Chapter 14 - The Sound After the Shot
I reached for the van door.
The officer caught my wrist.
“Stay here.”
“Luca’s down.”
“Stay here.”
Outside, voices overlapped.
“Police! Drop the weapon!”
Another shot cracked across the yard.
The officer pushed me below the window.
I could see nothing.
That was the worst part.
I heard a scream.
Then Ruiz on the radio.
“One suspect moving east. Second suspect at the platform. We need medical.”
I pressed both hands against my mouth.
The radio hissed.
“Civilian male, shoulder wound. Conscious.”
“Which one?” I whispered.
The officer listened.
Then said, “Michael.”
“And Luca?”
He didn’t answer fast enough.
I pulled away.
“Hannah.”
I opened the door.
He came after me, guiding me behind a concrete barrier.
Across the yard, officers had Frank on the ground.
His gun lay several feet away.
Vanessa was kneeling with her hands behind her head, shouting that she hadn’t done anything.
Luca’s wheelchair lay on its side beside the loading ramp.
I couldn’t see him.
Then a paramedic moved.
Luca sat on the concrete, one hand braced behind him.
Alive.
I stopped so abruptly the officer nearly ran into me.
The front caster of his chair had caught a broken edge when he moved away from Frank’s gun. He had tipped sideways off the shallow ramp.
A cut above his eyebrow bled into his collar.
He looked up when he heard my name.
“You weren’t supposed to leave the van.”
“You weren’t supposed to fall off a loading dock.”
His breath left him in something almost like a laugh.
Then he winced.
The paramedic checked his neck.
Michael lay on a stretcher nearby, pale but arguing that someone needed to call his daughter.
Ruiz crouched beside him.
“She’s safe. We checked. The picture was from last week.”
He closed his eyes.
Vanessa watched the paramedics help Luca.
“Tell them,” she called. “Tell them Frank threatened me.”
Luca looked at her.
“You just told me my brother should have minded his own business.”
“I was scared.”
“So was Hannah.”
She turned toward me.
For the first time, there was no job she could take from me.
No paycheck to hold back.
No private room where her version would become the only version.
Ruiz stood.
“Vanessa Bellini, you’re under arrest.”
Vanessa shook her head.
Then she looked at Luca and said the cruelest thing she had left.
“You’ll still be in that chair when this is over.”
May you like
Luca’s face went still.
“Yes,” he said. “And you’ll still have to answer for what you did.”
