“The officers were hot on your heels.”

“Yeah, but…” He gave the garage a visual sweep. “It’s dicey.”

“Panella’s too slick to walk into—”

“But he might send another Mickey Bolden, who’s desperate for money and has nothing to lose by trying. Where the fuck is Hickam?”

“He should be here any sec.”

“I agree. He should. How far away did he park?”

“Half a block.”

“Half a block?” Kinnard’s head came around and locked eyes with Joe.

They held each other’s stare for no more than a heartbeat before they moved at the same time and ran toward the entrance through which Kinnard had just come. As Kinnard pulled his nine-millimeter, he called back to the marshals, “Don’t let Jordie out of your sight.”

When they got outside, Joe yelled toward the two officers who’d followed Kinnard into the garage. They turned and fell in behind them.

Kinnard kept pace with Joe. “What does the new car look like?”

“Like Hick’s,” Joe panted.

“Dammit, it’s dark down here.”

“That was the idea.”

They spotted the sedan simultaneously and sprinted toward it. From several yards away, Joe saw that Hick was in the driver’s seat, unmoving. He came to an abrupt stop, crying out, “Oh no no no no!”

Kinnard covered the remaining distance at full tilt. He actually skidded to a halt and banged into the side of the car as he yanked open the driver’s door. Hick didn’t stir. He was slumped sideways toward the passenger seat. There was blood on his face, his neck, shoulder. The left sleeve of his suit jacket was saturated. His dangling hand was dripping red.

Shaw reached in. “He’s got a pulse,” he shouted back.

Joe didn’t remember until later when he saw the bruises on his kneecaps that he had literally dropped to them in relief. At the time, he’d been fumbling with the mike on his shoulder, shouting into it “Officer down!” and ordering the two policemen coming abreast of him to put in emergency calls.

Within seconds officers came running from every direction. Joe pushed himself up and stumbled over to the car, where Kinnard had his fingers dug in deep against Hick’s neck. Blood was seeping through them.

Joe blinked a combination of sweat and tears out of his eyes. “Is he conscious?”

“No.”

“The carotid, you think?”

“Fuckin’ Panella.”

“Is he going to make it?”

Kinnard was about to say something, but then turned his head, and looked into Joe’s face, and made a quick edit. “Better have his suit cleaned before he comes around. He’s gonna be pissed that it got messed up.”

Joe wanted to thank him for that. But his throat was too tight to say anything.

It seemed like forever, but was actually only a few minutes later that an ambulance roared up and squealed to a stop. Joe and Kinnard were pushed aside as paramedics pulled Hick from the car and went to work on him. Before Joe could quite reconcile that this was actually happening, they’d strapped his partner onto a gurney and placed it in the ambulance.

His instinct was to climb in behind them and ride along. Hick might not make it. If he weren’t already dead, he might die en route. Joe needed to be there with him. He had to go!

But he was a law enforcement officer, and the best thing he could do for Hick, whether he survived or not, was to catch the son of a bitch who’d done this.

By now NOPD patrol cars had the street blocked. Others were running hot up and down intersecting streets searching for the assailant. Patrol officers on foot were doing the same. Two homicide detectives in plainclothes isolated Joe and began asking questions.

He produced his ID and described the situation.

“You ran from the garage to look for Agent Hickam?” one asked.

“He was late, which signaled me that something was wrong.”

“And you found him inside the car?”

“Yes,” Joe replied. “We—”

Joe broke off suddenly and looked around. First responders were doing their specific tasks. Uniformed policemen were holding back the crowd of curiosity seekers who had already gathered behind a temporary barricade. Gwen and the other two marshals were being questioned collectively by plainclothes detectives.

Shaw Kinnard and Jordie Bennett were nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 32

Where are we going?”

“Just keep walking.”

Shaw propelled Jordie across Canal Street. He was walking fast and with purpose, but they were swimming upstream of the pedestrians who’d been lured toward the apparent emergency behind the hotel, the destination of speeding vehicles with flashing lights and sirens.

She and Shaw crossed the streetcar tracks in the median and then had to wait for the traffic light to change before they could cross the lanes of oncoming traffic. Had he not been pushing her along, she couldn’t have kept up with his brisk clip.

Without slowing his pace, he pulled off the hoodie and dropped it wrong side out into the lap of a homeless man who was semireclined in the recessed doorway of an abandoned building. The man didn’t even look up.

Once on the other side of the busy boulevard, they entered the French Quarter. Even on a Monday night, it was thronged. The busy vendor of a souvenir kiosk didn’t notice when Shaw yanked a t-shirt off a rack. It was a flashy purple-gold-and-green-striped thing with a sequin fleur de lis on the chest.

He thrust it at her. “Put this on over your shirt.”

He also lifted an LSU baseball cap from off the head of a stuffed alligator and snatched several strands of Mardi Gras beads hanging from a peg. He put on the cap and draped the beads around her neck.

Beneath her shirt, the bulletproof vest was heavy and hot. Another layer would make it worse, but when Shaw ordered her again to put on the t-shirt, she pulled the gaudy thing over her head without missing a beat.

“How bad was Hickam?”

“Bad.”

“Do you think he’ll die?”

“Probably.”

Her breath caught. “We should go back.”

“And let Panella get you, too?”

“You can’t be sure it was Panella.”

“Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.”