Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

He narrowed his gaze at her head, as though he, too, thought she’d been bumped too hard. “No, but we’ll keep an eye out. Maybe you should have that looked at. We could give you a ride.”

Sydney glanced back at Carillo, who walked up to the car to see who she was talking to. “My babysitters,” she explained.

And then Carillo nodded to something in the back of Dunning’s vehicle. “Tell me you weren’t wearing that gray sweatshirt and racing around the Mission District trying to drag hookers from their hidey-holes?”

Dunning looked in the back, then laughed. “Uh, no. Getting too old and fat to go chasing after hookers,” he said, though Sydney didn’t see an ounce of spare flesh on the guy. “I was wearing it out on the range this afternoon.” He reached back and lifted it, pulled a couple of brass casings from it, then tossed it back. “You want,” Dunning said to Sydney, “I could drop you off wherever it is you need to go. Doctor? Home? At least if you’re in my car, I know where you are.”

Before Sydney could answer, Carillo gave the car door a slap. “Thanks, but we’ve got a ton of paperwork to fill out from the car accident.” An SFPD radio car pulled up, the officer who’d raced off at the shots-fired call. Carillo called out to him. “Didn’t find your guy?”

“No. Maybe it was just someone popping off a couple shots. Who knows.”

“Big city,” Dunning said, putting the car into gear.

Carillo pushed away from the door, put his arm around Sydney’s shoulder. “See you guys. Don’t work too hard.”

“How hard can you work, parked in one place? We’ll be in that little alley about a half block up. We’re monitoring your radio, so call if you need us.” They drove off, and Carillo punched in a number on his cell phone. “Dixon?” she heard him saying, and knew without a doubt that her night of working was at an end. “Yeah, it’s Carillo. Fitz was in an accident… No, the shots-fired call wasn’t ours. Not involved…” A moment later, Carillo was handing her his phone. “Dixon wants to talk to you.”

She took the phone, held it to her ear. “Hey.”

“You’re going to the hospital.”

“I’m fine. I don’t think-”

“Call me when you’re there. Don’t even think about coming back to work before you get a release for duty.”

She handed the phone to Carillo just as Scotty drove up, and she wondered if her evening could get any worse.

Apparently it could, since he insisted on transporting Sydney to the hospital, because Schermer and the others were going to stay on, help SFPD and their other agents see if they couldn’t locate Sweatshirt Guy. She still needed to give a full statement to SFPD, but by the time the officer got to her, started writing it down, SFPD’s dispatch reported finding a body slumped in an alley about two blocks away, and the officer taking their report was off again.

Just as well. The lump on her head was no longer numb, but now pulsing with a knifelike pain, enough to where she didn’t care who took her to the hospital, and Scotty ushered her into the front seat of his car. He looked over at Carillo, said, “Sorry about the backseat. Office on wheels, you know.”

Sydney glanced back, saw a file box, maybe a week’s worth of newspapers, and several empty bags of fast food, as though he’d spent the last several days working out of his car-probably parked just up the street from her house, come to think of it. The thought irked her, but not enough to overlook the significance of those files. Scotty was in California to work one case, and she had a strong suspicion some of it was sitting in that file box. Unfortunately, any chances of her getting into it without being seen were slim to none. She thought about texting a message to Carillo, telling him instead of using the damned box for an armrest, he should be looking inside of it. She decided by the time she figured out how to text a damned message, they’d be at the hospital. Had Angie been here, she’d have it entered in and sent before Sydney even brought up the proper screen. Not that it mattered. A few minutes later, they were pulling up in front of the ER. Scotty wanted to swing by the ambulance entrance, drop her off, but she insisted on parking and walking. “I’m not an invalid, I have a goddamned bump on my head,” she said, and that settled it.

He parked, the three of them got out, walked into the emergency room, and she had to admit that the nice thing about hospitals was that unless there were some major emergencies going on, the ER staff usually ushered the law enforcement types in pretty quickly. Unfortunately, Scotty hovered over her so closely that she didn’t have a moment to get Carillo alone, tell him what she saw. She was poked and prodded, had her eyes checked, and told they’d need to do a CAT scan before they even thought about releasing her. The nurse said it might be a few minutes, and Sydney decided it was now or never. She looked right at Scotty. “Is my phone in my jacket pocket? I should call my mom. Let her know what happened.”

Scotty reached into his pocket and handed her his phone. Figured.

“If I call her on that at this hour, she’ll freak when she sees the number come up on caller ID. Tony,” she said to Carillo. “Check my pocket, see if my phone is there.”

Carillo walked over to where her clothes were hanging from a hook on the wall, patted the pockets. “Not here.”

“I hope I left it in the car, and didn’t lose it out on the street. All my numbers are filed in there. I need that phone.”

Carillo said, “You want me to check in the car, see if it’s there?”

“If it’s not, you’ll need to call Schermer, have him check out on that street corner. Oh God, Scotty, my head hurts.”

And sure enough, Scotty was at her bedside, taking her hand in his. “You want me to call the nurse, get something for the pain?”

“You know what I’d really like, Scotty? A Coke. You wouldn’t mind getting me one, would you?”

“Sure.”

“Actually,” Carillo said. “I’ll do it, soon as I check the car for your phone. I need to make a call anyway. Check in with Dixon. Besides, you send this guy out there,” he said, nodding at Scotty, “he’s likely to break his neck in a hurry to get back to you.” He started out the door, then stopped, patting at his pockets. “Funny thing is, I didn’t drive. Keys?”

Scotty reached into his pocket, dug out his keys, and tossed them to Carillo, his attention fixed on Sydney. There was going to be hell to pay after this, trying to ignore the look in Scotty’s eyes, his hope that there might be something left between them after all. “You haven’t seen some guy following me, have you?” she asked Scotty after Carillo left.

“What guy?”

She gave him the description, even as a stab of guilt hit her, because she did care about Scotty, and didn’t like that she was keeping him occupied while Carillo searched his car. She must have winced at the thought, because Scotty asked, “Maybe I should call that nurse.”

“No, I’m fine.” As fine as one could be in this situation, and, as Scotty stroked her hand, she sent up a fervent wish that Carillo had no trouble determining that she left her phone behind just so he could look at those files, because she didn’t want to think she was messing with Scotty’s head for nothing. She sighed, closed her eyes, figuring it was going to be a long, long night.

“Three days!” Sydney stared at the release-to-duty form before turning her accusing glare on Scotty, wondering if he had something to do with this. “I’m perfectly fine. I do not need three days to recuperate.”

The doctor, unfazed by her outburst, handed her a scrip for a mega dose of Motrin. “You were hit pretty hard. Get some rest. See your own doctor in a few days, maybe he’ll reevaluate.”