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“Hold one,” the dispatcher said.

He heard the dispatcher talking over Police Radio and then heard a reply, the labored voice of a male officer speaking rapidly.

After a moment, the dispatcher said to Payne: “Vehicle matching your description has been located on Twenty-fourth at Fitler Square. Abandoned. The units responding, ten of them, are conducting a search of the area.”

“Thank you. Nothing further,” Payne said, then reached over to the cellular phone and ended the call.

As he put the gearshift in reverse, the in-dash screen flashed with his phone’s caller ID. It read RITTENHOUSE REALTY. He left it unanswered.

Damn it, he thought, looking back over his shoulder while shaking his head. And so much for Amanda’s surprise.

[ TWO ]

Ten minutes later, Payne turned off Twentieth Street onto the narrow, tree-lined, one-lane Rittenhouse Street. He scanned the busy scene ahead.

Police, firefighters, and Emergency Medical Services technicians seemed to be everywhere.

Blue shirts strung yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape at the nearest corner, where the Cadillac Escalade was still on its roof. The fire was extinguished. Soot now darkened the front of the two-hundred-year-old building that the overturned SUV had struck. An acrid, burning smell hung heavy in the air.

Next to the police tape, firemen worked with practiced precision around Engine 43 and Ladder 9 from the Market Street firehouse.

Across the street, one fire department Emergency Medical Services Unit was departing the scene—the red-and-white ambulance’s emergency lights flashing and siren sounding—while an EMT from a second unit was administering first aid to the two blue shirts who Payne had seen running to the burning SUV.

Another fire engine and ambulance were beyond that scene, at the farthest corner of the park at South Eighteenth, where a Tow Squad wrecker was pulling one of the cars away from the overturned wholesale-foods distributor’s truck.

And a line of television news trucks was parked along the southern end of the park. Reporters stood facing tripod-mounted cameras, giving live reports on the damage behind them.

Payne rolled halfway up the block, then eased the Porsche over the low curb and onto the sidewalk. He depressed the dash button that activated the flashing hazard lights and got out.

Payne walked over to where the EMT stood with the two officers at the open rear doors of the ambulance. He saw that both officers had bloodstains all over their uniforms. The blue shirt whose black nameplate read FOSTER had his right hand neatly bandaged. The other, with a nameplate reading HARKNESS, was getting his left forearm wrapped in gauze.

The three glanced at him. Payne flashed his badge. The EMT, a somewhat pudgy male in his twenties whose uniform showed his name was SIMPSON, nodded, then started to return his attention to wrapping the forearm before quickly looking back at Payne.

“Is that your blood?” Simpson said.

Payne realized he was motioning toward his belly.

When Payne looked down, he saw that beneath his unzipped navy fleece jacket there was a fresh stain about four inches in diameter. Blood had seeped beyond the bandage and onto his white polo shirt.

“Shit,” Payne said.

He pulled back the jacket a little, and thought, Must have got hurt pulling the valet to the ground and didn’t notice it with everything else that’s going on.

“You going to be okay?” the EMT said.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Payne said, letting go of the jacket. He forced a smile. “Only hurts when I breathe.”

“You better let me have a look at it,” Simpson said as he began taping the wrapped gauze. “Soon as I’m done here.”

“Really, it’s fine. But thanks.”

Payne looked between the blue shirts.

“What about you guys?” he said. “You okay?”

They nodded.

“Yessir,” they said over one another.