Chapter 29

Roger stood outside the house, watching as the ambulance pulled away, lights going, sirens blaring into the quiet of the night. He gave a silent prayer that Nick would be okay. The he could find Michelle and keep his promise. Damn, how do you come to admire and like someone that you've only known a couple of days.

He looked down at the blood covering his hands. Then he felt a hand on his arm. He turned.

Stephanie stood there, looking up at him. She was such a tiny thing. No wonder she was a city cop, she never would have made the height requirement in county or state departments.

He had made the trip out here on the back of her motorcycle, a big black thing that he didn't know how she managed to handle. It was three times her size. But she did with a style that he just had to admire, almost as much as he admired the lady herself.

"You ready to go to work?"

"I'm ready to nail this bastard," he said. He looked around the driveway. There had to be at least a dozen cars out there, different departments, all responding lights and sirens to the call of officer down. It was amazing how much of a brotherhood there was in law enforcement. When one of their own needed, someone was there. With one of theirs wounded, another missing, these men would work until they dropped to find and bring the man behind all of this to justice. It just did a heart good to see it.

"Well, let's go round up the posse and see if we can get some hands knocking on doors, though I doubt anyone around here saw anything until we pulled up. And we need to get Michelle's description out on the wires. Crime scene's already on the house." She shook her head. "Nick has a state of the art alarm system in there and it wasn't turned on."

"Sheriff headed to the hospital?" They were walking back toward the house.

"Yeah. Nick doesn't have any family that we know of. He grew up around here, his parents died when he was a kid. He has an ex out in Los Angeles." She tipped her head to the side in an expression that he would have found adorable if he'd had the time to enjoy it. "I don't think he needs us to let her know. I think the best thing we can do for him is to bring him Michelle."

"Whole and alive."

"From your mouth to God's ears."

They walked in the house. Roger headed toward the bedroom, the image of that mirror, the writing in heavy black, stuck in his mind. Before he could go too far in, he was stopped by one of the investigators who was wearing paper booties, and latex gloves and carrying fingerprint powder and a brush.

"You can't come in here."

"I've already been in here." He held up his blood covered hands. "I won't mess anything up, I want to see that mirror again."

"Just you, and stay out of our way."

Damn, ornery scientists. He stepped carefully to the mirror. There was something about the writing, something he had seen before. But he couldn't quite latch on to it. The M was stylized, swirling curves, the tail curling around and under. It looked almost feminine to him. Maybe their M might have problems with women, but he seemed to be very in touch with his own feminine side. So, women, the most girly that he could remember, very precise. Very flamboyant, ruffles and curls. He was on the wrong track but he was close, he could feel it.

The writing itself was slanted and harsh, lines and angles. Nothing feminine there. No nonsense, not hurried but specific. He looked around the bedroom, no marker in sight. "Did you guys already pick up a marker, something that might have been used to write this?" he asked one of the crime scene techs.

"Nope, we didn't see anything like that. Looks like he brought it with him."

Another clue. He carried a kit. Knife, big one that had cut up Nick and had also been used to jimmy the door. Marker. What else? If he was watching them, and Stephanie said that he had, he probably was carrying binoculars or something like that. And he needed a place to watch them from.

He walked to the bedroom window, earning himself a distinctly unpleasant look from the tech, which he deliberately ignored. The light was on in the window, full dark outside with no moon, he couldn't see anything. But he bet if you had the right angle, you could see everything in this room from the outside. He had to find that angle.

"Stephanie, get them to take some Polaroid's of this writing, would you? I want to take a look at it again later. And find out when that sketch artist can hook up with our witness. He may be an old drunk but we need an idea of who we are looking for now." He craned his neck, seeing reflected in the mirror the image of the blood against the wall. There were blood drops on the bedspread, marks on the dresser. The phone was covered. He was surprised that Nick managed to hold on as long as he did, and been so ready to fight when they got here. Ahhh, the wonders of love.

"You guys got a bathroom done that I can use to get cleaned up?" He held up his hands again and was waved towards the small bathroom off the front hall. He walked by Stephanie who was busy in the hall on her cell phone. She was yelling into it, brow beating someone into doing something for her. He wondered if she did that any better in person, and despite her diminutive size, he had no doubt she did.

He cleaned up in the bathroom, washing off the blood, scrubbing the back of his hands. He hated thinking about Nick, hated that a man that was as good as he seemed to be was fighting for his life in a hospital while some homicidal maniac was running loose with the woman he loved. He dried off his hands on a towel that looked like it was ancient and probably had come with the house. Then he grabbed his own phone and got the number to the hospital.

It took a while, and some swearing of his own before anyone was willing to give him any information. The sheriff had been there and had put a gag order on the hospital staff. No one was to get information on Nick's condition. It was a smart move, in case their subject decided to call the hospital to see if Nick was still alive or not. Though with his injuries, it was amazing that he had even been able to get to a phone, much less get help.

The hospital took it's own sweet time getting around to going over his credentials. Finally, a doctor came on the line and gave him an update.

"Detective Saint is lucky to be alive. He is in critical condition. We are trying to get him stabilized so that we can get him into surgery and remove the bullet. It's lodged close to his spine, but we should get it out with no problems. So as long as he doesn't try to get up again and leave, we should be okay."

"Now why doesn't it surprise me that the man tried to get up out of a hospital bed."

The doctor laughed. "He's pretty strong willed. He's got it in his head that he's the only one that can find someone named Michelle. He's been yelling his head off for her." The doctor paused a second, as if trying to make a decision about something. "Do something about this bastard. I don't think we'll be able to keep the detective down long enough for him to heal unless you, and I mean the collective you, find this Michelle he keeps asking for. So take care of it." He hung up before Roger could say anything.

Ain't love grand, he sighed, rubbing at his chest. Time to find the girl, save the hero and make the happily ever after a reality. Time to go for a walk outside.

Stephanie was standing outside of the door to the bathroom when he came out. She had a flashlight in her hand.

"I figured that if he was watching them, maybe he left part of himself outside. Wanna go for a walk?" She held the flashlight out to him, waggled it a little, a smile on her face.

"You know, I love a woman who always knows what I want a second before I do." He grinned down at her. And a woman who never freaked in an intense situation. She fit in all accounts. They had been having a drink down in the lounge at his hotel when the call had come in. She'd been very specific, telling him to grab a jacket and then piling him onto her bike without a second thought.

But the trip here. He didn't even want to think about it now. It would haunt his nightmares forever. He'd never been so glad to let go of a woman in his entire life. His legs still felt weak and shaky.

They headed out the front door, around the side of the house. The backyard was deep shadows. He clicked on the flashlight.

"Wow," Roger said. "He needs to put fairy lights in the trees out here." The yard was beautiful, landscaped with flowers and deep green grass. "And a swing to sit on."

"From what I've been able to gather about Nick, he spends a lot of time on home improvement. This place was a major dump when he got it."

"You've been gathering a lot on him. Any reason?" Was that jealousy he was feeling. Nope, he wasn't going to be here long enough for jealousy.

"Yeah, like Michelle wouldn't scalp me if I so much as looked." She chuckled at the thought, then said a prayer that she would have the chance. "I like to know who I'm working with or for." She shrugged her shoulders. "It's a quirk."

So what did she know about him? Wrong thought, back to work.

"That's his window, and the living room. So if I wanted to be able to peeping Tom someone and not be seen, hmmm, I think this is the best angle." He walked over to a tree that was close to the back edge of the yard, right where the state forest backed up to it. He shone the light around and hit pay dirt when something flashed in the glare.

"What's this?" He drew a pen out of his pocket and knelt next to what had caught his eye. A piece of glass, he moved it with his pen. On top of the ground, not in it as it would be if it had been out here for a while. He looked around some more and saw more bits of sparkle. "I think our subject got a little mad and broke something."