“Whoa, easy there. Take it easy.”
Slowly, she turned her head. Blinking, she tried to bring the speaker into focus. He was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.
“Holgersen?”
He tossed aside the blanket covering him and came to his feet.
“Where am I?” She managed to pull herself up into a quasi-sitting position against the pillow. She realized her upper left arm was bandaged. It throbbed like all hell. Her head, too.
Holgersen came up to her bedside. “Bullet ripped through muscle and flesh, but missed bone. Doc says yous should regain full use of that arm, but it’ll take a while. And plenty of physio.”
Her hand went to her head. She tentatively touched a sensitive area that felt like a golf ball.
“Guess yous got a bash on the head, too, eh? Maybe when you passed out.”
“What ... what happened to me?”
“All’s I know is you was lying there bleeding, unconscious, hypothermic, dehydrated, when the SAR guys found you and Addams’s body.”
Her brain reeled. She closed her eyes, trying to remember, struggling to bring it all into focus. She recalled tracking him. For how long she didn’t know. Catching up. Yelling at him to lie facedown. Then ... then nothing. Blackness. She opened her eyes.
Holgersen was smoothing his goatee, watching her closely.
“Addams?”
“You got him good. Real good. He’s dead.”
“Maddocks? Ginny?”
“They’s here in the hospital.” He smiled. “They’s gonna be fine, Pallorino. Washed up the estuary. Bit beat up—Maddocks was shot in the chest, but the bullet-suppression vest saved him. Lung collapsed, broken ribs, but on the mends. Ginny—gots her head cut. Dislocated shoulder. Her injuries are gonna be more mental than physical. They’s brought in victim counseling.”
“Did he ... did he sexually—”
“Addams did not assault her. He did not carve a crucifix. He was using her for something else.”
Emotion flooded her eyes. She closed them for a moment as she strained to remember the series of events that had landed her here.
“How’d Addams get her?”
“He was waiting in her apartment when she came home.”
“What day, what time is it?”
“Wednesday morning. By the time they brought you down the mountain, it was almost midnight Monday. SAR guys found you lying passed out. They stabilized you up there, then carried you down. Weather was still too bad to get a chopper anywhere near there. Like pea soup—couldn’t even land in the Skookum parking lot. Doc operated on your arm Tuesday morning, gots the bullet out. Rehydrated and warmed yous up. Then you was in and out all day yesterday. They says it’s quite a marvel that yous lived.”
Angie fought to pull the last few days into focus.
“Media shit-storm out there,” he said. “Lots of questions ... and shit.”
“What do you mean?”
“About how Addams died and all. MVPD issued a statement that said the suspect wanted in connection with the deaths of Drummond and Hocking has been located and has been found dead. That’s alls they said—no mention of your name and that you shot him, but you gots him real good, Pallorino. In the face. In the neck. In the chest. Like point-blank, man. Emptied your clip into the bastard.”
Darkness swirled the shards of images through her mind. “His face?”
“Yeah ... he was like lying there on his back, it looks like. From the photos.”
A sickening cold fingered into Angie’s chest as reality clarified. Officer-involved shooting. “They’ve opened an investigation?”
