Middle Of Nowhere

   "Yes," she agreed. "Not this case, okay?" she pleaded.

   "We'll each have six more cases on our desks by the time we get back," Boldt reminded.

   Gaynes chimed in, "And then our phones'll start ringing and Dispatch will dish out another couple each."

   "We need the sickout over with," Boldt said.

   "Dream on, L.T. They're firmly entrenched."

   Daphne saw her investigation headed for a black hole. "With Sanchez gone," she said, "we're down to sixteen investigators left—detective or higher."

   Boldt felt sick inside. A thirteen-year-old, raped. A policewoman paralyzed. A burglar on the loose. The public was certain to panic. The Emergency Communication Center's 911 lines would be crippled with hundreds of bogus reports and sightings. Seventeen detectives had become sixteen.

   "The press is going to screw us on this one," Gaynes whispered. "This is fuel to their fire."

   "Yes," agreed Boldt, "that's just what we don't want." He had come here hoping for evidence. Perhaps the contradictions were the place to start. They didn't offer him much.

   Daphne remained angry about the Flu. "It's a fellow officer! They've got to come back on the job now! It's time to circle the wagons."

   "I wouldn't count on it," Boldt and Gaynes said nearly in unison.

C H A P T E R

2

"W hat exactly did Sanchez's doctor say?" Daphne Matthews moved fluidly, like a dancer. She set the pace, climbing the hospital fire stairs faster than Boldt might have liked. Sanchez's room was on the fourth floor.

   Boldt was relieved to be able to tell her that the rape kit had come back negative. He had made the call to the hospital while Daphne was reporting back to headquarters, where a reduced, overworked staff attempted to cope with a growing number of reported crimes.

   "Is there any eye movement? Limb movement? What exactly did the doc say?" she asked.

   He didn't answer right away, preoccupied with thoughts of the threatening phone calls he'd received in the last few days and what to do about the risk they posed to his family. Liz, his wife, was not easily moved out of her home.

   Daphne asked, "What's this about your knowing Sanchez personally?"

   "I know her," Boldt confirmed. "She lost her sister and her sister's two kids to a traffic fatality—"

   "That Sanchez?" Daphne exclaimed, interrupting.

   "The same."

"I thought she transferred out when she graduated."

   "She did, but only for a few months, after which we met at a couple crime scenes. She met Liz and the kids at one of Phil's baseball games." Phil Shoswitz had been Boldt's immediate superior for nearly a decade. Currently he was captain of Crimes Against Property. "Offered to sit the kids. I suggested off-duty uniform work paid considerably better, only to find my foot in my mouth. She wanted to be around the kids. It had nothing to do with money."

   "She baby-sat Sarah and Miles?" Daphne asked incredulously.

   "I know," Boldt said, understanding her concern over such financial fraternization. "But it wasn't for any favors. It wasn't for promotion consideration. It was simply that Miles and Sarah were the same ages as her niece and nephew had been, and she wanted the contact. It didn't last all that long, but I've got to tell you: The kids loved her. Liz will be crushed when she hears." Slightly winded from the climb, he added, "This should never happen to any officer. But in particular this should have never, ever have happened to Maria. She's a great person."

   "You're a great person," Daphne said. She added reluctantly, "You and Liz—for taking her in like that."

   Boldt stopped his ascent, as did she. It wasn't all sweet and innocent between them. They shared a past rarely discussed.

   They hugged the steel rail as a flurry of white and green hospital uniforms blurred past. Their eyes met, and briefly an energy passed between them that they both felt. "Liz and I," he repeated, echoing her. But from his lips it sounded more like a statement.

   "Right." Color rose in Daphne's long, elegant neck.

   Boldt took the lead. Daphne followed up the stairs and into the busy hall.

* * *

"Eye movement," he whispered before opening the door to Sanchez's hospital room. This was the information she had originally sought from him, and he chose his timing intentionally, for the woman in question now lay on the other side of this door. "She apparently has some eye movement."

   Daphne nodded solemnly. Boldt swung open the door. "It's your case," he reminded. "Your lead."

   As she passed him, she whispered, "I know that."