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The doors slammed. The siren started up its blaring whoop, and the ambulance carrying my dearest friend headed into traffic toward San Francisco General.
Time was working against us.
The shooter was gone, and Willie had gone after him.
Tracchio put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re getting descriptions of the doer, Boxer —”
“I have to find Claire’s son,” I said.
I broke away from Tracchio and ran toward the farmer’s market, scanning faces as I pushed past the slow-moving crowd. It was like walking through a herd of cattle.
I looked into every fricking produce stall and in between them, raked the aisles with my eyes, searching desperately for Willie — but it was Willie who found me.
He shoved his way toward me, calling my name. “Lindsay! Lindsay!”
The front of his T-shirt was soaked with blood. He was panting, and his face was rigid with fear.
I grabbed his shoulders with both hands, tears welling up again.
“Willie, where are you hurt?”
He shook his head. “This isn’t my blood. My mom’s been shot.”
I pulled him to me, hugged him to my chest, felt some of my terrible fear leaving me. At least Willie was okay.
“She’s on her way to the hospital,” I said, wishing I could add, She’ll be fine. “You saw the shooter? What does he look like?”
“He’s a skinny white man,” Willie said as we bumped through the mob. “Has a beard, long brown hair. He kept his eyes down, Lindsay. I never saw his eyes.”
“How old is he?”
“Like, maybe a few years younger than you.”
“Early thirties?”
“Yeah. And he’s taller than me. Maybe six foot one, wearing cargo pants and a blue Windbreaker. Lindsay, I heard him say to my mom that she was supposed to stop the shooting. That it was her job. What’s that supposed to mean?”
Claire is chief medical examiner of San Francisco. She’s a forensic pathologist, not a cop.
“You think it was personal? That he targeted your mom? Knew her?”
Willie shook his head. “I was helping to tie up the boat when the screaming started,” he told me. “He shot some other people first. My mom was the last one. He had a gun right up to her head. I grabbed an iron pipe,” he said. “I was going to brain him with it, but he shot at me. Then he jumped overboard. I went after him — but I lost him.”
It really hit me then.
What Willie had done. My voice was loud, and I grabbed his shoulders.
“What if you’d caught up with him? Willie, did you think about that? That ‘skinny white man’ was armed. He would have killed you.”
Tears jumped out of Willie’s eyes, rolled down his sweet, young face. I relaxed my grip on his shoulders, took him into my arms.
“But you were very brave, Willie,” I said. “You were very brave to stand up to a killer to protect your mom.
“I think you saved her life.”
Chapter 6
I KISSED WILLIE’S CHEEK through the open patrol-car window. Then Officer Pat Noonan drove Willie to the hospital and I boarded the ferry, joining Tracchio in the open front compartment of the Del Norte’s top deck.
