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“Latest birthing style, Mama,” Salazar shot back.
A much younger woman in jeans, a leather jacket, and too much makeup said, “How’d you afford a dress like that? You on the take now?”
As the nurses and EMTs moved Salazar, she pointed at Bree and said, “She’ll tell you, wiseass.”
Then the detective moaned and the beeping of the fetal monitor quickened again. The EMTs hurried her through the double doors with her husband beside her.
“Who are you?” Too Much Makeup asked. “Cop?”
“Used to be. You’re her sister?”
She nodded. “Lucinda.”
“Rosella was working undercover, Lucinda. A friend of mine made the dress for her and this one for me so we’d fit in. Now I have to go see a doctor about this arm.”
“What happened to you?” Salazar’s mother asked.
“Gunshot wound,” Bree said and walked into the hospital.
The triage nurse brought her straight back to the ER. While she waited to see a doctor, she called Alex and filled him in.
“But you’re sure you’re all right?” he said.
“I’m going to have a sore arm for a while, but yes, I’mfine. Listen, Salazar identified one of the shooters. The one I wounded. He’s a Russian named Volkov.”
“Volkov! As in Tull’s Volkov?”
“One and the same.”
“But he’s alive?”
“Last time I saw him, but he was in rough shape. I creased the left side of his head with a nine-millimeter round.”
“Hang on,” Alex said. She heard the drone of news anchors and Alex picked up the phone again. “Wow, the story’s on CNN. They’re calling you and Salazar heroes.”
“She’s my hero. She saved my life, Alex.”
“I can’t wait to meet her and thank her. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“So am I,” she said and yawned. “I just want to get stitched up and out of here.”
“Where are you staying?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“I can go online and get you a hotel room.”
“I’ll do it,” she said. “I have my phone and nothing else to do.”
“So it was some kind of Russian mob thing, huh? The hits at Paula Watkins’s home and then finishing off the job with Duchaine?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“But why?”
“I’m thinking it has something to do with Watkins and Duchaine elbowing in on the high-end-prostitution racket.”
A doctor appeared and looked at her phone. “No cells in here.”
