then what sounded like a bag of sand being dropped onto a concrete floor. She unholstered her gun and banged on the door. She should have gotten backup, but it was too late now.
Chapter 37
The man Detective Roberta James had shot in the face was pronounced dead at the scene by the EMTs.
Kate Priddy was taken by ambulance to Mass General Hospital, where on-call surgeons removed the five-inch knife that was buried high up in her back. Somehow, the blade had missed her spinal cord, plus all major arteries. There was bone damage, and she had a concussion, but the doctors and nurses who were present at the surgery would have a story to tell for many years about the girl who survived a knife wound that should have been fatal.
Corbin Dell was strapped to a gurney and taken to a separate ambulance. The EMTs managed to stop the bleeding, but he’d already lost too much blood. He was pronounced dead en route to Mass General.
Alan Cherney, his interrogation interrupted when Agent Tan was told what was happening at Bury Street, sat for several hours in the interrogation room, eventually putting his head down on the table and going to sleep. His interrogation was completed early the next morning, then all charges were dropped and he was released.
The first face Kate Priddy saw upon opening her eyes at midday on Wednesday was Detective James’s.
“I’m alive,” Kate said.
“You are.”
James put her hand on Kate’s shoulder and watched the young woman close her eyes and go back to sleep.
When Kate woke again, a nurse was checking her vitals. “Hi, there,” Vicky Wilson said, when she saw Kate’s half-opened eyes. Vicky was secretly thrilled to be in charge of the celebrity patient, but tried to conceal it as she asked: “How are we doing this afternoon?”
“Thirsty.”
“I can probably get you some ice chips, sweetheart. What else can I get for you?”
“The detective.” Kate’s voice was a faint croak.
“A detective?”
“No. Detective James. Roberta.” Kate had to swallow after saying the words. Her throat ached.
When she opened them, Roberta James was there, and Kate said: “Tell me everything.”
James smiled. “I’ll tell you what we know, okay?”
“Is Corbin dead?”
“Yes, Corbin Dell is dead.”
“What about Jack Ludovico?”
James paused, enough so that Kate had one awful moment where she thought he’d somehow gotten away. “The man you knew as Jack Ludovico is dead as well. He went by a lot of names, and we’re still trying to figure out what the real one is. Does the name Henry Wood mean anything to you?”
Kate shook her head, causing small detonations of pain in her neck and shoulder. She must have grimaced, because Detective James said, “We’ll talk more about this later. You’ll be glad to know your parents are en route from England.”
“That’s nice.”
“And there’s a man, Alan Cherney, who very much wants to see you. He’s here, now, in the hospital.”
“Not right now, okay,” Kate said, closing her eyes.
“Of course. I’ll let you sleep.”
James was standing up when Kate opened her eyes again and asked, “How did Corbin Dell get back into America? I thought you said—”
“That we were monitoring his passport. We were. He used someone else’s, a Dutch passport.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know everything yet, Kate. We think that the man you knew as Jack Ludovico, who also went by Henry Wood, had been targeting Corbin Dell, maybe trying to set him up, frame him for a murder.”
“So Corbin’s not a killer?”
“There’s a lot for us to unravel, Kate. We just don’t know the whole situation.”
“They were both in the apartment. How did . . . ?”
“How did they get in? Corbin had a key, and we found lockpicks on Jack. We think he was coming in and out of Bury Street through a back entrance that led to the basement.”
“How long had he been coming into the apartment?” Kate’s mouth was getting drier the more she talked.
“We don’t know that, but there’s evidence—forensic evidence—that he’d been all over the apartment. I’m going to tell you everything as we learn it, Kate, but right now, I think you need some more rest.”
“Okay,” Kate said, and let her lids close. There was pain in her upper back and at the base of her skull, and that pain was spreading and joining, and becoming stronger. She heard the detective’s chair scrape along the linoleum floor, then she knew she was alone. She tried to open her