Desperate Measures
- Автор: Вудс Стюарт
- Серия: Stone Barrington #47
- Год: 2018
- Язык: английский
- Год: G.P. Putnam's Sons
- ISBN: 978-0-7352-1922-9
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «Desperate Measures». Краткое содержание книги:
She backed up against the wall behind her and judged the distance to the stool, then, leaning into it, she began to run as fast as she could under the circumstances. She knew she needed momentum, and her thoughts went back to the high school track team, when she would lean forward into the tape at the finish line for that last bit of speed.
She leapt and got a foot on top of the stool and pushed off, as high and as fast as she possibly could, and dove headfirst into the window. There was the crash of breaking glass, then she was falling in cold air, falling and falling.
It was nearly five AM as two uniformed cops sat in their patrol car at the corner of Lexington Avenue, facing downtown. One of them reached for the radio’s microphone and called in their position. “We’ve made two dozen sweeps uptown and downtown and found nothing. Are we getting a shift change soon?”
“Come on in to the precinct,” the operator said.
“Let’s go, Max,” the cop said to the driver, who put the car in gear. Then there was a very loud noise heard from the direction of the driver’s window. He stopped the car and reversed a few feet. “What the fuck was that?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but I heard it, too.”
They both stared east, at the empty street. Nothing was moving or making more noise.
“It sounded almost like a car crash,” the driver said.
“I don’t see anything,” his partner said.
“Let’s take a stroll,” Max said.
They got out of the car and began to walk east.
“You take the other side of the street,” Max said. Halfway down the block he encountered some broken glass on the sidewalk, but he could find no broken windows.
The two cops continued to Third Avenue, then turned and walked back toward Lexington. Halfway up the block, in line with the broken glass, he passed a dumpster and thought he heard a small sound from its direction. He looked up and could see that both of the steel lids were propped open. They should get a ticket for that, he thought.
“Max, where are you?” his partner called from across the street.
Max walked to the east end of the dumpster, stepped up on the bumper of a car parked next to it, and got out his flashlight. He played it over the contents: broken drywall, short pieces of lumber, broken glass — the detritus of demolition. He saw a wooden chair, broken, and fixed on that for a moment. He was about to get down from the bumper when he saw something else that transfixed him.
There was a hand — a woman’s hand from the size of it — tied with rope to the chair.
He reached for his radio and called in his location. “I’ve found something: requesting an ambulance right now!”
“Harvey!” he yelled at his partner. “I got something here. Get to the car and turn on the flashers, so an ambulance will see it.”
“What have you got, Max?”
“At least part of a woman!” Max yelled back, wading into the dumpster.
Stone’s phone rang, causing him to sit straight up in bed; he was unaccustomed to calls at this hour. “Hello?”
“It’s Dino. I thought I’d call you because I’m awake, and I’m not going back to sleep.”
“That was thoughtful of you.”
“My people found Faith. At least, we think it could be Faith. She’s about the right size.”
Stone’s heart sank. “Is it so bad that she can’t be identified?”
“Not yet, not for sure. They’re taking her to Bellevue.”
Stone woke up a little more. “Why not the morgue?”
“Because she’s still alive,” Dino said. “At least, she’s not dead yet.”
“Thank God.”
“Don’t thank Him too soon,” Dino said. “This is really bad.”
“Where are you?”
“About to leave home. Shall I pick you up on the way?”
“Please. See you shortly.”
Ten minutes later, Stone stood at the curb, watching the black SUV turn the corner. He got into the backseat with Dino. “Anything new?”
“Nope, and no news is good news,” Dino replied.
29
The car rolled to a stop at the ER entrance to the huge hospital. Stone and Dino jumped out and ran down the hall to a nurse’s station.
Dino flashed his badge at a nurse. “Where is Faith Barnacle?”
The nurse consulted a list. “We’ve got no Faith Barnacle, but there’s a Jane Doe in exam room two, Commissioner,” she said, jerking a thumb down the hallway.
They ran another fifty feet and nearly collided with a nurse coming from behind the curtain, bearing a pan filled with blood-stained gauze and other horrible things.
“Get back,” she ordered the two men. “There’re two very busy doctors working in there, and you don’t want to screw with them. Siddown!” She jerked her chin in the direction of a row of chairs, and they meekly followed her orders.
“Hey, how is she?” Dino shouted at the nurse’s back as she walked away.
“Stick around!” she shouted without turning.
The better part of an hour passed before a young physician in bloody scrubs came out of the curtained room and was replaced by another.
“Doctor!” Dino shouted.
The man walked wearily over to where they were getting to their feet. “What?”
“How is she?”
“Awful,” he said. “I’ve rarely seen such a mess. I had to bring a fresh doctor down here just to suture her wounds.”
“Is she going to make it?”
“She’s taken about as much abuse as a human being can stand and still live, but she’s stable. She’s got some broken ribs and a thousand cuts, but she’s been conscious off and on, and that’s a good sign.”
“How were all these cuts inflicted?” Stone asked.
“Not with a knife or razor,” the doctor said. “As I hear it, she fell from three or four stories into a dumpster filled with chunks of old drywall and glass. There must have been enough air in there to offer some kind of cushion. Oh, and her hands were tied to what remained of a chair. That’s all I can tell you.”
Dino thanked him and got on his phone. “Listen, you’ve got to figure out which window she fell from,” he said. “We’ve gotta get an arrest out of this.” He listened for a couple of minutes. “Keep me posted,” he said and hung up.
“They found the room, twelve stories up. It looks like, while tied to the chair, she made a head-on run at the window and crashed through it. Two cops were sitting in their patrol car on the corner and heard the noise when she hit the dumpster. One of them found her and called it in. He thought she was dead.”
Stone collapsed into his chair. “Christ, she’s got guts, you have to give her that.”
“She must have had some idea of what was coming,” Dino said. “I hope I’d have done the same thing in the circumstances.”
Another doctor came out of the exam room, and Dino braced him. “Can we see her?”
“She’s out like a light on morphine,” he said. “She may be talking tomorrow, but I’m not promising you anything.”
“But she’ll live?” Stone asked.
“She’s a tough one,” the doctor said. “The ribs will be painful, but she doesn’t have any internal organ damage, and that’s remarkable. She’ll be recovering for quite a while.”
Stone and Dino made a move toward the exam room.
“Forget it,” the doctor said. “There’s a doctor and a nurse at work in there suturing, and believe me, you don’t want to see her in her current state. She was naked when she went into the dumpster, except she had a hood over her head, so the cuts to her face are less bad. Go home and call here tomorrow before you come over. She needs rest, not questions.”