Cut to the Bone(113)

“Bureaucracy,” Hanrahan said, knowing what her heavy breathing meant. “I guarantee you’ll be fine.” He extended a hand and helped her to her feet. Her squad mates gathered and tapped her back and arms. “Ya done good,” they said, the highest compliment in Cop Land. Bubbles ran up and hugged her so hard that she momentarily lost her breath.

Superstition thanked everyone with counter-taps but kept her face blank. The natural exhilaration of surviving a deadly shoot-out had been used against cops in the past, as “proof” of their “bloodthirsty nature.” She excused herself and headed to the restroom, where there’d be a tiny bit of privacy. Several patrons stopped her to say thanks. She murmured, “You’re welcome, glad I could help,” but kept walking; the need for Derek’s voice was beginning to overwhelm.

She pushed through the door then leaned against the wall tiles. She drank in the chilled calm - the bathroom was empty save for her - then pulled her cell and speed-dialed ONE. It rang twice, connected.

“Hi, baby,” she said. “I’m sorry it took so long, but we just had a terrible-”

“Who’s this?” an unfamiliar voice said.

“Uh, you first,” Superstition said, taken by surprise - Derek guarded his cell like Fort Knox. “Why are you on my husband’s phone?”

“Are you Detective Davis? Superstition Davis?”

“Yes,” she said warily. Two women strolled in, chattering about the gunfight. She glared at them to curdle milk, and they immediately backed out, wordless.

“This is Commander Rivera with the Arizona Highway Patrol. Is it possible for you to get to Tucson right away?”

Panic clawed her insides. “Why?”

“You really need to get here, ma’am,” the commander said. “Your husband was wounded tonight. There was a gunfight in one of our canyons and-”

“Is he dead?” she said, horrified.

Silence.

“I’m a cop, Commander, so just tell me, goddammit,” she demanded, her heartbeat jacked back to middle-of-a-gunfight. “Is. Derek. Dead?”

“Yes, ma’am,” River said with a genuinely mournful tone. “I’m afraid he-”

“Robbie!” she shrieked.

Ten seconds later Hanrahan was barreling through the door. “What’s wrong?”

She held out the phone like it was radioactive. “He’s gone,” she gargled, tears carving gorges in her heavily rouged cheeks.

“Huh? Who’s gone? What do you-”

“Derek. He’s . . . he’s . . . dead.” She flashed on the three gunmen who’d kept her away from him in the final moments of his life. “Those dirty . . .”

“Sue, wait,” Hanrahan said, reaching for her arm.

But she already out of the bathroom, bursting through a gob of medics, and running up to the corpses. “You black-eyed son of a bitch!” she screamed, drop-kneeing Pistol in the back, which snapped his spine like a dry stick. “My husband died alone and it’s your fault, you motherless . . .” She mule-kicked her stiletto into Desert Eagle’s face. The heel sank through his right eye like a golf putt, then snapped off at the base. “Tear off my head, huh, blackie?” she snarled as the heel vibrated like an orange tuning fork. “Shit down my neck, huh, black eyes?” She screamed and kicked and stomped, blood puffing from the dead men’s wounds like air from a blacksmith’s bellows. “He died without me, he died all alone-”

“Get hold of yourself,” Hanrahan hissed as he wrestled her away from the corpses and the cell phone cameras. “The whole world is watching.”

She squirmed out of his grasp and launched a molar-shattering kick at Shotgun. Her squad mates blocked her like the Bears’ front line, pushing her away from the targets of her wrath. Her brain boiled over, and her cursing grew multisyllabic.

Hanrahan moved in nose-to-nose.

“Shut the hell up, Detective,” he snarled, squeezing her biceps so tightly that she yelped. “You don’t, I’ll put you in handcuffs.”

The searing pain of the grab-hold plus the unexpected threat of arrest snapped her out of attack mode. Her energy leaked away, and she began to sag. Hanrahan held her steady. “I’m good, I’m good,” she murmured.

“I know you are, I know,” he replied.

The squad hustled her to the bathroom. Superstition slumped into a corner, trying to regain her composure. A cop wrapped a blanket around her, patted her arm. She nodded numbly. Hanrahan picked up her cell and dialed the last incoming number. Rivera picked up. Hanrahan asked questions but mostly listened. “Okay, thanks,” he said, finally. “We’ll get on the next flight.” He told a detective to search O’Hare’s outbound schedule and book a pair in business class. “I’ll call when we hit your airspace, Commander. Thanks for offering to pick us up.”