James Patterson - The 6th Target

"Are you investigating the shooting?" he asked me.

I nodded. "Yes, and also, Claire's my friend."

"She's a friend of mine, too." He smiled, said, "So here's what I can tell you. The bullet broke a rib and collapsed her left lung, but it missed her heart and major arteries.

"She's going to have some pain from the rib and she's going to have a chest tube inside her until that lung fully expands. But she's healthy and she's lucky. And she's got good people here watching out for her."

The tears that had been dammed up all day threatened to overflow. I lowered my eyes and croaked, "I'd like to talk to her. Claire's assailant killed three people."

"She'll wake up soon," Sassoon told me. He patted my shoulder and held open the door to Claire's room, and I walked inside.

The back of Claire's bed was raised to make it easier for her to breathe. There was a cannula in her nose and an IV bag hanging from a pole, dripping saline into a vein. Under her thin hospital gown, her chest was swaddled in bandages, and her eyes were puffy and closed. In all the years I've known Claire, I've never seen her sick. I've never seen her down .

Claire's husband, Edmund, had been sitting in the armchair beside the bed, but he jumped to his feet the moment I walked in the door.

He looked awful, his features twisted with fear and disbelief.

I set down my shopping bag and went to him for a long hug, Edmund saying into my hair, "Oh, God, Lindsay, this is too much."

I murmured all the things you say when words are just plain inadequate. "She'll be on her feet soon, Eddie. You know I'm right."

"I wonder," Edmund said when we finally stepped apart. "Even saying she heals up okay. Have you gotten over being shot?"

I couldn't answer. The truth was, I still woke up some nights sweating, knowing I'd been dreaming again about that bad night on Larkin Street. I could still feel the impact of those slugs in my mind, remembering the helplessness and the knowledge that I might die.

"And what about Willie?" Edmund was saying. "His whole world turned inside out this morning. Here, let me help you with that."

Edmund held the sides of the shopping bag apart so that I could extract from it a big silver get-well balloon. I tied the balloon to the frame of Claire's bed, then reached over and touched her hand. "Has she said anything?" I asked.

"She opened her eyes for a couple of seconds. Said, 'Where's Willie?' I told her, 'He's home. Safe.' She said, 'I gotta get back to work,' then she conked out. That was a half hour ago."

I searched my mind for the last time I'd seen Claire before the shooting. Yesterday. We'd waved good-bye in the parking lot across from the Hall as we'd left work for the day. Just a casual flap of our hands.

"See ya, girlfriend."

"Have a good one, Butterfly."

It had been such an ordinary exchange. Taking life for granted. What if Claire had died today? What if she had died on us ?

I WAS GRIPPING CLAIRE'S HAND as Edmund returned to the armchair, switched on the overhead TV with the remote. Keeping the sound on low, he asked, "You've seen this, Lindsay?"

I looked up, saw the disclaimer – "What you're about to see is very graphic. Parental discretion is advised."

"I saw it right after the shooting," I told Edmund, "but I want to see it again."

Edmund nodded, said, "Me, too."

And then Jack Rooney's amateur film of the ferry shooting came on the screen.

Together, we watched again what Claire had lived through only hours before. Rooney's film was grainy and jumpy, first focusing on three tourists smiling and waving at the camera, a sailboat behind them, and then a beauty shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The camera panned across the ferry's open top deck, past a gaggle of kids feeding hot dog buns to the seagulls. A little boy wearing a backward red baseball cap was drawing on a table with a Sharpie. That was Tony Canello. A lanky bearded man sitting near the railing plucked at his own arm dis-tractedly.

The shot froze, and a spotlight encircled the bearded man.

"That's him ," Edmund said. "Is he crazy, Lindsay? Or is he a premeditated killer, biding his time?"

"Maybe he's both," I said, my eyes pinned to the screen as a second clip followed the first. An ebullient crowd clung to the railing as the ferry pulled into dock. Suddenly the camera swung to the left, focusing on a woman, her face screwed up in horror as she grabbed at her chest and then collapsed.

The little boy, Tony Canello, turned toward the camera. His face had been digitally pixilated by the news producers so that his features were a blur.

I winced as he jerked and spun away from the gunman.

The camera's eye jumped around crazily after that. It looked as though Rooney had been bumped, and then the picture stabilized.

I covered my mouth and Edmund gripped the arms of the chair as we watched Claire stretch out her hand toward the shooter. Even though we couldn't hear her over the screams of the crowd, it was clear that she was asking for the gun.

"What bravery," I said. "My God."

"Too damned brave," Edmund muttered, running his hand over the top of his silvering head. "Claire and Willie, both of them, too damned brave."

The shooter's back was to the camera as he pulled the trigger. I saw the gun buck in his hand. Claire grabbed at her chest and went down.

Again, the point of view shifted to horrified faces in a roiling crowd. Then the gunman was on the screen in a crouch, his face turned away from the camera. He stepped on Claire's wrist, shouting into her face.

Edmund cried out, " You sick son of a bitch !"

Behind me, Claire moaned in her bed.

I turned to look at her, but she was still asleep. My eyes flashed back to the television as the shooter turned and his face came into view.

His eyes were down, his beard swallowing the lower half of his face. He was coming toward the cameraman, who finally lost his nerve and stopped filming.

"He shot at Willie after that," Edmund said.

And then, there I was on the TV screen, my hair tangled from my race through the farmer's market, Claire's blood transferred from Willie's T-shirt to my jacket, a wide-eyed look of shocked intensity on my face.

My voice was saying, "Please call us with any information that could lead to this man."

My face was replaced with a freeze-frame shot of the killer. The SFPD phone number and Web address crawled under a title in big letters at the bottom of the screen.

DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?

Edmund turned to me, his face stricken. "Have you got anything yet, Lindsay?"

"We have Jack Rooney's video," I said, stabbing my finger at the TV. "We have nonstop media coverage and about two hundred eyewitnesses. We'll find him, Eddie. I swear we will."

I didn't say what I was thinking: If this guy gets away, I shouldn't be a cop .

I stood, gathered up my shopping bag.

Eddie said, "Can't you wait a few minutes? Claire will want to see you."

"I'll be back later," I told him. "There's someone I have to see right now."

I LEFT CLAIRE'S ROOM on the fifth floor and took the stairs to the Pediatric ICU on two. I was bracing myself for what was sure to be an awful, heart-wrenching interview.

I thought about young Tony Canello, watching his mother taking a bullet an instant before being shot himself. I had to ask this child if he'd ever seen the shooter before, if the man had said anything before or after firing the gun, if he could think of any reason why he and his mom had been targeted.

I shifted my shopping bag from my right hand to my left as I took the last flight of stairs, knowing that how I handled this interview was going to stay with this little boy forever.