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The uniform came out of the crowd, the face obscured behind sunglasses and the visor of his hat. He was holding out his hand.
I focused right past him, scanning down the street, searching for Coombs. Then I heard someone shout my name. “Hey! Boxer!”
Everything exploded on the steps of the Hall. Jacobi, Cappy, yelling, “Gun…”
My eyes flashed toward the cop. In that instant, the strangest thing came clear to me. His blues… He was wearing a patrolman’s uniform that I hadn’t seen in a while. I fixed on the face, and to my shock, it was Coombs. It was Chimera. I was the date he was planning to keep.
Someone spun me from behind as I raised my Glock. “Hey!” I yelled.
I saw Coombs’s gun spurt orange. Twice. Nothing I could do to stop it.
Then everything got incredibly crazy and confused. Chaos. Terror.
I know that I got off a shot before my body went numb with pain.
I saw Coombs lurch forward, his glasses flying off, his gun pointed my way. He staggered, but he was still coming for me. His dark eyes glared with hate.
Then a scary shooting gallery erupted in front of the Hall. A cacophony of loud, echoing pops… five, six, seven in rapid succession, coming from all directions. People were screaming, running for cover.
Coombs’s blue uniform erupted in bursts of bright red. Cappy and Jacobi were firing at him. His body hurtled backward, jerking with the hits. His face showed terrible pain. The air was laced with a burning cordite smell. The echo of each shot crashed in my ears.
Then it was eerily quiet. The silence was startling to me.
“Oh, Jesus,” I remembered saying, finding myself down on the concrete steps. I didn’t know for sure if I’d been shot.
Jacobi was leaning over me. “Lindsay, stay right there. Be still.” His hands were on my shoulders, and his voice reverberated through my brain.
I nodded, inventorying my body for a wound. Shouts and wails echoed all around, people rushing everywhere.
I reached for Warren’s arm and slowly pulled myself up. He tried to give me an order: “Lindsay, stay down. I’m telling you now.”
Coombs was on his back, ruptures of crimson oozing out of his blue shirt.
I pushed by Jacobi. I had to see Coombs, had to look into his eyes. I hoped he was still alive, because when the monster took his last breath, I wanted him staring up at me.
A few uniforms had formed a protective ring around Coombs, ordering everyone to stay clear.
Coombs was still alive, labored sounds escaping from his heaving chest. An EMS team came running, two techs lugging equipment. One, a woman, began ripping at Coombs’s bloody shirt. The other was taking his pressure and setting up an IV.
Our eyes met. Coombs’s gaze was waxy, but then his mouth twitched into an ugly smile. He tried to say something to me.
The EMS woman was backing people off, shouting out his vitals.
“I have to hear what he’s saying,” I told the tech. “Give me a minute here.”
“He can’t talk,” she said. “Give him room to breathe, Lieutenant. He’s dying on us!”
“I have to hear,” I said again, then I knelt down close. Coombs’s uniform shirt had been cut open, a mosaic of ugly wounds exposed.
His mouth quivered. He was still trying to talk. What did he want to tell me?
I leaned closer, the blood on Coombs smearing my blouse. I didn’t care. I put my ear close.
“One last…,” he whispered. Every breath was a fight for him now. Was this how it ended? With Coombs taking his secrets straight to hell?
One last…? One last target, one last victim? I stared into his eyes, saw the hatred still there.
“One last what, Coombs?” I asked.
