Page 12 of Rescuing Sara

“Like whom?” Danni’s fear returned. “Who would she go with?”

But Father Ryan just shook his head and they let themselves out of his office to step into the hall that led back to the nave. At the front doors, a few parishioners followed them outside. The smokers were gone and only the flower vendor remained. From the belfry the bells began to toll the noon hour, their deep and solemn tones pulsing through the air.

“Remind me not to piss you off,” Patrick announced as they descended the steps to the sidewalk. The temperature was dropping, and a chilling wind beat against the church’s flag. “For a moment I thought you were gone to take off Mrs. Everett’s head.”

“Stupid woman,” Danni muttered. “I hope the police arrest her and her husband both for withholding information in Sara’s case. Sara might be home by now if they’d said something.”

“Then let’s go tell the police,” Patrick said. “It’s too cold to stand here and talk about it. When we’re done, we’ll go back to the Safehouse and discuss what to do next.”

His phone buzzed and taking it from his pocket, he glanced at the screen. “It’s Hank Patterson.”

“You talk to him while I go buy those flowers,” Danni told him. “It looks like the vendor only has a few bouquets left.”

She left before he could tell her to wait. Hitting the accept button, he said, “‘Morning Hank.”

“How are things in Knoxville?” His boss asked.

“It’s worse than we thought, Hank,” Patrick said grimly, watching Danni speak to the vendor and then, head down, start searching through her purse. “Some fool of a woman saw the girl–Danni! Drop and roll!”

Patrick’s shout had her on the ground just as the hypodermic syringe in the vendor’s clenched hand hit the table. Patrick threw his phone as he ran, launching himself through the air to come down on the vendor and his table. It broke beneath them, flattening pre-made bouquets, along with a stack of flower filled boxes and piles of cellophane sleeves. Gasping, Patrick got to his feet and snatched the man up by his collar. “You sick son-of-a-”

The heavy plastic tray crashing against his face sent Patrick staggering backwards, his head reeling. The vendor threw the tray as Patrick fumbled for his weapon while blood slid into his eyes, blurring his vision.

But not so much that he didn’t see Danni pull a 9 mm Smith and Wesson Equalizer from her purse and fire twice in the running man’s direction. The bullets hit the church’s far brick wall as the man slipped around a side street. Around Patrick, people who had just come out of the church were screaming and then Father Ryan was there, helping him to sit on the steps. So much for noon Mass.

“Damn it!” Danni lowered her gun, and catching sight of him, nearly dropped it. “Patrick!”

“That’s me,” he muttered, as she scooped up his phone and came to sit beside him, still holding her gun. Holding up his blood-stained fingers he asked, “You don’t happen to still have that napkin from breakfast with you, do you? I forgot my handkerchief.”

CHAPTER 5

A short time later.KPD Downtown Precinct

“Of course, I’m licensed to carry a gun,” Danni said crossly, watching the nurse practitioner clean the gash on Patrick’s forehead. “I’m a cop’s daughter, for heaven’s sake. And I have a license to carry a concealed weapon.”

Patrick had refused to let her, or Father Ryan called an ambulance. And since she’d never learned how to drive a straight shift, they had to call a cab, with Father Ryan insisting he should pay the fare. The downtown precinct, Patrick reminded her had an excellent in-house clinic that could take care of him right away instead of waiting for hours at the ER for treatment of a non-life-threatening injury.

Though truth be told, his head, nose and shoulder hurt like hell. Father Ryan, a fan of police procedure TV shows, had donned latex gloves, picked up the hypodermic and placed it in a plastic sandwich bag. While enroute to the station, Patrick texted Hank Patterson to tell him what happened and Danni texted Grant Miller, who met them in the precinct lobby and took the bag to the lab while Danni and Patrick went to the clinic.

Now, she watched as the NP applied butterfly strips to Patrick’s forehead. “Are you sure he doesn’t need stiches?” she asked him.

“Any deeper and he would,” the man said cheerfully. “And his nose will probably hurt for a few days until the swelling goes down. You really should have a CT scan of your head, Lieutenant. Just in case.”

“No,” Patrick said flatly. “No ER.”

“Then you must come from a long line of hard-headed men,” the NP retorted. “‘Cause you’re probably going to have a hell of a headache later.”

“I’ll survive,” Patrick muttered. “OTC meds and coffee will do the trick. Are we finished?”

“Yes, sir.” There was no mistaking the man’s sarcasm as he stepped back from the examining table. “I’d recommend rest tonight but I think I’m wasting my time in suggesting it.”

“Damn right.” Patrick looked at Danni, who inwardly winced at the sight of his battered face. “Let’s go talk to Miller,” he said.

“Captain Haggerty wants to see us as well,” Danni told him, picking up her purse.

“The more the merrier,” he called over his shoulder, and she hurried to catch up with him as if she didn’t know the way to ‘the captain’s’ office very well. Except for adding updated technology, every captain of the Knoxville Police Department she’d known all her life had used the same office and made very few changes.

They found Grant Miller and the precinct sketch artist already in Captain Haggerty’s office. Miller introduced Patrick to Haggerty and the artist. After declining an offer of something to drink, Danni and he gave accounts of what happened in front of the church, and then what Christine Everett told them. Finally, they supplied descriptions of the flower-seller–a tall, white male, over twenty-one with no obvious tattoos, and wearing a knit skull cap, black short coat, jeans and a heavy, probably fakebeard–to the sketch artist. When she’d finished, Danni agreed the sketch resembled the man, and with a silent nod, the artist left, and Haggerty exhaled her frustration.

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