Page 52 of NYPD Red 7: The Murder Sorority

“Zach Jordan and Kylie MacDonald from Red,” I said. “I appreciate your securing the scene.”

“Gene DeStefano, and this is my partner, Rich Maguire,” the older one said. “We appreciate being appreciated. What else can we do to help?”

“The victim is a material witness in a homicide case,” I said. “Could one of you follow the bus to the hospital, and the other ride in the back with him? Someone just tried to kill him, so please don’t let him out of your sight. And nobody goes near him except his medical team.”

They couldn’t have been more receptive if I’d asked them to join me, my attractive blond partner, and the police commissioner in a sky booth at Yankee Stadium.

“We’re on it, Detective,” DeStefano answered.

Despite the chaos, I’d kept one ear tuned to my radio ever since we arrived at the accident. Nothing promising had come over the air.

I keyed the mike. “Central, this is Red. Anyone have eyes on that perp in the RAV4?”

One by one, the units called in.

“Five-twoDavid, negative.Four-sixMichael, negative. Aviation one, negative.”

Barbara had gotten away. He was every bit the old pro that Sheffield had said he was.

“This is bad, Zach,” Kylie said. “We’ve got to find him before...”

Her voice trailed off. Neither of us wanted to finish the thought.

Before he findsTheo.

CHAPTER 35

The EMS techgave us the good news in three words. “Helmets save lives,” he said.

“So he’s going to be okay?” Kylie said.

“The docs over at Monte will CT scan him for neck and spinal damage, but from the looks of it, his brain seems to be intact.”

“That’s strange,” Kylie said. “I was talking to him a few minutes before the crash. It wasn’t working then.”

The tech laughed. “Tell me about it. I’ve got a pair of idiot teenagers at home. Apparently, it doesn’t skip a generation.”

As soon as Theo was safely on his way to Montefiore Hospital, Kylie and I went back to the crash scene.

Highway units showed up to assist with traffic. CSU combed through the debris and arranged to transport Theo’s bike to their garage, where they would go over every inch, looking for microscopic evidence that might help us identify Barbara’s vehicle.

As soon as Kylie and I got back in the car, we called our boss.

“I’m on my way up to Riverdale,” Cates said. “I took off as soon as I caught the first alert that there was a major incident involving Red. I’ve been monitoring the radio, but I’m sure you purposely kept some of the details off the air. Fill me in.”

We took her through our morning from the time we arrived at Golden Grove until we put Theo in the ambulance.

“I’ll update the chief of Ds,” she said. “I’ll be at the funeral home in five.”

We were there in two. In theforty-nineminutes since we peeled out of the parking lot, Winstanley’s had transformed from a sedate mortuary to the vibrant mosaic of flashing red lights, plastic yellow tape, and blue uniforms that typifies everyhigh-profilecriminal investigation.

And there was no doubt about it. The radio traffic between Chief Jennings and me made this one the hottest ticket in town. Especially if you were a journalist.

TV trucks and news vans clogged the streets, and a sea of familiar faces, armed with cameras, microphones, and the First Amendment, all started screaming at Kylie and me as soon as we arrived.

We ignored them. Most of them cooled down. They’re used to being brushed off in the initial stages of our tedious methodical process. But one of them was not to be denied. Megan Rollins.

A uniformed officer handed me Megan’s card. She’d scrawled her outrage on the back.“I thought we had adeal.”