THE WOMAN IN the long skirt and crocheted sweater jacket turned to face me. My mind made a psychic leap, feeling a sense of danger, rather than recognition. Cold sweat broke out over my body, especially the palms of my hands, where I was gripping the handle of Julie’s stroller.
And then I was sure.
This was Mackie Morales, now dressed like some kind of angel, but with a gun in her hand. I’m so keyed to guns that the sight of one bypasses logical thought and goes straight to my lizard brain: fight or flight.
But I had neither option.
If I ran, she’d shoot me in the back.
If I pulled my gun, Julie could get hit.
I said, “Mackie, I’m putting the baby out of harm’s way. Put the gun down. Then we can talk.”
“You think we give a damn about your baby?” she said.
I shoved Julie’s stroller hard to my right so that it rolled across the sidewalk and wedged itself between two parked cars. Traffic whizzed by as I turned back to Morales.
She was pointing her gun at me with a kind of nonchalance, as if she were in a dream. I understood the situation with crystal clarity. Morales wanted to die, but she wanted to kill me first. And with me standing ten feet away, she wouldn’t miss.
I knew that I was going to die.
But in my last mortal moment, my rage was focused. I was determined to put Morales down, right now.
She said, “I’ve got her, lover. No worries.”
She was talking to her dead psycho boyfriend.
I went for my gun, but before I could get it out of the holster, there was a shot. Mackie yelped. Her hat blew off and she grabbed her right shoulder. But she still held on to her gun.
Who fired that shot?
Then I saw something that made no sense. Cindy was running up 12th Street directly toward us.
She held a gun with one hand straight out in front of her.
Mackie turned, took aim at Cindy, and fired.
I had one chance only, and I took it. My first shot went into Morales’s back. She spun to face me and I fired again, center mass. She jerked, staggered back, and sat down hard. She lifted her gun hand, and aimed.
I fired again, got her right between the eyes.
Morales flopped back flat on the sidewalk, as if someone had cut her puppet strings. Her skirts fanned out. Her gun clattered to the sidewalk. Her hat blew into the gutter.
Julie bawled. I had the awful thought, maybe she’s been bawling since I sent her stroller off the sidewalk.
I screamed, “Cindy, I’m coming.”
I checked to see that Julie wasn’t hurt, then went to my dear, sweet friend. Cindy was sitting on the sidewalk with her back up against a parked car. Blood was soaking through her pale-blue sweater.
She looked up and said to me, “I’m hit, Lindsay.” She sighed. “Damn it. She shot me.”
CHAPTER 108
MY DEAR HUSBAND had heard the gunshots. He had called 911 and then run downstairs. After I told him that I was okay, he took the baby inside, saying he’d be right back.
I sat next to Cindy on the sidewalk. She was pale, and the blood was still spreading across her sweater from what looked like a shoulder wound. I pressed a diaper against the bloodiest place and held it there, hoping she wasn’t bleeding out, that she wouldn’t go into shock.
The waiting was awful.
She looked so damned frail. I wanted to hug her, to hold on to her so that she didn’t slip away. I could hardly stop myself from jumping up and running out into the street to look for the ambulance.
Cindy tried to tell me what the hell she thought she was doing with a gun. But I truly didn’t care.
“You don’t have to explain, Cindy. The bullet you took—that thing was meant for me. If you hadn’t—look. You probably saved my damned life. So, thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Protect my exclusive, okay?”
“Your what? Oh. Of course. Interview me all you want, Cin. I’m exclusively yours. Until the end of time.”
She gave me a wan smile. “That’ll be great.”
I squeezed her hand, and two and a half minutes after Joe’s call, black-and-whites screamed into the street.
Doors slammed. Cops advanced.
I unclipped my badge and held it up. I identified myself to a uniformed cop from where I sat at Cindy’s side.
“Boxer. It’s Nardone. Bob Nardone. You okay?”
Sergeant Nardone asked what had happened, and I kept it simple.
“The shooter was Mackenzie Morales. She’s a fugitive. Wanted by the FBI. I shot her in self-defense.”
I was spelling out Cindy’s name and Mackie’s when incoming sirens drowned out my voice and the ambulance wailed to a stop. Paramedics swarmed around us and questioned Cindy as they lifted her onto a board.
I struggled to my feet, then stepped over to where Morales lay in her bloodied white drapery. No one was there anymore. No one home at all. Maybe Mackie was already checking in at the gates to Hell. “Room key, please. Mr. Randy Fish is expecting me.”