Page 159 of The Grave Artist

Jake supposed that the person would take one of the many chairs—most were empty—and sit solemnly, riddled with anxiety, waiting for news of a loved one.

But instead he walked directly up to them.

“How is she?”

He looked up to see Eric Williamson.

Jake rose. Sanchez too.

No hands were shaken, and there were no embraces.

Sanchez answered, “Still in surgery. Trying to save her heart.”

Williamson sat. He looked at them and gave a faint smile. “Wondering what I’m doing here?”

Jake said, “We thought you’d been put out to pasture. Thanks to us. We missed the Russian connection.”

“I always wondered about that expression. It’s supposed to mean ‘retired,’ I guess, but aren’t all cows put out to pasture every day? It’s not like they have desk jobs they retire from.”

Sanchez didn’t laugh. Nor did Jake.

At that moment, the double doors to the emergency suite opened and a doctor approached. He was tall and slender and seemed extremely focused and no-nonsense. His name, according to the ID on a lanyard, was J. Singh.

“Doctor,” Sanchez began.

The man had surely delivered unfortunate news dozens, if not hundreds, of times, and Jake recognized that his face had slipped into an expression he undoubtedly used at moments like this.

He knew what was coming.

“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”

Jake had heard that before. It was word salad. Would any doctor admit they’d donelessthan they could?

Sanchez sighed. Then she said, “I’ll need her effects.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

He nodded, turned and left.

“Shit, Heron—”

Williamson was shaking his head, and he remained silent.

A moment later a voice from behind them, in a woman’s bright lilt, asked, “Hey, why so glum?”

Jake turned to see Selina Sanchez walking toward them.

He asked her, “How are you?”

“Broke a damn rib,” she muttered, gesturing toward her chest, where the bullet hole in her sweater was still evident. Allison Brock’s bullet had been stopped by the ballistic vest Ryan Hall had given her when she started to play amateur detective. But rounds from an Uzi 9mm submachine gun still travel at 1,300 feet per second. In a battle between bone and lead, the former often loses, even with Kevlar blunting the force of impact.

Selina had been in another part of the ER—that side devoted to non-life-threatening injuries.

Sanchez hugged her sister gently before responding to her question about everyone’s dour expression. “Allison Brock, the woman who shot you, just died.”

“Died?” Selina whispered softly, “I’m so sorry to hear that.”