Troubleshooter by Gregg Hurwitz

leave you in the room?"
    "For a moment."
    "We're going to do everything we can."
    "I know. Thank you, Doctor."
    Only a few concrete images emerged from the haze of the next few hours. Tim's colleagues popping by in shifts. Quiet voices, shy eyes. Tim nodding and nodding to the repeated pronouncement, uttered like a verdict, "It wasn't your fault." Guerrera and Zimmer in the back, discussing leads in whispered tones as if the topic weren't appropriate. Dray's four brothers harassing doctors and flashing badges until the oldest collapsed into a chair, ham-size fists pressing into his sweaty face. Mac pacing in the waiting room, stuck in a loop--"I just saw her at the doughnut joint. Happy's? I just saw her." Mac's and Fowler's sheriff's deputy uniforms recalling Dray's, cut to tatters beneath her gurney.
    Finally the doctor came out and brought Tim up to the ICU, hand on his back, a priest leading the condemned. Tim sat in the bedside chair and stared dumbly at his wife. Beneath her gown her belly thrust up, round and firm. A tube ran from the hole in her chest into a bubbling machine that sounded like a bong. Vaseline-impregnated gauze hid the sutures, but a few peeked out, shiny and black like the antennae of some hidden insect. Her legs were sticky and smelled faintly of urine. Her knees were pressed together and laid to the side in a way she never would have held them. It seemed grotesque--someone else positioning her knees, her limbs. What was a person other than how she held herself?
    All of a sudden, steaming at the joints and burning through the shock, it came. Rage.
    Rising, making his way past his colleagues, down the hall, into the bathroom. Leaving his badge behind on a closed toilet tank, stepping onto the lid, pulling himself up and through the window. Purpose quickening his step through the parking lot, the night sharp at the back of his throat.
    Dray leans against his car, arms crossed, a knowing smile touching her lips. "I'm a sheriff's deputy, Timothy. It comes with the job. You don't get to be stupid about this."
    Poleaxed, gun hand hanging limp at his side.
    She studies him, reading his answer in his eyes. Then she laughs. "You're not gonna get those fuckers for me. No way. That's a prescription for incompetence. You're gonna get them because they need to be got."
    Tim's eyes narrowed at the sound. Tannino's voice.
    "--anonymous tip saved her life. Otherwise she would've lain there for God knows how long." Tannino checked Dray's pulse as if he knew what he was doing, his olive fingers nestled paternally alongside her throat. Working his lower lip between his teeth, Bear crouched at Tim's side.
    Think, Tim. Where were they going?
    "Moorpark's a long way from the Rock Store," Tim said. "They ran the canyons and back roads, probably. Mulholland, Topanga, Box. Too many holes to plug in those hills. You only need a few brief spurts on freeways. You can pop out high on the 118, gets you on your way north keeping you out of L.A. County."
    "What's north?" Tannino asked.
    Tim and Bear said in unison, "The mother chapter."
    "You think they went there?"
    "Nah, they wouldn't take heat to the club," Bear said. "Safe houses up around there, most likely. We've put all local units on high alert."
    Tim realized he'd been clenching his jaw; he released it, felt the ache deep in his teeth. Tannino watched him, releasing a sigh that said his insides hurt. "There's no way you could've known. I'm sure you're telling yourself otherwise, but you did the right thing on that stop." He ran a hand up his face, over his head, his gold wedding band glittering in his dense hair. "We need live heroes. Dead ones only work for public relations." He bit his lip, possibly regretful of his choice of maxim.
    Tim felt the pull of sorrow, but again Dray's voice cut through it like a blade. What's the next step?
    "Get the video," Tim said. "From Dray's car."
    "Right," Tannino said. "We'll have a copy ASAP."
    He and Bear withdrew, leaving Tim alone