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ecapped the bottle of antiseptic. "You really should go to the hospital and let someone look at these hands under better light. There might be glass slivers-"
"There aren't. I'm fine." She jumped off the gurney.
Her knees were becoming sore and stiff from the multiple cuts, but she hid her grimace from the paramedic. "Thank you."
"Tiel, you okay?" Gully came huffing up to her. "These sumbitches wouldn't let me past till you got those hands and knees seen to. The video looks great, kid. Best you've ever done. If this doesn't get you the Nine Live spot, then life ain't fair and I'm gonna quit the TV business myself."
"Have you heard anything about Ronnie's condition?"
"Not a thing."
"Sabra?"
"Nothing. Not since the cowboy turned her over to that Dr. Giles and they took her off in the chopper."
"Speaking of Doc, is he around?"
Gully didn't hear her. He was shaking his head and muttering, "Wish they had given me a crack at Dendy. A couple of minutes with me and he'd've been hating life."
"I assume he's under arrest."
"The sheriff had three deputies-meanest-looking cusses I've ever seen-haul his ass off to jail."
Even though she had seen it with her own eyes, she still found it impossible to believe that Dendy had shot Ronnie Davison. She expressed her dismay to Gully. "I don't understand how that could have happened."
"Nobody was paying him any attention. He had put on a good show for Galloway. Crying, wringing his hands. Admitted that he'd mishandled things. He led us to believe that he had seen the error of his ways, that all was for given, and that he only wanted Sabra to be safe. The lying bastard."
Tiel's pent-up emotions boiled to the surface, and she began to cry. "It's my fault, Gully. I promised Ronnie it would be safe for him to come out, that if he surrendered, he wouldn't be hurt."
"That's what we all promised him, Ms. McCoy."
She turned toward the familiar voice, her tears drying instantly. "I'm very put out with you, Agent Galloway."
"As your colleague just explained, I fell for Dendy's act of contrition. Nobody knew he had brought a deer rifle with him."
"Not just that. You could have warned me about that Huerta character when I brought the baby out."
"And if you'd known who he was, what would you have done?"
What would she have done? She didn't know, but somehow that seemed irrelevant. She asked, "Did you know Martinez was a Treasury agent?"
Galloway looked chagrined. "No. We assumed he was one of Huerta's henchmen."
Remembering how the wounded, shackled man had flung himself at Dendy, she remarked, "He did an awfully brave thing. Not only did he blow his cover, but he also risked his life. If any of the other officers had reacted more quickly…" She shuddered to think of the young man's body being riddled with bullets from fellow officers' guns.
"I've thought of that," Galloway admitted grimly. "He'd like to talk to you."
"Me?"
"Are you up to it?"
Galloway led her to another ambulance, apprising her along the way of Martinez's condition. "The bullet went straight through his leg without nicking a bone or an artery. Twice tonight he got lucky." He assisted her into the back of the ambulance.
The temporary dressing Doc had put on Martinez's thigh had been replaced by a sterile gauze bandage. The bloody T-shirt had been added to the pile of other infectious waste materials about to be discarded. Seeing it caused Tiel's heart to constrict. She recalled seeing Doc's hands fashioning the crude bandage for the wound he had inflicted.
Martinez was hooked up to an IV and was also getting a transfusion of blood. But his eyes were clear. "Ms. McCoy."
"Agent Martinez. You're very good at your job. You had us all fooled."
