Chapter One
She cradled him, desperate, nestling his lolling head in the crook of a trembling arm. She whispered into his ear, pressing him to keep his eyes focused on her own. From the feel of things, the sticky pool of crimson that had been soaking through her jeans was steadily widening, even as she pressed her hand against his chest to staunch the bleeding. His eyelids flickered. Shock was setting in. It was unbelievable: were it not so unbearably real, she might have laughed. Two kits lay forgotten beside them, as her colleague screamed for an ETA on the bus. It wasn't supposed to end up like this, she reflected, but somehow with her it always did.
Half an hour earlier
Flack glanced up, frowning, from his memo book as the Avalanche rolled to a stop; his face cleared as his colleagues alighted looking as they always did. "Alright, what we got?" "Jimmy Lasetti, he's a bigshot in some firm on Wall Street. Accordin' to Sid, it looks like he was shot in the chest." They had reached the vic; the ME was bending over the unfortunate man to take a liver temp and, noticing their approach, immediately directed their eyes towards the fatal shot. "Stippling on the fabric around the wound would suggest point-blank range, looks like a fairly small-calibre weapon...Liver temp puts T.O.D at between 7pm and 9pm this evening-so an hour ago at most." "Hmm." "Mac?" "Doesn't look like a robbery; wallet, Blackberry and car keys are all in his pockets. Looks to me as if our Mr. Bigshot, got himself shot."
She shook her head as she turned to the car for her kit; it wasn't often the inimitable Mac Taylor made any wordplay at all, let alone a pun that useless. She wondered if he'd somehow stolen it from Danny. Turning back, she nodded to Don as canvassing began and he moved through the crowd taking statements. Her partner padded to the other end of the alleyway behind the vic's abandoned coupe as she took the tweezers to their DB's bloodied shirt. A barked order made her raise her head. "Hey! You can't come through here, son, this is a crime scene!" There was one quivering second of loaded silence and the air was rent by a bang. A hooded figure pelted past, with her in hot pursuit, Flack taking up the rear. Unfortunately, their crime scene was a street's width away from Central Park, and their shooter melted effortlessly into the crowd.
As Stella returned to the scene, the nape of her neck began to prickle. Mac hadn't pursued the suspect from his end of the alley.
By the wideness of his eyes, Don was feeling the same dread chill. With trepidation, the two rounded the Porsche. Mac was curled up into a foetal position, frightening in its vulnerability. Once a Marine, always a Marine; that was the phrase, and it was one that Mac was more likely to live out than any other. To betray pain or fear was to show weakness, which meant cowardice that failed your friends. This was different. She and Don rushed to his side, turning him onto his back and propping him up against Stella's crouching form. "This is Detective Flack, I got an officer down and an assailant last seen in Central Park who is armed and dangerous: get me a bus to West 106th, now! He's losing a lotta blood..."
What seemed like an epoch to Stella Bonasera was, in fact, less than ten minutes, but that couldn't slow her partner's rapid descent into glassy-eyed silence. She focused her olive green eyes on the glazed blue-green of Mac's and willed him to keep fighting. The blessed sirens came to a halt, and the EMTs descended. Pushed back to the periphery, she was dimly aware of Flack, on his cell to Danny in the lab. He was obviously trying to placate him. She wished him luck.
