“Yes,” I said.
I inserted the second bottle into the opposite nostril. “C’mon,” I said and pressed the pump hard.
And Richie sputtered to life, his breathing coming back in small gulps at first, then larger ones a moment later.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
An ambulance hit its horn, and the crowd around us separated.
There were two techs by my side, and my mind felt flatter than normal. A numbness I was unused to.
“Gardner,” Cassie said, and a memory flashed in my head.
Richie, opening the door to my mother’s hospital room. A pinprick in her neck.
And now we’d almost lost Richie.
Cassie was clearing the crowd around the Tahoe while the two men strapped Richie onto a gurney.
“I’ll go with him,” I said, and Cassie nodded, moving toward her SUV.
The two men loaded Richie into the back of the ambulance. Then one of them hopped out. Jumped into the driver’s seat while I stepped onto the bumper and climbed inside the back.
The inside of the vehicle smelled like a mix of gas exhaust and antiseptic, and I found purchase on a shelflike structure beside Richie.The rookie lifted his head off the stretcher and mumbled, so I leaned in close.
“Came out of the bathroom,” he said. “Going through my stuff.”
I inspected his eyes. His pupils were still less than three millimeters.
“Was it our guy?” I asked.
“Five ten,” he mumbled. “Muscular.”
“Let him rest,” the ambulance tech said, and I glanced over at him. He was in his late twenties, and he placed orange foam plugs in his ears. He offered me a pair, too, but I turned him down. Richie was still talking.
“Foreign pistol. Unusual looking,” Richie said. “I dunno which.”
The ambulance sirens were incredibly loud, and we took a corner so fast I had to grab onto Richie’s stretcher.
“Our guy, though?” I asked.
“Sir,” the tech hollered at me.
“Could’ve been a 43X.” Richie was slurring his words.
A Glock 43X was a fairly ubiquitous handgun, sold for under five hundred dollars and popular among homeowners because of its light 5.4-pound trigger pull.
“Caucasian?” I asked. “Or Latino?”
“Hey,” the tech said. “Enough.”
But Richie’s eyes were nearly closed now, and I needed information.
“Richie,” I said, slapping his chest with my hand.
“Don’t hit him,” the tech yelled.
But Richie opened his eyes.
