As she praised Adonai as the ruler of the universe more times than she had in the past decade, she found a carotid pulse. It was rapid and not as strong as she thought his normal pulse would be but it was there. Satisfied that he was alive and in reasonably good shape, she began to surreptitiously pat him down, looking for something, anything, she could use against Barbara.
As she searched, she continued to pray, now pulling out of her memory every Hebrew phrase she could remember, the Yiddish her grandparents had used when they were trying to keep the grandkids from knowing what they were talking about, even a couple words she thought might sound vaguely like Hebrew. It all flowed from her mouth like water in the river Jordan.
She swore she saw Jake smiling.
Barbara eventually lost patience with her. “Get it over with. He’s dead. Finish. You’ve upset my plans enough by coming home early. I need you over here where I can see what you’re doing while I think.
“I’m almost finished,” Danny said. She wasn’t sure how Barbara thought she could get away with ridding herself of all three of them but that was Barbara’s problem. Hers was trying to find something she could use to help her prevent any more shooting before Sam arrived and found a way in.
One last pass of patting down Jake’s pockets and one last iteration of “Baruch atah Adonai” and she was almost ready to stand up when she found his cell phone, in a jeans pocket she’d apparently missed on her first pass. At last, something that might be of help. She hoped Jake had Sam’s number programmed in. All she had to do was find it, call it, and make enough noise that Barbara didn’t hear him answer.
Right. Not a problem.
Turned out, it wasn’t. As if she were on Danny’s wavelength, Kaylea suddenly began to moan and scream as loud as she could around the newly reapplied gag. Barbara was forced to tend to her again, giving Danny the chance to find Sam’s number, press it, and put the phone beside Jake. She heard her partner answer and when he did she yelled, “Kaylea, are you all right? Barbara, what’s wrong with her? Is that gag too tight?”
Sam stopped talking, like she wanted him to do.
Barbara was frantically pacing back and forth between the pantry and the back of the kitchen, between her moaning captive and Danny.
“Stop it. Both of you. I’ll shoot you both if you don’t shut up.”
Danny signaled to Kaylea to be quiet. Then she stood and said, “Thank you, Barbara, for letting me do that.”
Barbara barely acknowledged Danny so intent was she on figuring out how to manage two live hostages and one she thought was dead. Apparently she had originally wanted to leave two dead bodies for Danny to find when she got home from work but had to abandon that when Danny arrived home early. Now, she kept muttering about ways to get all three of them someplace where she could “take care of them.” For one freaky moment she actually seemed to ask Danny for advice before shaking her head and continuing to talk out with herself the options.
All of which made Danny believe Barbara had been pushed to the limit and was unstable. Which made her very, very dangerous.
Finally Barbara seemed to have decided on a plan. She looked at Danny and said, “I need your help getting him,” she pointed with the weapon toward Jake, “in the car. We can carry him between us. And I want her in handcuffs,” here she nodded at Kaylea, “so it looks like you’re arresting her. That way, we can all leave together. You’ll drive. He’ll be in the front seat. She’ll be handcuffed in the back seat with me.” She paused for a moment. “You do have handcuffs, don’t you?”
Danny had a hard time not doing some kind of happy dance. There was a carving set in her dining room. If she could get to it, she’d be armed with something. “If I do, they’ll be in that leather case I put on the dining room table. I’ll go get them.”
“No, you stay right where you are. I’ll go get them,” Barbara said.
Once again Kaylea slipped an arm out of the cording that bound her to the chair and pulled at the towel over her mouth. “Run, Danny. Get help.” she yelled.
“Dammit,” Barbara screamed. “Stay where you are.” Her voice was thin and tense. She gestured again with the gun and said to Danny, “Go get the handcuffs but no messing around in there. Get them and come back here. I’ll take care of missy over there.” She went to the back of the kitchen and Danny headed for the dining room.
When she got to the other side of the dining room table, Danny pulled out a couple zip ties from her bag and said, in a conversational tone, “Barbara, I don’t have handcuffs but I do have plastic zip ties. We use them in place of handcuffs sometimes. Will that work for you?” She stuck two into her pants pocket as she spoke.
Barbara didn’t turn to respond. She was concentrating too much on the squirming Kaylea in front of her. Danny nodded at Kaylea who went into another episode of noise making and moving around. Barbara, seemingly frustrated at her inability to control the half-bound woman, put her weapon on the breakfast room table and yanked hard on the restraint, clearly hurting Kaylea with the action.
Danny had started toward the sideboard, where the carving set was, when she heard the soft but distinctive sound of her front door opening and the click of her partner’s cowboy boots on the wooden floor in the living room behind her.
She’d never been so glad to hear any sound in her life.
Sam doused the dining room light, came up behind Danny, and whispered, “So, what’s the plan, partner?”
Danny whispered back, “No plan. So far, it’s been strictly seat-of-the-pants.”
“I’ve trained you well, Grasshopper. Where’s your weapon?”
“Barbara has it.”
“I take it back. I haven’t trained you well enough yet. Good thing one of us is still armed.”
“Shut up, Sam. Where’s the rest of our backup?”
“A bunch of our friends are outside waiting for me to tell them what to do. But I figured we could take care of this ourselves and let them do the cleanup.”
“Then let’s get it done.”
Motioning him to move to the right-hand side of the door to the kitchen, she went to the left just as Barbara finished re-securing Kaylea. A frown crossed Barbara’s face as she looked out into the darkened dining room. Picking up her gun, she walked to the door of the room.
“What’s going on out here?” she asked.
Danny and Sam each grabbed an arm and lifted her off the ground and she found out. With a sharp chop to Barbara’s right wrist, Danny disarmed her. Without firing a shot they had the situation under control.
While Danny used the zip ties on Barbara, Sam signaled for the rest of the backup team to come in and got the EMTs for Jake. He was marginally conscious as they loaded him onto the gurney and Danny thought he was trying to say something to her. She knew if she went to him she would break down so she concentrated on getting Kaylea untied and onto a second gurney so she, too, could be taken to the hospital.
After both Kaylea and Jake were gone and Barbara was on her way to the Justice Center, Danny collapsed into a dining room chair. “Well, I doubt I’ll ever want to cook a meal in there again,” she said, nodding toward the kitchen.
“It’ll be fine once it’s cleaned up. And the doc didn’t look too bad when they hauled him out of there. You did good, partner. You kept her talking and engaged until we could get in. You should get a commendation for this.”
“Save the awards and decorations for later. I’m just glad it’s over and we caught the fucker. Although she wasn’t exactly who I thought the fucker would be.”
Sam laughed. “Me neither. But I’m not about to tell anyone that. L.T. wants to hear from you … from us. Even if you’re not happy with how this all turned out, he will be. Shall I tell him to meet us at the hospital?”
“Yeah, I want to get to the hospital and see how … see how Kaylea is.”
“Yeah, you go see how Kaylea is.” Sam punched her lightly on the upper arm. “Who you trying to fool, Hartmann, about who you’re going to see?”
She sighed. “Me, I guess.”
“And how’s that working for you?”
“Not well.”
Kaylea and Jake were taken to the same hospital where Sam had been treated when he’d been shot. Now, in a creepy déjà vu, Danny was waiting to see how another gunshot victim was doing.
But the hospital and the injury were all that were similar. The rest was uncomfortable, new territory, like much of her relationship — dammit, her friendship — oh, hell, whatever it was she had — with Jake. It had been professional when she’d been there for Sam, and she’d had Amanda and Margo for backup. Now she was alone and it was way too personal.
Besides, back then she’d been sure of how she’d be received by the patient in question. But Jake? She’d been avoiding him for days, wasn’t sure he wanted to see her and was even less sure how she’d feel when she saw him.
Then there was his father. She knew for damn sure she didn’t want to face him. And she had a snowball’s chance in hell of avoiding him since Danny knew that within minutes of Jake’s arrival the entire staff of the hospital would recognize the name and get the news to the senior Doctor Abrams. It was only a matter of time before he showed up in the ER.
Danny went looking for her boss who, she hoped, had arrived. Reporting to him would get her out of the way. Except she couldn’t find him or Sam. So she tried to become part of the woodwork, hanging out in the waiting room with her back to the door so if Jake’s father came in, he wouldn’t notice her.
Of course it didn’t work. Harold Abrams saw her as soon as he came into the room and immediately came up behind her, putting his arm around her shoulders. She turned to see a grim faced and tense looking man who, as she’d expected, was clearly reacting as a father to what had happened, not as a doctor.
“Danny, I’m so glad I found you,” he said as he hugged her. “I ran into your partner down the hall. He told me you were the one who got Jake out of the mess he was in. I don’t know how to begin to thank you.”
“Sam and a whole lot of other cops got all of us out,” she said, untangling herself from his embrace. “How is he? How’s Jake?” She tried to sound calm but could hear the strain in her voice.
“He has a flesh wound in his thigh from a bullet. Apparently he tried to get the weapon away from that woman and the gun went off. He fell, and hit his head on something sharp — he has a large gash in his head. It took I don’t even know how many stitches to close it. He doesn’t remember too clearly what happened after he fell. He did say he tried to play dead so she wouldn’t do any more damage.”
An image of how dead Jake looked lying on her pantry floor flashed through Danny’s mind and she shuddered. “Yeah, he did a good job at that. Fooled us all.”
“I talked to the other woman … his patient … I can’t remember her name … ”
“Kaylea Garwood.”
“Right. Kaylea. She said he fell hard and just lay there. She was convinced he was dead.”
Danny needed to get the image of the dead-looking Jake out of her head so she asked, “Do you know how she is? Kaylea, I mean? They insisted she come here to be checked out, too.”
“They examined her thoroughly and she’s fine. Pretty badly shaken up but physically she’s okay. I think they’re about ready to release her. I understand she was staying with you. Will you be taking her home with you?”
“I don’t think either of us wants to go back there right now. I need to get someone in to clean up all the … clean up … get the kitchen … ” The image of Jake bleeding all over her floor was back again.
“It’s okay, Danny. I know how head wounds bleed. It must have made a mess.” He put his arm around her shoulder again. “Do you have a place to stay? You and your houseguest are welcome to come stay with us.”
“No, thank you. I’ve already made other arrangements.” She hadn’t and she was sure Harold Abrams knew she hadn’t but she was not about to go stay with Jake’s parents. That would only pull her deeper into the quicksand of Abrams family life, which couldn’t happen. Not when things with Jake were like they were and a solution to their problems was nowhere in sight.
“Well, then I’ll let you go check on Jake and then you and … Kaylea? Is that her name? Good heavens, I can’t keep anything in my head for longer than two seconds right now. Anyway, you and Kaylea probably want to get out of here.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Miriam and I owe you for saving our son’s life.”
“Please, Doctor Abrams, I was only doing my job.” Once more Danny pulled away from the warmth of his affection.
“Nevertheless, we’re grateful.” He started to leave the waiting room but stopped at the door. Without looking back at her, he said, “My son told me he hadn’t seen you in some time. I hope whatever happened doesn’t prevent you from coming to see us so we can thank you properly, both of us.”
“Really, that’s not necessary.”
“Maybe not for you, but it is for us. We owe you our gratitude. And I know Miriam will want to tell you so herself.” He looked around and pinned her with his gaze. “And you might want to go see Jake. Regardless of the circumstances, I’m sure he wants to thank you, too. He’s been moved from the ER to a med-surg floor. He was awake a few minutes ago.” Harold Abrams left before she could come up with some excuse, any reason at all, to explain why seeing Jake was a bad idea.
So, although she suspected it might be the biggest mistake of her life, as soon as Doctor Abrams senior was out of sight, Danny went to the nurses’ station and asked where Jacob Abrams had been sent.
• • •
Goddamn, his head hurt. It hurt so much he was having a hard time remembering exactly what had happened. Lots of the day was foggy but he was able to get a few clear images.
The message that Kaylea called.
Going to Danny’s house.
Barbara Black following him.
Why? What … wait. She’d been after Kaylea. She’d thought Jim had told Kaylea about her visits to the camps. Thought Kaylea had recognized her the day she killed the guy in Forest Park. Barbara Black was who they’d been looking for. All the time they’d been talking about “he” and it had been a “she.”
Barbara had made him tie up Kaylea with something. He’d gagged her, too. Barbara was about to do something to him — maybe shoot him — when she was distracted. A phone rang, that was it. When she’d looked around for the phone, he made a move to grab her gun, then struggled with her until the gun went off and he fell.