited until they were in the tunnel before he examined his own wound.
“You’re bleeding,” Peter said.
Sean took out his pocketknife and cut off his jeans at the knee. The bullet had gone through the muscle in his calf, straight through. Not serious, but he needed to stop the bleeding.
He cut the jean scrap into strips and tied one as a tourniquet right below his knee. Then he took off his T-shirt and tied it tight around the open wound.
This wasn’t the first time he’d been shot, nor would it be the worst, but damn, it hurt like hell. He pulled out his cell phone. No signal. He typed in a message to send as soon as he had one bar.
PM and I are on R train, will exit at Whitehall. Please meet there with first-aid kit.
“Peter, listen to me. Alexis Sanchez is not an FBI agent. She was at the FBI Academy for the past four weeks in training. Why, I have no idea. It may have been to collect information, or to target someone. She may have killed a federal agent, tried to kill another. Her sister was Camille Todd, who was kidnapped and murdered around the same time as your sister. I don’t have all the answers, but if she has the chance, she will kill you.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Noah had been on the phone for the last ten minutes while driving to the Whitehall subway station in lower Manhattan, talking with NYPD and the FBI to determine what went on at the 95th Street subway stop. Police were already on the scene and Alexis Sanchez was gone. Suzanne and Detective DeLucca were getting a copy of the security tapes and Lucy hoped they provided some answers. She had a lot of questions.
Sean didn’t say who’d been shot, but Lucy knew it was Sean. If it was Peter, Sean would have told her to call an ambulance.
As soon as they arrived, Noah flashed his badge at the cashier and he and Lucy were let through the kiosk. They ran down the stairs while Lucy dialed Sean. “We’re here,” she said.
“I have Peter under the sign on the west side of the station.”
“West side,” Lucy said to Noah.
“I see him.”
Sean was sitting bare-chested on a bench, his bloody leg out in front of him. He had a hand on Peter, who looked like he wanted to bolt.
“It’s not serious,” Sean said by way of greeting. “Just grazed.”
By the amount of blood, it wasn’t just a graze.
“Lucy, escort Mr. McMahon to the car; I’ll assist Rogan.”
“I can walk,” Sean said, standing. He hobbled toward the elevator.
“Manning,” Peter said. “I legally changed my name to Gray Manning. But I guess you can call me Peter.”
“We have a lot to discuss,” Noah said. “But I don’t like this exposure.”
“I have a safe hotel,” Sean said.
“We’re going to the Bureau,” Noah countered. He glanced at Peter, assessing, then looked at Lucy.
Lucy knew what Noah wanted. What kind of state of mind was Peter in?
“Peter,” she said softly, “we need to talk about what’s been happening. You may have information that’s vital to finding Kip Todd and Alexis Sanchez. Are you up for it? We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t crucial.”
“Okay,” he said, still in a daze.
She nodded at Noah, and Noah said, “Just for a debrief. Then you can secure him, Rogan.” He looked at Sean’s leg. “I can get a protective detail.”
“I’m fine.”
“Hardly,” Lucy muttered.
“I heard that.”
Noah drove and Lucy sat in the back with Sean. She turned on the lights and took off the shirt he had wrapped around his leg. “This isn’t a graze,” she said.
“Do we need a hospital?” Noah asked.
“Yes,” Lucy said at the same time Sean said, “No.”
Sean said, “I’m not going to the hospital. The bleeding has stopped. It was a twenty-two. The hole isn’t much bigger than a bee sting, and that’s what it feels like.”
“You need stitches.”
“Maybe one stitch. You can handle that, princess.”
She glared at him. He smiled.
“Bureau,” Sean said. Lucy decided to let it go. There’d been a lot of blood, but Sean was right-the damage was minimal.
She cleaned and taped the entry and exit wounds, then bandaged the leg. “You should still get checked out.”
“Time enough when we catch the Todds,” Sean said.
“Were you followed?” Noah asked.
“No. Sanchez was following Peter. Where were you coming from?” Sean asked Peter.
“I had a staff meeting this afternoon; stopped at a place I often eat dinner. I didn’t want to go home after talking to Charlie.”
“They could have followed him from school,” Sean said.
“How did they know where I teach? How’d they know my name?”
“I don’t think they did, not at first,” Lucy said. “I haven’t seen the evidence from Kip Todd’s apartment, but going on what Suzanne said, he spotted you in the city back in March. He knew you were here.”
“It’s a big city,” Noah said. “Peter was a needle.”
“Not really. Alexis, when she was Cami, knew Peter was studying early childhood education. It was reasonable to think that Peter had become a teacher. If they troll the Internet for staff, they might get a hit, but seeing Peter in the city narrowed them to this region.”
Sean said, “Never underestimate someone determined to find you. It’s extremely difficult to go completely off the grid, even with a name change and new Social Security number.”
Noah added, “They may have hired someone to do it.”
“She could have had anything on me,” Peter said. “We were together for over year.”
Sean said, “Peter, you said you thought you were being watched. When did it start?”
“It’s been on and off. I always felt safe at home, but after I read about Rosemary Weber’s murder I had a feeling my life was going to be turned upside down. Anytime there’s another article in the paper, I wait for reporters to track me down. After I changed my name and moved to Brooklyn, I thought it would end.”
“How did Sanchez get to New York so fast?” Sean asked.
Noah said, “She left Quantico at three in the afternoon and told the gate she was going to a drugstore. She never returned. Her car was found at Dulles long-term parking, and she boarded a four thirty-two flight to JFK, no luggage.”
“Do you know what tipped her off?” Sean asked.
Lucy had worried she’d said or done something, but she couldn’t think what. “No. She was gone before I pulled her personnel records and discovered the connection with New Jersey.”
“If I had to bet,” Sean said, “it came from that lowlife street thief who pawned the ring.”
“How so?”
“NYPD released him; what if he went back to Todd and told him about the interview? Maybe Todd got antsy and called his sister.”
“We’re pulling her cell phone records and all Todd’s records, but so far we’ve found nothing,” Noah said.
“They could have burner phones,” Sean said.