Gregg Hurwitz - Troubleshooter

Only a few concrete images emerged from the haze of the next few hours. Tim's colleagues popping by in shifts. Quiet voices, shy eyes. Tim nodding and nodding to the repeated pronouncement, uttered like a verdict, "It wasn't your fault." Guerrera and Zimmer in the back, discussing leads in whispered tones as if the topic weren't appropriate. Dray's four brothers harassing doctors and flashing badges until the oldest collapsed into a chair, ham-size fists pressing into his sweaty face. Mac pacing in the waiting room, stuck in a loop-"I just saw her at the doughnut joint. Happy's? I just saw her." Mac's and Fowler's sheriff's deputy uniforms recalling Dray's, cut to tatters beneath her gurney.

Finally the doctor came out and brought Tim up to the ICU, hand on his back, a priest leading the condemned. Tim sat in the bedside chair and stared dumbly at his wife. Beneath her gown her belly thrust up, round and firm. A tube ran from the hole in her chest into a bubbling machine that sounded like a bong. Vaseline-impregnated gauze hid the sutures, but a few peeked out, shiny and black like the antennae of some hidden insect. Her legs were sticky and smelled faintly of urine. Her knees were pressed together and laid to the side in a way she never would have held them. It seemed grotesque-someone else positioning her knees, her limbs. What was a person other than how she held herself?

All of a sudden, steaming at the joints and burning through the shock, it came. Rage.

Rising, making his way past his colleagues, down the hall, into the bathroom. Leaving his badge behind on a closed toilet tank, stepping onto the lid, pulling himself up and through the window. Purpose quickening his step through the parking lot, the night sharp at the back of his throat.

Dray leans against his car, arms crossed, a knowing smile touching her lips. "I'm a sheriff's deputy, Timothy. It comes with the job. You don't get to be stupid about this."

Poleaxed, gun hand hanging limp at his side.

She studies him, reading his answer in his eyes. Then she laughs. "You're not gonna get those fuckers for me. No way. That's a prescription for incompetence. You're gonna get them because they need to be got."

Tim's eyes narrowed at the sound. Tannino's voice.

"-anonymous tip saved her life. Otherwise she would've lain there for God knows how long." Tannino checked Dray's pulse as if he knew what he was doing, his olive fingers nestled paternally alongside her throat. Working his lower lip between his teeth, Bear crouched at Tim's side.

Think, Tim. Where were they going?

"Moorpark's a long way from the Rock Store," Tim said. "They ran the canyons and back roads, probably. Mulholland, Topanga, Box. Too many holes to plug in those hills. You only need a few brief spurts on freeways. You can pop out high on the 118, gets you on your way north keeping you out of L.A. County."

"What's north?" Tannino asked.

Tim and Bear said in unison, "The mother chapter."

"You think they went there?"

"Nah, they wouldn't take heat to the club," Bear said. "Safe houses up around there, most likely. We've put all local units on high alert."

Tim realized he'd been clenching his jaw; he released it, felt the ache deep in his teeth. Tannino watched him, releasing a sigh that said his insides hurt. "There's no way you could've known. I'm sure you're telling yourself otherwise, but you did the right thing on that stop." He ran a hand up his face, over his head, his gold wedding band glittering in his dense hair. "We need live heroes. Dead ones only work for public relations." He bit his lip, possibly regretful of his choice of maxim.

Tim felt the pull of sorrow, but again Dray's voice cut through it like a blade. What's the next step?

"Get the video," Tim said. "From Dray's car."

"Right," Tannino said. "We'll have a copy ASAP."

He and Bear withdrew, leaving Tim alone with his wife.

He woke up fully clothed on his and Dray's bed, the morning light angling through the blinds directly into his eyes. The clock showed 6:27 A.M.; he'd slept an hour and a half, having stayed with Dray until the night-shift nurse's kind invocations of the visitation rules grew stern. He lay motionless, a wrinkle of fabric pressed up against his mouth, as last night replayed in his head. His headlights illuminating Den's face. The five bikes peeling out in formation, kicking up dirt. The spray of Dray's hair across the gurney, as if she'd fallen there from some great height.

Despair overtook him, and for a moment he was certain he couldn't move.

Get up.

He raised his head.

Shower. Eat.

"I'm not hungry, Dray," he managed.

I don't care. We've done this before. You can do it now. I promise.

He pulled himself to a sitting position, placed his hands on his knees. After a few minutes, he rose and showered. He stood before the mirror afterward, steam swirling around him, and gazed at his reflection. He lacked the crisp good looks that had served his father well on so many cons; Tim's more generic brand of handsomeness was better suited to undercover work. Now his features were slack, expressionless. He told himself to towel off, and a moment later he obeyed.

Standing over the kitchen sink, he forced some cereal down his throat. The faucet dribbled, and he fussed with it as fruitlessly as usual; the leak abated only when the handle achieved a resting angle known to no one but Dray. Every time the phone rang, his heart pounded, anticipating the hospital telling him his wife had died. And every time it wasn't the hospital. The command post. L.A. Times telemarketer. Bear.

He looked in on the nursery. They'd dutifully sanded and repainted Ginny's crib until, aggravated by the symbolism, they'd returned it to the garage rafters and picked up a cheery new one at Babies "R" Us. He glanced from the empty crib across the hall to the master bedroom and thought, quite simply, This is where my family goes.

He returned to the bedroom to claim his Smith amp; Wesson from the safe. He housed it in his right hip holster, then strapped a Spec Ops-issue P226 nine mil to his ankle for Onion Field insurance. He taped a handcuff key under his watch for easy access in case he was taken hostage, a precaution he'd implemented since spending some quality time with cult leadership in a locked maintenance closet last April. He preferred to exclude the handcuff key from his key chain anyway; it was as much a giveaway to alert eyes as a magnetic plate on the dash for a Kojak light. Before leaving, he made the bed army style-boxed corners, quarter-bounce smooth.

His Marshals star lay on the kitchen table by the files where he'd dropped it on his stumble to the bedroom last night. After all the time he'd put in to reclaim it, now he found himself in the one position where he didn't want it. He regarded the silver-plated brass. A love-hate relationship, to say the least.

Pick it up. You carry that badge. To remind you.

He lifted the badge, slid it into his back pocket. It tugged uncomfortably.

He flipped open the top file, and Den Laurey stared up at him from his booking photo. Flat eyes like skipping stones. The broad, playful mouth of a rock singer. Dark hair wiry at the sideburns. Tim stood perfectly still as the sun inched up behind the Hartleys' pines and cast the kitchen in a faint gray light.

He spoke softly to the flat eyes, his voice little more than a murmur. "Pray she lives."

The command post hushed when Tim stepped through the door. Zimmer's hand went to the laptop keyboard, and the projected image vanished from the wall. A few deputies mumbled greetings; the others got busy in the field files. Malane was absent, a minor blessing, as Tim was in no mood to stomach FBI-Service friction. He spotted the empty jewel case beside the computer.