Chapter 45
Ihovered over Denise as she gasped for breath. The bulletproof vest had saved her life, but she had the wind knocked out of her.
She looked up at me in a daze. There was no doubt she had a broken rib or two. I called dispatch and shouted, "Officer down!"
I gave our location, and it wasn't long before the distant sound of sirens drew near.
Denise winced as she tried to sit up.
"Just take it easy," I said.
"I'm just gonna go on record and say getting shot sucks.”
I chuckled. "First time?”
She nodded. "And hopefully the last.”
Flashing red and blue lights painted the area. Patrol cars screeched to the scene. EMTs and paramedics attended to Denise. She was transferred to a gurney, and they loaded her into the back of an ambulance.
Dietrich snapped photos, and Brenda examined Richard’s remains.
The cash would be confiscated and logged into evidence.
Sheriff Daniels arrived. He was not pleased. With an angry scowl on his face, he asked, "You want to tell me what the hell kinda cockamamie scheme you two nimrods cooked up?”
I gave him a brief overview of the situation and tried to make it sound less terrible than it was.
He just shook his head. "Wild, you put me in a bad position. You're lucky that girl is alive.”
A grim frown tugged my face. “It’s my fault. I recruited her. I shouldn’t have put her in that situation.”
"Surrender your duty weapon. You two are on leave for the foreseeable future. Maybe indefinitely.”
"You don't mean that."
"Don't tempt me, Wild.”
He was pissed.
Brenda and her crew bagged Richard’s remains. He was transferred to the medical examiner's van.
Paris Delaney and her crew showed up, capturing footage of the carnage.
She found us, and the camera closed in. "Deputy Wild, what can you tell us?"
"An officer was shot in the line of duty. The perpetrator is deceased."
"Can you confirm the deceased is Richard Pearson?”
"I can't confirm anything at this time," I said, then stepped out of frame.
JD and I headed back to the station and filled out after-action reports. We surrendered our weapons, then headed to the hospital to check on Denise.
Getting hit in the chest with a bullet is a painful proposition, even with a vest. It's a high-energy dump into a small area. Like getting hit with a sledgehammer.
By the time we arrived, the bruising had already set in.
Her chest was black, blue, purple, and shades of yellow and green.
It hurt to breathe, and she had localized swelling.
According to the X-rays, she had a hairline rib fracture.
There was always the possibility of bruised lung tissue and swelling that could worsen over the next few hours.
Denise would be admitted to the hospital and kept overnight for observation. It was the safe play. Denise didn't put up an argument.
A monitor beside the bed blipped with the craggy peaks of her heartbeat. It read out vital statistics like oxygen saturation and blood pressure.
"You almost got me killed," she said.
"I thought you wanted to get into the field," I teased.
Denise sneered at me. "I'm not sure that's exactly what I had in mind.”
She winced as she took a breath.
"Comes with the territory, kid. Make sure this is something you really want to do. And make your peace with it. There are no guarantees out there.”
She sighed. "I know."
“Hey, you got a bad guy off the street.”
“Well, I think you did that.”
We stayed with her in the ER until she got transferred to a room in the hospital.
They gave her some pain medication, and it didn’t take long for her to doze off.
I kissed her forehead before we left and wished her a speedy recovery in a whisper.
She was out cold and didn’t hear it, but maybe it bounced around in there somewhere.
It was late by the time we got back to the Avventura.
Seeing Denise like that really got to Jack. It bothered me too. I had a lot of feelings for Denise. We’d been through a lot together. A few inches higher, and that bullet would have hit her in the neck, and that would have been all she wrote. I didn't think I could handle something like that.
Sometimes the adrenaline is worse when the excitement dies down, and you realize just how close you came to disaster. I still vibrated with nerves.
Needless to say, I didn't sleep well that night.
Isabella called the next morning. "It took a while, but I was able to pull a single frame from the raw file. It was the only one that wasn't corrupted. I'm gonna text it to you now. I think you'll find it quite interesting."
My phone buzzed with the image a moment later. It was a grainy, blocky screen grab. The drone had captured the image through a window.
A man with platinum hair appeared to strangle a young blonde who resembled Riley.
He had his hands around her throat. It was hard to mistake the action for anything else.
It sure didn't look like a consensual act to me.
Riley was on the bed, the assailant on top of her.
From the camera angle, only the back of his head was visible, along with his upper torso, his shoulders, arms, and hands.
There appeared to be a tattoo on his right shoulder.
Together with the markings on Riley's body, it was damning evidence. Enough for a warrant. But this wasn't Richard Pearson.