Zero at the Bone (59 page)

“Hey! That guy’s getting away!” somebody said. Jack glanced over his shoulder and saw the driver of the pickup, miraculously unhurt, running from the scene. Jack and D exchanged a glance and a nod. D took off after the driver while Jack yanked the screaming woman from the car.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I gotta get in there.” He leaned over the driver, who was gasping and choking, bleeding heavily from a cut on his neck. It wasn’t arterial spray, but it was pretty bad. He slapped a hand over the wound, released the seat belt and dragged the man back out of the van and onto the pavement, swallowing hard when he saw a large gash in the man’s thigh, pumping blood steadily.
Shit.

A cop ran up. “What the hell are you doing?” he said. “Don’t move him ’til the paramedics get here!”

Jack barely spared him a glance. “I’m a doctor, and this man is bleeding to death,” he snapped. “He’s got broken ribs and I think he’s punctured a lung.” The man’s wife was wailing, trying to get closer, held back by a matronly woman.

“But… couldn’t he have a spinal injury or something? You aren’t supposed to move him without a backboard!”

“His arms and legs are moving; he isn’t paralyzed. And it won’t matter much if he bleeds out, will it? Now shut the fuck up!” A woman was handing Jack cloth diapers from a bag. “Thanks,” he said, pressing the cloths to the wound. He beckoned to the cop.

“You, hold these,” he barked. The cop knelt by the man’s head and held the cloths. “Hold them tight, now.” The cop nodded.

Jack moved down to the man’s thigh and tore his pants open. It was a deep gash, messy and bloody. He glanced around. Quite a crowd had gathered. “I need a bottle of water and pocketknife!” he said. A young man in biking clothes tossed him a bottle of water, and a sketchy-looking kid came forward and handed Jack a switchblade. The cop shot the kid a look, but the kid just shrugged.

Jack rinsed the wound and opened the switchblade. “What are you doing to him?” the man’s wife screamed. “Don’t cut him!”

Jack ignored her and dissected the wound just far down enough to see the gusher.

He reached in, prompting more than a few groans from the crowd, found the severed blood vessel and clamped it tight with his fingers. He sat back on his knees and shut his eyes, visualizing the slippery tube between his fingertips, concentrating on keeping hold of it. It was like trying to keep a grip on an oil-soaked strand of pasta. Pasta that was pulsing in your hands.

“What are you
dooooooing?
” the wife kept yelling.

“I’m holding his femoral artery closed, lady,” Jack said. “And it’s really slippery so please shut up and let me concentrate!” He could hear the ambulance approaching. The paramedics would have clamps.

“He gonna live, doc?” Jack looked up, startled to hear anybody but D call him that, but it was the cop who’d spoken.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Jack said. “But he’s breathing and hopefully we’ve got this bleeding under control.”

Zero at the Bone | 275

The crowd parted to let the paramedics pull up and rush to the scene. “What’s going on?” one of them said, looking at Jack’s bloodstained clothing.

“He’s got a femoral bleeder; I’m holding it closed right now. You got a clamp?” The paramedic reached into his bag and handed him one. Jack took a deep breath, bent close and switched the clamp for his fingers. “Okay. That neck wound’s bad but it’s slowing. I think he’s got a collapsed lung.”

“Okay. We’ll take it from here, Doctor,” said the paramedic, correctly deducing Jack’s profession. Jack rose to his feet and backed away, allowing the paramedics to prep the man for transport to the nearest hospital. The cop who’d been keeping pressure on the man’s neck wound got up too, and came to shake Jack’s hand.

“Hey, that was… that was good work, there,” the cop said, gruffly. “Guy probably woulda died you hadn’t been here.”

Jack smiled weakly, feeling a little shaky. There was a smattering of applause from the crowd. Jack barely heard; he was looking around for D. He pushed through the onlookers and headed back toward the blue pickup truck.

Coming back down the road were two police officers, leading the cuffed driver between them. D was following along behind, touching a wound on his forehead. Jack trotted up to him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Fucker got in one good lick with a piece a two-by-four.”

“You know this guy?” one of the officers said to Jack.

“Yeah, he’s my partner,” Jack said, not caring if anybody had a problem with that.

“Well, it isn’t every day a civilian dives right in and takes down a fleeing suspect.

Tell him to stay out of official business. He could get hurt.” Jack couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of D being in danger from some punk in a pickup truck. “He isn’t exactly a civilian, officer.” One of the cops put the driver in the backseat of a cruiser while the other one turned to face them. “You aren’t?” he said to D, who just looked chagrined.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open so the officer could see.

“FBI?” the cop said, arching an eyebrow. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

“Thought I was on vacation,” D grumbled. Jack put a hand to his mouth to conceal his amusement. That badge was exactly seven days old, and D wasn’t actually an agent—

more like a consultant—but this officer didn’t need the details.

“So, why were you chasing this guy?” Jack asked, putting on a suitably serious face.

The cop sighed. “Routine traffic stop. He took off.”

“Why?”

“Turns out there’s a bench warrant out on him.”

“For what?”

The cop gave them a blank look. “Unpaid parking tickets.” D snorted, shaking his head. Jack stared. “This guy led you on a high-speed chase and nearly killed a man, not to mention himself, over unpaid parking tickets?” The cop shrugged. “Helluva world, ain’t it?” He tipped his hat. “Thanks for your help.” He climbed into the cruiser and they were off. Local police were clogging the intersection now, more paramedics arriving to tend to less seriously injured drivers.

Jack and D just stood there for a moment, looking around at the carnage. “That guy gonna be okay?” D asked.

276 | Jane Seville

“I think so,” Jack said, watching as the man he’d helped was loaded into the back of an ambulance. The man’s wife got in with him, still crying, immediately seizing the man’s hand. She looked out the back of the bus and her eyes met Jack’s across the street.

She smiled a little.
Thank you,
Jack saw the words on her lips. He nodded and lifted a hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let me wash out that cut.” He led D to another ambulance nearby. The paramedics gave him some antiseptic and a bandage. He cleaned the small gash on D’s forehead, taking his time about it, letting his fingers linger on D’s skin.

It can all be over, just like that. You’re driving down the road and some asshole
smashes your car, and you’re dead. Or someone you love is dead. It’s all a goddamn
crapshoot.
D was watching him, and Jack saw similar thoughts passing behind his eyes.

“You have fun playing cops and robbers?” he asked, quietly.

D sniffed. “Caught up to him a couple blocks away. Tryin’ ta get over a fence into an alley. Drug him back down and he put up a bit of a fight, but, well….” He shrugged.

“Just a dumbass kid. Thinks he’s never gonna die and it don’t matter ta him if anybody else does.”

Finished with D’s cut, Jack just stood there and looked at him. “Didn’t think I’d be saving any lives this morning,” he said.

“Didn’t think I’d be catchin’ no bad guys.” He met Jack’s eyes. “You were some kinda hero today, darlin’.”

“So were you.”

D flushed. “I ain’t no hero.”

“Well, you’re
my
hero.” Jack took his hand and pulled him up off the back end of the ambulance. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

“Ain’t they gonna want our names and shit?”

“Probably. Let’s get out of here before they find us. We’ll call the police department later.”

They went back to their car, still sitting by the pumps at the gas station. Jack popped the trunk and got a clean shirt. D waited by the car while he went into the gas station’s bathroom, scrubbed the blood from his hands, and changed out of his bloody shirt.

He returned to the car and slid in behind the wheel with a sigh. D got in and buckled up, looking over at Jack, who was still just sitting there. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I mean… shit just falls from the sky, doesn’t it?” D nodded. “Yeah. Gotta dance quick so it don’t getcha.” Jack smiled and started up the car. He backed out from the pumps and headed for the road.

“Jack?”

“What?” he said, his voice clipped. He was concentrating on navigating around the police cars and ambulances.

“I love you.”

Jack forgot his preoccupation. He stopped the car and turned to meet D’s eyes.

They were full of calm certainty. D’s hand crept across the bench seat toward him. Jack grasped it tight. “Yeah?” He hated that needy little tone that crept into his voice, but D

had never said that to him before. He knew it was so, but it was hard not to want to hear it.

D nodded. “Yeah.”

Zero at the Bone | 277

Jack leaned over and kissed him, lingering a bit past the point of politeness, not caring who might see. “Thanks,” he whispered against D’s lips.

D pressed another kiss to his lips, and then drew back, smiling. “Let’s get the hell outta here, doc. Before a riot breaks out or a plane crashes.” Jack grinned and pulled the car into the open highway, pointed its nose east, and set off down the road, his hand still clasped tightly in D’s on the seat between them.

278 | Jane Seville

Six months later…

“WELL, looky here! Don’t you look all spiffy in that suit there.” Special Agent Frank Boorstein grinned and elbowed Agent Blansky as their newly minted Academy graduate, Special Agent Ernest Hough, came into the breakroom, clearly trying to be unobtrusive.

He could not accomplish this, since the entire office had known he was arriving this morning and had been lying in wait for him.

Hough blushed, his baby-faced cheeks going splotchy scarlet. “Thanks, Frank,” he muttered.

“Guess they musta liked you when you were just a pencil pusher here if they asked for you back with a shield in your pocket.”

Hough shrugged. “Guess so.”

“Welcome to the big leagues, Ernie,” said Blansky. “Got your gun?” Ernie nodded, pulling his jacket open to show the gun in its holster. “I even know how to shoot it and stuff,” he said, cocking an eyebrow.

“Hoo-hoo! Someone’s already too big for his britches!” Boorstein laughed.

Hough cleared his throat, eager to change the subject. “So what’s this task force they want me for? It was all very hush-hush.”

Boorstein sobered. “They’ll brief you on that soon. Who are you riding around with to start?”

“Uh….” Hough consulted a piece of paper. “Don’t know him. Agent Dane?” Blansky and Boorstein exchanged a look. “Damn. They’re really throwing you into the deep end if they’re making you start off with Mr. D,” Boorstein said.

Hough looked at them, apprehension coming into his face. “Who is he? He must be new.”

“Been here ’bout six months. And he isn’t an agent, technically. He’s a consultant.

But this is his task force and he runs it like a goddamned forced labor camp.”

“He’s a hardass, huh?”

Boorstein answered with uncharacteristic seriousness. “Mr. D could send General Patton running to his mama. You should see him handle the perps we bring in.” He lowered his voice a little. “Word around the campfire is that Mr. D’s so good with the criminal element because he used to be one of them.” Ernie was looking more and more apprehensive. “And they want me with this guy on my first damn day?”

Zero at the Bone | 279

“He probably asked for it. He’s pretty choosy about who gets onto the task force.

Might be he wants to size you up.”

“Great.”

Boorstein looked up. “Oh, speak of the devil… yeah, here he is.” Hough turned in time to see a tall man striding down the corridor, wearing jeans and a black jacket over a black T-shirt. He was just taking off his mirrored sunglasses as he headed for the breakroom where they were all standing. “Shit, here he comes,” Blansky said. “Don’t piss him off; he’s on edge. We had a case go real bad last night and Mr. D takes things personal.”

Hough swallowed hard as the tall man entered the breakroom and stopped, hands on his hips. His eyes were sharp and cold and his squared-off jaw looked like it was in a permanent state of clench. “Where’s that fuckin’ incident report, Frank?” he bit off, his voice low and growly.

“I e-mailed it to you this morning,” Boorstein said.

“Coroner called yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Fuck, I gotta go down there and get the report my fuckin’ self?” Mr. D muttered, shaking his head at the floor. “Ain’t like we don’t know the cause a death,” he said, his voice going quiet. His eyes fell on Hough, who looked like he was fighting the urge to fall back a step. “Who the hell’re you?”

“Special Agent Ernest Hough, Mr. D… uh, Mr. Dane.”