Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,59
he gives them what they want, then runs from the gun and straight into a windshield.”
Katie made a strangled noise and Mike glared at the cops, but Nora appreciated their efficiency. She kept her questions equally succinct.
“No leads at all on the vehicle?”
“Nothing. Off the record, it’s likely a drunk or distracted driver who’s scared shitless right now. We usually bag these ones off a license plate or when they take the car in to get it fixed.”
Meaning they were already closing the case file. A petty robbery leading to a hit-and-run accident. Tragic but unintentional. Nora wished she felt the same certainty, but some of the facts weren’t lying obediently in line with the others. The car hadn’t slowed down. It may even have swerved onto the sidewalk, according to at least one eyewitness. Then there was the issue of what she had seen from the skyway that night, two dark figures she thought she knew. Maybe one of them actually had been Corbett. Maybe he wasn’t running from a mugger at all.
She glanced at Mike, but he was already leading Katie back to the chairs by her kids. Nora hesitated, debating. She couldn’t be at all sure of what she’d seen. The only person she trusted to confirm or deny was lying unconscious in a hospital bed. As the detectives turned to leave, the TV mounted in the corner of the ICU waiting room aired a commercial for Strike Down and Logan’s face filled the screen, her unflinching gaze daring Nora to speak.
“Wait,” she stopped the detectives. “I need to make a statement.”
* * *
Two hours later, Nora sat in the basement of the hospital next to the other Parrish partners, Jim and Rajesh, as blood was siphoned out of them, wondering if she’d done the right thing.
The detectives had been skeptical, to say the least, when Nora asked to speak with them privately, but they escorted her to an empty office and listened with growing credulity as she provided carefully selected facts. She told them about spotting Corbett and Logan Russo from the skyway, and following their progress across the plaza. She admitted losing track of them in the crowd, but then glimpsing what she believed was her partner’s silhouette in the alley, arguing with someone, then the sudden movement and glint of gold, followed by the disappearance of the taller person.
“And you think he was in this alley with Logan Russo?”
Nora swallowed. The line between reality and fantasy had become uncomfortably distorted in the apartment with Gregg. What if her instincts were wrong? What would Logan and Corbett even be doing in an alley together? All her suspicions would sound ludicrous spoken aloud.
“Logan Russo was wearing a black and gold outfit last night, and this person’s height and build seemed to match Ms. Russo.” Her unwillingness to speak in absolutes or provide a positive ID clearly irritated the detectives. One of them pushed his chair away from the desk and left the room. The other, a jeans-clad man of Asian descent with a hard jaw and tired eyes, crossed his arms and stared at her.
“Do you know Logan Russo?” he asked, and the familiarity in his tone piqued Nora’s memory. She glanced at the card he’d given her. It was the same detective whose name had appeared on Aaden Warsame’s case file.
“Not well,” Nora replied, sitting up straighter.
“But you know her height and build.”
Nora remained quiet.
“What’s your connection to Strike?” Detective Li tried again.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
They’d circled each other for a while. Unless she was subpoenaed, Parrish’s work for Strike remained a confidential matter, and while Aaden’s email indisputably linked him to the fraud, it wasn’t the case in question. She couldn’t produce a credible link between the missing twenty million dollars and Corbett’s accident, so when Detective Li pressed her she gave scant information. Her firm had been engaged by Strike. No, Corbett was not assigned to the matter. No, she couldn’t provide further details.
By the time she returned to the ICU waiting room, the other partners and their wives had arrived, and she, Jim, and Rajesh had gone together to donate blood.
Nora sat in the basement room, staring at the dark coil of tubes sucking from their arms while the three of them tersely divided Corbett’s assignments.
“At least it’s a holiday weekend,” Rajesh commented at one point. “Less deliverables.”
Nora stared at his mouth as they formed the words, then to the bag of blood steadily filling beneath him. Mike and