“Screwed up,” he murmured. “Made you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
Maybe not, but she was waking the pain anyway.
The light around him intensified. He was breathing fire now. He felt her hands on him and groped until he caught her wrist. “Stop,” he croaked. “Listen.”
“Adam, I can’t help you if—”
“I’m dead, Maya. I know it, and so do you. Do this for me, please.”
“Do what?”
He squeezed. “Take care of things. Made a will last year. Straightforward. Money, investments—they’re my sister’s. Condo’s yours. Go through it and—Ahh!” Pain sheared from chest to brain. He had to talk through his teeth. “Don’t let my brother have the Mustang…Crash addict. Give my sweet baby to Tal.” He fumbled two sets of keys from his pocket. “Condo keys, car keys. Promise.”
“Yes, okay, I promise. Now let me help….”
“There’s more. Stuff, official stuff. Hid it. Don’t trust anyone, anywhere. Huge mistake. Big fish, small pond. S’all I can say. Tell Tal to finish the deal.”
The light flared. It seemed to explode like a starburst that went from a bang to a fizzle.
“Sorry, babe.” He rattled out a breath. “I’ll tell your mom you’re good.”
“Adam?” Now she shook him. “Adam!”
The last thing he saw was her face. Then the sparkles died, and there was nothing.
“DR. SANTINO?” A NURSE with red curls and acne touched her sleeve as she stared at her ex-husband’s face. “A lower body trauma’s just come in. Female. Six months pregnant.”
Through the buzz of shock in her head, Maya caught the last part of the nurse’s statement. She shook off what she could and refocused. “Where?”
“Over there.” The young nurse—Cassie? Callie?—pointed. She looked down, then hesitantly up. “Can I, uh, do anything for you?”
“No. Thanks, but no.” With a hand that wanted to shake, Maya closed Adam’s eyes. She regarded the paramedic who’d helped her lift him from the ground to the gurney. “Take him inside. I’ll be right there.”
“Got a bleeder over here,” another nurse called.
The words jarred. “Thirty seconds,” Maya told the redhead. “Get Jamie to take the bleeder.”
Turning away, she pressed two fingers to her temples. She needed to settle herself, to absorb what had just happened.
Adam had always been a risk taker. She’d loved him once, hated him briefly, then figured to hell with it and dealt with her mistakes. With her mistakes.
They’d been strangers, for the most part, after the divorce. He’d transferred to Orlando, but returned to Miami sixteen months ago, because his roots were here, he’d said.
She understood roots. Hers were mostly here, too. In any case, she hadn’t hated him by then.
“Doctor Santino?”
Her thirty seconds were up. Adam was dead. She couldn’t make him undead by standing outside the emergency room, ignoring the injured while a host of memories swamped her.
“I’m really sorry, Adam.” Head tipped back, she spoke to the night sky. Then shut down and fixed her attention on the living.
“ARE YOU AWAKE, TAL?” DON Drake’s voice hacked rudely into Stephen Talbot’s dream.
“Go away,” Tal said into the phone. “I’m still working the Demorno case.”
“You’re done enough to be back in Miami, so listen up. I got a call from Lieutenant Morse in fraud.”
Tal tried to prop his eyes open. When that failed, he rolled onto his back and let the watery light outside play against his lids. “You’ve got about ten seconds before my brain shuts down. This is the first time I’ve seen a bed in three days.”
“Tyler’s dead,” his captain growled.
That worked. He went up on one elbow. “Adam Tyler?”
“You got it. He was shot late tonight, died in the E.R.”
Tal swung his feet to the floor. “Eden Bay?”
“You’re two for two. He went to his ex for help—or was taken there. Details are sketchy. McGraw’s on his way over to firm up what he can, but since homicide and fraud are more or less cooperating on the Perine investigation, I want a rep there, too. Tyler was a cop, Tal. He was one of us. I know you’re familiar with the case he was working on, even if you weren’t directly involved. I want that shooter nailed. Tyler was your friend, so I’m thinking you’ll want the same thing.”
Tal’s sleep-deprived mind resisted the attempt to shove it into line. When had he and Adam talked last? Seven, maybe eight days ago, and only briefly then. Adam had called him in Tampa.
“He said he had a line on Orlando Perine.”
“Had a hook in the bastard’s mouth, near as I can tell.” Drake gave a grunt. “Grill McGraw, see what he knows, but don’t count on him giving you straight answers. You know how the fraud boys are. Vultures over a rotting carcass.”
Standing, Tal bulldozed the last of the grogginess from his brain. His old academy friend was dead. He’d died at Eden Bay Hospital. Adam’s ex-wife worked at Eden Bay. Had she seen him, spoken to him? Hell, had she watched him die?
With the light off and the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear, he located his jeans. “Adam was working with an informant last week,” he said. “Some guy who wanted out. Didn’t get a name.”
“He didn’t, or you didn’t?”
“Both. He called the guy Falcon.”
Dragging a T-shirt over his head, Tal searched for boots, sneakers, shoes—anything wearable. He found a pair of black hikers on the closet floor and, holding his keys in his mouth, laced them on.
“You know Tyler’s ex, don’t you?” the captain asked.
Tal grabbed a jacket. “We’ve met.”
“Use it. Tyler was a good cop, and homicide’s our business. We call the shots. Fraud’s on the sidelines here. Make sure McGraw understands that.”
Tal really didn’t care what McGraw understood. Adam had been his friend. Whether officially or unofficially, this was his case now.
“Heading out,” he said and tossed the handset aside.
Adam Tyler was dead. And the man responsible was going to pay.
“YOU CAN’T OUTRUN THE TRUTH, Ms. Santino. Someone shot your ex-husband. Someone who works for Orlando Perine, aka the slimiest scumbag in the Sunshine State.”
Gene McGraw enunciated the last part of his statement as if speaking to a five-year-old child. Not the best approach, in Maya’s opinion, but then if the rumors she’d heard about him had any merit, he wasn’t the most tactful cop in the fraud division. He certainly wasn’t the most incisive.
Three hours had passed since the first ambulance had pulled in. She’d lost count of how many patients she’d treated—which was just as well, since counting meant thinking, and thinking would lead her straight to Adam. Not that she could avoid that destination indefinitely. Detective McGraw was dragging her there despite the crush of activity around them.
Bumping