Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,59
McGinnis here did. But she was all smooth and polished in front of the nurse station. Then, when we got outside, she went a little gutter. Not LA. She didn’t sound like she was from here. I’d say someplace back East. Maybe even Boston. It was the way she said car.”
O’Byrne nodded, jotting in the row of hieroglyphics. “So you followed her outside, and then what?”
“She went out the Urgent Care door. You have to cut through a pretty big section of the hospital to get to it. I thought it was weird, because she kept zigzagging through the corridors.” Bobby looked up suddenly, cocking his head as he thought. “She didn’t go out the parking structure exit. We ended up on the main walk, toward the left corner of the main building. I was right on her heels when she turned around, and I felt the blade go in. It took me a second to realize I’d been stabbed. I kept trying to walk into her. So I forced it in deeper. Then she jerked back, and the pain hit. Doctor said she probably twisted when she pulled it out because she took a good chunk of my skin with her.”
“Anybody see her do this? Any witnesses? Anybody stop and help you?” O’Byrne came at Bobby with the rapid-fire questions, peppering him with choices, but they were all pretty much the same jab to his story. There’d been enough time between them leaving the upper floor and him getting into the ER for Bobby to shoot her. O’Byrne needed to shake his story, trying to see if there was anyone she could tap to verify what he was saying.
“Yeah. Actually one of the ER doctors was coming in. I think his name is Davis or Davison. I got handed off as soon as they got me in.” He pursed his lips, whistling out a low tone. “I stumbled back a couple of feet and went down. It took him a bit to get there, and there was a couple—an older couple—who were trying to help me up, but he told me to stay there until he could see how bad it was. Seemed like forever before we came inside. Must’ve been maybe five or ten minutes.”
“I requested copies of the camera footage from that side of the building, detective,” the young cop interjected. “Security said it would be about an hour, but they can download the video onto a drive for you.”
“Thanks. Good job on that.” O’Byrne gave him a curt nod. “Can you describe for me what she was wearing? I want to verify that’s what we found her in.”
“Yeah… um, Princess, can you do me a favor and see what’s taking Ichi so long?” Bobby gritted his teeth again, and the crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes deepened. “As soon as O’Byrne is done with me, I’d like to get out of here, and as sexy as I am, I think I want to be dressed before I parade through the hospital again. I don’t think we’re going to go over anything you haven’t already heard or know. You mind, O’Byrne?”
“No. It’s okay. I’ll have to shake Mac down for his side of the story when I’m done with you, so it’s probably for the best,” she said, jerking her head toward the part in the curtains. “Don’t leave without me talking to you, okay? I’m going to also have to head upstairs and talk to the real Marlena Brinkerhoff before I go to the captain with this piece-of-shit story on a plate.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be right back here,” I told O’Byrne with a shake of my head. “All I seem to be doing is going around in circles anyway.”
SEARCHING FOR my younger brother in a parking structure connected to a hospital was easier said than done. Luckily for me, despite the many levels, not many of them held a brooding Japanese man leaning against a silver SUV while smoking a clove cigarette. As usual, Ichi scored a good parking spot near the elevator, so after one quick jaunt around the lower floor, I spotted him before too long.
Problem was, as I crossed the twenty yards or so separating us, I noticed he wasn’t looking too happy. At first I chalked that up to the fact that his husband had just been stabbed, but his expression soured even more when I drew near.
“Hey!” I called out to him, noticing he didn’t have Bobby’s gym