The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3)(108)

“You won’t.”

Ballard moved forward and used her foot to push the woman’s legs apart. She then began a pat-down that started low with the legs before moving up.

“Do you have to do that?” the woman asked.

“With you, yes,” Ballard said. “And I bet you like it.”

“Part of the job.”

Finished with the search, Ballard put her hand on the woman’s back to hold her in place. She then pulled her cuffs off her belt.

“Okay, one at a time,” she said. “I want you to bring your hand down from the glass and behind your back. Your right first.”

Ballard reached up and grabbed the right wrist as it was coming down and started bringing it behind the Black Widow’s back. But the woman turned as if being pivoted by Ballard. Ballard tried to stop it.

“No—”

Ballard saw it before she felt it. In the woman’s hand was an open folding knife with a blade curved like a horn. All matte black except for the edge of the blade that had been sharpened to a shine. The woman brought it up and into Ballard’s left armpit and then put her other arm around her neck in a V hold. She was now behind Ballard and using her as a shield. Ballard saw Bosch holding his weapon, looking for a clean shot that wasn’t there.

“I sliced a bleeder under her arm,” the woman said. “She’s got three minutes and she’ll bleed out. You put the gun down. I walk out of here. She lives.”

“Take the shot, Harry,” Ballard said.

The woman adjusted herself behind Ballard to improve her shielding. Ballard could feel her breath on the back of her neck. She could feel blood running over her ribs and down her side.

“Two and a half minutes,” the woman said.

“There’s a cop out front,” Bosch said.

“And there’s an exit to the stairs in the copy room. We’re almost at two minutes.”

Bosch remembered seeing the emergency exit door. He signaled with the gun toward the door.

“Go,” he said.

“Gun,” the woman said.

Bosch put his gun down on the desk.

“Harry, no,” Ballard managed to say in a whisper.

She then felt herself being dragged toward the office door.

“Get back against the bookshelf,” the woman ordered.

Bosch raised his hands and moved back. Ballard was dragged toward the door.

“You’re going to have a choice now,” the woman said. “Save her or go after me.”

Ballard felt the woman’s grip release and she fell back against the doorframe and then slid down to a sitting position.

Bosch came quickly around the desk to her. His hands immediately went inside her jacket to her belt and pulled off the radio. He knew how to use it.

“Officer down! Need immediate medical on sixteenth floor of California Plaza West. Office of Clayton Manley. Repeat, officer down. Officer stabbed, losing blood, needs immediate medical.”

He put the rover on the floor and then opened Ballard’s jacket to get a look at the knife wound.

“Harry … I’m okay, go after her.”

“I’m going to lay you on your right side so the wound is on the high side. You’re going to be all right. I’ll compress the wound.”

“No, go.”

Bosch ignored her. As he gently put her down on her side he heard footsteps running in the hallway. Officer French appeared in the doorway.

“French,” Bosch yelled. “Get the EMTs. There’s a team down in the plaza. Get them up here, now. Then put out a broadcast. A woman, thirties, white, black hair, all black clothing, armed and dangerous. She went into the exit stairs. She’s trying to get out of the building.”

French didn’t move. He seemed frozen by what he was seeing.

“Go!” Bosch yelled.

French disappeared. Ballard looked up from the floor to Bosch. She felt her clock running out. For some reason, she smiled. She barely heard Bosch talking to her.

“Stay with me, Renée. I’m going to use your arm to compress the wound. It’s gonna hurt.”

Holding her by the elbow, he shifted her arm up so that he could hold her biceps down on the wound. It didn’t hurt at all and that made her smile.

“Harry …”

“Don’t talk. Don’t waste your energy. Just stay with me, Renée. Stay with me.”





BALLARD AND BOSCH





52


Ballard couldn’t seem to move on the bed without setting off searing pain that ran like branches of lightning over the left side of her body. She was being treated at White Memorial in Boyle Heights. It was the second morning after the events at California Plaza and she was out of the intensive care unit. The Black Widow had only nicked her axillary artery with her curving blade, but nevertheless Ballard had suffered a major loss of blood. The EMTs had contained it and then an ER doctor had sutured her damaged blood vessels in a four-hour surgery. It was just that now her left arm felt like it had been strapped to her body with bungee cords and any little movement set off pain like she had never felt in her life.

“Stop moving.”

She turned her head to see Bosch enter the room.

“Easier said than done,” she said. “Did you have trouble getting in this time?”