Chase stared at Watson and gave him a nod of thanks.
Then Chase was gone again.
“Where... He needs to be here!” Sky whispered.
“Trust him!” Hank whispered.
“Trust is a two-way street!” she whispered in return. But she realized she was afraid.
Afraid for herself. And worse.
She was afraid for Chase.
“STAIRWELL!” ONE OF the uniformed cops in the hall shouted. “Headed down the stairwell!”
He was moving quickly, racing to the stairs.
Chase hurried behind him, drawing his weapon and assuring him, “I have a permit! I can help, I swear, I’ve worked with lots of cops, and I am not at all trigger-happy.”
The cop nodded as they headed in the direction of the gunfire.
They almost tripped over one of the police officers who had just been in Bobby Sacks’s room, one who had cuffed the fake nurse.
He groaned; the man was shot but still alive.
“LeBlanc!” the officer with Chase cried, hunkering down by the fallen man.
“Stay with him—get help!” Chase ordered, knowing he needed to move fast.
“He got Harvey’s gun...he’s got Harvey!” the man on the floor moaned.
“I’ll get him!” Chase promised, hurrying down the stairs. He didn’t hear the explosion of another shot. He did hear scuffling and then a whisper that was oddly echoed in the stairwell.
“Move, move, move...and you may live!”
Despite his speed, Chase forced himself to move as quietly as possible, finally seeing the nurse and the cop as he rounded one turn. He took aim at the nurse’s head, shouting out, “Stop now! Lower the gun!”
Instead, the nurse laughed and took aim, pointing his weapon directly at him. But Chase was ready, sliding back to avoid the bullet that plowed into the wall while carefully returning fire.
The nurse didn’t let out a peep.
Chase had caught him squarely in the forehead. He fell, rolling down the last few stairs to the first-floor landing.
Chase cursed himself as he hurried down to reach the officer—Harvey as the other man had called him. He was staring at Chase with gratitude.
“He was going to kill me. He shot my partner—he was just using me to get out of the hospital. He would have killed me. How...”
“I’ve worked with law enforcement and have the proper credentials to carry, and he was after people in this hospital. My grandfather is here,” Chase said.
The cop looked at him. “You’re one hell of an interesting drummer, Mr. McCoy.”
“Um, yeah, I’ve heard that.”
“Thank you. I need to see to my partner—”
“He was talking, and being in a hospital, he’ll get immediate help.”
“And...well, we’ll need your weapon, and you’ll have to make a statement. I mean, you saved my life, but the world runs on paperwork. Real paper, sometimes.”
Chase nodded, looking at the dead suspect.
Was he the pusher? He’d never seen the man before.
“Well, I guess you have to call someone, but I’d like to get back to my grandfather,” Chase said. “If that’s okay. I’ll be here... I am due at our tech rehearsal at four, but—”
To his relief, Chase saw that Wellington had arrived with the captain of the local PD.
“Mr. McCoy, the police need your weapon, and they’ll be asking you to sign a statement. We need to do this quickly. Captain Hughes and I both have tickets for tonight’s event—we can’t have you missing anything and we don’t want to miss anything, either!”
“I need to see my grandfather and Sky,” Chase said.
“Of course. You are something, Mr. McCoy. Johnny-on-the-spot, and a big show tonight! Grateful you were here,” Wellington said. “Come on, son, we’ll head on back up, I’ll get you onto the paperwork, and then we’ll get you to the show!”
OF COURSE, Sky figured, Wellington had all kinds of strings he could pull. He left Hank’s room again with Chase, but the two returned within a few minutes—paperwork all done.
Even for Wellington, that must have been quite a feat. But then, from what she began to understand, Chase had now saved the life of a cop as well, and that had to sit well with whoever pulled all the strings.
They finally bade Hank goodbye with Chase warning him to do everything the doctors told him to do—and Hank warning Chase to be careful.
