Page 51 of NYPD Red 7: The Murder Sorority

Jennings jumped in. “A casket. It’s a funeral home, Central. Advise Red my guys are on theway.”

I turned my attention back to Kylie, who still couldn’t get Theo to pull over. She shook her head and handed me the phone.

“Theo, it’s Zach,” I said.

“Hey, Zach. We’re coming up onTwo-Hundred-and-

Fifty-ThirdStreet.”

“Great. You’ve been a big help,” I said. “We’re closing in on you, and the cavalry is on the way. Now, do me a favor. Pull over and let us do our job.”

“Zach, I know what you’re saying, but this is too big. I just want to be there when they close in on—oh, shit!”

We heard the screech of tires. It was quickly followed by the unmistakablegut-wrenchingsound of metal tearing against metal.

And then silence.

CHAPTER 34

One of the downsidesof being a control freak is dealing with the harsh realization that you can’t control everything.

Kylie had never asked Theo to follow us to the funeral home, and she’d used every trick in her playbook to stop him from chasing after aworld-classassassin, but that didn’t keep her from blaming herself for whatever disaster had just befallen him.

“It’s my fault if the damn kid gets himself killed,” she yelled as she crossed over the double yellow line to pass aslow-movingcar, swerving back just in time to avoid ahead-onwith a northbound

city bus.

“That’s debatable,” I shouted,white-knucklingthe armrest and pressing my body hard against my seat, “but it’ll damn well be your fault ifIget killed. Slow the fuck down!”

She did. A little. Half a minute later, she slammed on the brakes behind a dozen cars that had stopped because of the accident. A few drivers were already standing on the roadway, phones to their ears.

“NYPD! NYPD! Get back in your vehicles,” Kylie commanded as we bolted out of the car and raced toward the wreckage.

Theo’s treasured Triumph Bonneville was in the middle of the road, the front end crushed, the forks twisted up against the engine, the handlebars bent at odd angles.

Theo was stretched out on the sidewalk, a woman in a tennis outfit kneeling at his side.

She held her hand up as we approached. “He’s conscious. His name is Theo Wilkins, and he knows what day it is, but don’t move him or try to take off his helmet until the EMTs get here and put him on a board. My name is Angela Monitto. I’m the school nurse at Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy. Herear-endeda black SUV, but the guy took off,” she said, giving us as many details as she could in less than twenty seconds.

“Thank you,” Kylie said as we both knelt at Theo’s side.

“I’m okay,” he said, sounding far from okay. “But my bike is fucked. My dad is gonna kill me.”

“You’ll be lucky if I don’t kill you first,” Kylie said. “How many times did I tell you to backoff?”

“It’s not my fault, Kylie. He sandbagged me. We were doing about forty. All of a sudden, he braked real hard, jammed it into reverse, and bam, I went flying.”

“So then I guess your Spidey sense wasn’t working when you told me he had no idea you were tailing him,” Kylie said. She looked up at the nurse. “You’re a medical professional, Angela. You think his superpowers just crappedout?”

By now the woman had figured out that Kylie and Theo had a history. She smiled. “It could be that or the fact that his prefrontal cortex, which is the rational part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness oflong-termconsequences, won’t be developed until he’stwenty-five.”

“So you’re saying he’s just another teenage asshole,” Kyliesaid.

“It’s a common syndrome,” Angela replied,straight-faced. “Like I said, I work in a high school. I see it every day.”

By now at least a dozen cop cars and emergency units had converged on the scene. Kylie and I got out of the way so two EMTs could take Theo’s vitals and determine if he was lucid.

I eyeballed a pair of uniformed cops, both of whom hadtwenty-yearlongevity pins on their chests. Without being told, they had immediately cordoned off the crash site with crime scene tape. Experienced and smart. Just what we needed. I waved them over.