Unnatural Acts (Stone Barrington 23)

They started down the alley at a run, but as they ran, Rosie heard a sound like a car alarm, muffled as if from a garage, but there was no garage in the alley. “Wait!” she yelled at Dino, then she turned back, looking around.

“What is it?”

“I hear an alarm. Viv was wearing a wristwatch with a panic button.” She ran to the dumpster and pushed up the lid. Viv was lying inside in a pile of garbage, her eyes glazed.

“Give me a hand,” she said to Dino. Together, they lifted her out of the dumpster and laid her on the wet tarmac.

Rosie produced her cell phone and called 911.

“I can’t get a pulse,” Dino said, bending over Viv and gently moving her hair from over her face.

“We need an APB for Abney’s town car,” Rosie said.

Dino got on the radio. “License number?”

Rosie sighed. “I didn’t get it, and there are a million black town cars in this fucking city.”

DINO PACED up and down the hallway outside the ER, talking rapidly into his cell phone. “Rosie, do you know Abney’s address?”

“He lives in a hotel on the West Side, the Broadway Savoy.”

Dino got back on the phone. “Abney lives at the Broadway Savoy, on West Forty-sixth, west of Eighth Avenue. If he’s not there, try his office.” He made a beckoning motion to Rosie.

“West Forty-fourth, a couple of doors west of Sardi’s.”

Dino relayed the name and address. “The charge, for now, is assaulting a police officer.” He hung up.

“I could kill myself, not getting the license plate,” Rosie said. “That’s rookie stuff.”

“It might not have helped,” Dino said. “There are too many town cars.” He sat down on a steel chair in the hallway.

“What the fuck are they doing in there?”

A young doctor in green scrubs pushed through the doorway, followed by Viv on a gurney. “OR four,” he said to the orderly. “I’m right behind you.” He turned to Dino. “She’s been drugged. We won’t know what until the tox screen comes back, but it’s probably some sort of date rape drug. They’re everywhere. She’s also got a partly crushed trachea, so she’s headed for surgery. The drug may have saved her life. It slowed her respiration and heartbeat. If she’d been conscious and had panicked, she might not have been able to get enough air. OR four is on the third floor. I’ve got a reconstruction surgeon on the way in. She’ll be okay in a couple of hours. Gotta go.” He turned and ran down the hall after the gurney.

Dino sat down again. “I should never have let you two do this thing.”

Rosie sat down beside him. “We didn’t count on the restaurant, and once we knew about it, we didn’t count on the upstairs room. From what the bartender said, it was a regular stop for Abney.”

“He threw her in a fucking dumpster, like she was garbage,” Dino said.

“He must have thought she was dead, or he would have finished her off.”

Dino looked at her. “If you tell me she got lucky, I’ll transfer you to the Bronx.”

THREE AND A HALF hours later, a man in scrubs walked into the surgery waiting room. “Who’s the lieutenant?”

Dino stood up, and so did Rosie.

“Detective DeCarlo is in recovery and out of the woods,” the surgeon said. “I replaced about two inches of her trachea.”

“Replaced?” Dino asked. “With what? A plastic tube?”

The surgeon shook his head. “The real thing, from a cadaver.”

Dino’s face fell. “From a cadaver?”

“Don’t get all creeped out, Lieutenant, it’s a standard procedure these days. We transplant bone, cartilage, all sorts of body parts. It works. Her injury was below her voice box, so her speech won’t be affected. She’ll be on her feet in the morning and out of here in a few days.”