Triple Cross

“Jesus Christ,” the lieutenant said. “Jesus H. Christ.” She pulled out her radio and walked off a few feet, barking orders into it.

The EMT said the bullet had passed through Bree’s arm and did not appear to have hit bone, but he wanted to take her to the ER to have it examined.

Salazar said, “After I’m done here, I’ll come see how you’re—” She stopped suddenly, that pained expression on her face again.

Lieutenant Larkin walked toward her. “Rosella, the chief and the chief of detectives want you to write up a full—”

Holding her palm up, Salazar said, “Can’t. I have to go to the hospital. Right now. With Chief Stone.”

“That’s a flesh wound, and you’re needed here, Detective.”

Salazar waddled away from her toward the rear of the ambulance, thumbing something on her phone again. “Sorry, Ellen, I’m needed somewhere else a whole lot more at the moment. My water just broke.”

CHAPTER 92

TWO MINUTES LATER, THE ambulance squealed around the corner of Lexington and headed south, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

On a gurney in the back, Salazar panted through a contraction while an EMT named Phoebe Cartwright put a fetal monitor on her belly. Bree sat on the opposite side, holding the detective’s hand.

“Oh God,” Salazar groaned. “There it is.”

“There what is?” Bree asked.

“Just like last time.”

Cartwright, the EMT, said, “Like what last time?”

“Fast.” She gasped. “My labor. The contractions, they come—”

A contraction doubled her up. She squeezed Bree’s hand so hard, Bree thought bones might break.

The fetal monitor beeped quicker and quicker.

From the front, the driver yelled, “How are we doing?”

Cartwright said, “This baby’s coming fast. And could be in some distress. I’m seeing a nonreassuring pattern on the monitor here.”

“Inbound to Mount Sinai Beth Israel. ETA six minutes.”

The contraction ended. Salazar panted and then yelled, “Negative on Mount Sinai! My doc is at NYU. That’s where she and my family are headed!”

Cartwright said, “I don’t know if we’ll get to NYU.”

“We’ll get there if I have to tie my legs shut,” Salazar said.

“How do your doc and family know?” Bree asked.

“App on my phone. First contraction, I knew. I just pressed a button, and they were all texted and—”

Another contraction began. Salazar surfed the pain like a pro for that contraction and the six that followed as the ambulance weaved through evening traffic south and east toward NYU Medical Center.

An accident at Third and Thirty-Fourth slowed them.

Salazar moaned. “Are we there yet?”

“ETA two minutes,” the driver said, finally getting around the smashed cars.

“Hold on a little longer, Rosella,” Bree said.

“That’s out of my control, Chief.” She grunted. “Just like with his sister. Once my kids start coming, there’s no stopping them.”

“You’re not fully dilated yet,” Cartwright said.

“Gimme a minute, maybe two,” Salazar said. Another contraction hit.

Just as that contraction subsided, they pulled up in front of the emergency department. Four people were standing outside the ambulance when its doors opened.

“Rosella!” cried a rugged and worried man dressed in denim.

“He’s coming, Debo!” Salazar said, beaming. “Our boy is coming!”

Two nurses appeared. Bree climbed out. The nurses got in to manage the various monitors attached to the detective while the driver and Cartwright lifted Salazar and her gurney from the ambulance.

A fit older woman in yoga tights and a hoodie stepped up, fingered Salazar’s gown, and looked at the sneakers. “This is how you dress to have a child, Rosella?”

“Latest birthing style, Mama,” Salazar shot back.

A much younger woman in jeans, a leather jacket, and too much makeup said, “How’d you afford a dress like that? You on the take now?”

As the nurses and EMTs moved Salazar, she pointed at Bree and said, “She’ll tell you, wiseass.”

Then the detective moaned and the beeping of the fetal monitor quickened again. The EMTs hurried her through the double doors with her husband beside her.

“Who are you?” Too Much Makeup asked. “Cop?”

“Used to be. You’re her sister?”

She nodded. “Lucinda.”

“Rosella was working undercover, Lucinda. A friend of mine made the dress for her and this one for me so we’d fit in. Now I have to go see a doctor about this arm.”

“What happened to you?” Salazar’s mother asked.

“Gunshot wound,” Bree said and walked into the hospital.

The triage nurse brought her straight back to the ER. While she waited to see a doctor, she called Alex and filled him in.

“But you’re sure you’re all right?” he said.

“I’m going to have a sore arm for a while, but yes, I’m fine. Listen, Salazar identified one of the shooters. The one I wounded. He’s a Russian named Volkov.”

“Volkov! As in Tull’s Volkov?”

“One and the same.”

“But he’s alive?”

“Last time I saw him, but he was in rough shape. I creased the left side of his head with a nine-millimeter round.”

“Hang on,” Alex said. She heard the drone of news anchors and Alex picked up the phone again. “Wow, the story’s on CNN. They’re calling you and Salazar heroes.”

“She’s my hero. She saved my life, Alex.”