examined her, questioned her, took her blood pressure and tested her pupil reflexes, all the while asking her what day it was, who was president, and all kinds of other things to make sure her brain was still present and accounted for.
“You need stitches,” the female half of the team said to her. “Maybe six or so, and you should get a skull X-ray. Otherwise, you’re stable.”
They stuck a piece of gauze over the wound and secured it to her head with more gauze wrapping.
“I must look like the mummy,” Erin muttered.
The woman laughed. “You’re definitely okay.”
The police arrived just as the paramedics were leaving. The medics answered questions about Erin’s injury, then disappeared down the stairs.
“The whole damn world is lumbering through my life,” she remarked, seated against the couch. Nothing had gone according to plan since she’d left court that morning. Not one damn thing.
She might as well have been talking to herself. She couldn’t see another victim in the room, but the cops seemed more interested in her FBI rescuer. It took a minute or so, but she realized that they considered Agent Westlake’s presence to be an indicator that Erin must be up to her neck in something unsavory. She considered arguing with them, but her head chose that moment to remind her that it wasn’t happy. She winced and closed her eyes.
It didn’t matter anyway, because Westlake straightened them out.
“Ms. McKenna is a journalist. She’s also a witness in a federal criminal case. I received information that she might be in danger, so I came to check on her. I only wish I’d gotten here sooner.”
Go Agent Westlake, she thought. She was getting sleepy, and she didn’t like that, so she forced her eyes open. “The only thing I did wrong,” she announced, forcing them all to pay attention to her again, “was investigate fraud on a government contract. I guess that’s a mistake I shouldn’t make again.”
Not that she meant it. Hell, no.
Unfortunately, her bid not to be ignored in the catastrophe of her own life brought the detective over to her with his notebook.
“There were two,” she said in answer to his question. “I saw one of them as he came out of my bedroom. The other one hit me from behind, and that’s all I know.”
“What did he look like?”
“Who? The guy who came out of my bedroom? Average height. Average build. Average ski mask.”
Detective Flannery lifted one eyebrow. “Cute,” he said.
Erin managed to shrug one shoulder. “I wish I could tell you more, but they came ready for me, I guess. He was wearing gloves. I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup.”
Flannery almost smirked. Behind him, Jerrod emitted a small laugh.
“Is anything missing?”
“Good question. I have no idea. Might have something to do with being knocked unconscious.”
“Do you give everyone a hard time, even when they’re trying to help you?”
“Probably. I haven’t asked around.” She squeezed her eyes closed, then opened them again. “You’ll have to help me up if you want to know what’s gone. I seem to be on a slow-moving carousel.”
Flannery and Westlake obliged, helping her gently to her feet. In one scan she saw the crucial missing items. Or rather, the editor in her brain corrected, she didn’t see some crucial items. “My computer is gone. All my DVDs and CDs,” she said.
“But not the TV,” Flannery remarked. “Did you have a stereo?”
“Who, me? With what they paid me, I was lucky to afford that DVD player on sale. And that’s still here.”
A creeping sense of danger was beginning to run up and down her spine. Discs and computer gone? But not TV and DVD player? “This is weird,” she announced.
“Maybe you interrupted them before they could finish.”
“Maybe.” But she didn’t believe it. She looked at Westlake and saw that his eyes were narrowed, as if he wasn’t buying that, either.
“She needs to go to the hospital,” Jerrod reminded the detective. “I doubt, given the masks and gloves, that you’ll ever know who they were.”
“Not likely,” Flannery agreed, but in a way that suggested he didn’t want to cede an inch to the Feds. “Take her to the hospital, then. We’ll get the crime unit in, and she can give us a list of missing items later.”
“I can’t afford the hospital,” she reminded Jerrod.
“Sure you can. You’re the victim of a crime. The state will reimburse your expenses.”
“The hospital won’t let me through the door. I did a story on the health-care system recently. You wouldn’t believe how many Samaritans aren’t good.”
“They’ll let you in. Under COBRA, you still have insurance, but if it comes to that, I have plastic.”
“Witness protection?”
He half smiled. “Whatever it takes.”
She didn’t argue. She didn’t want to stay amidst the ruins of her life. And since thieves had already been through every inch of her apartment, she could hardly feel any more violated by the police following them.
She had to lean heavily on Jerrod to make it down the two flights of stairs. Her knees had begun to wobble as the adrenaline rush wore off. “I hate this,” she announced as they reached the street.
“Few people enjoy being robbed and battered.”
“I didn’t mean that. I hate not being able to take care of myself.”
He fell silent as he opened the door of what was apparently his vehicle. Flex Fuel, the dashboard announced with a fancy plate. Under other circumstances she would have asked about it, but right now she lacked the reporter’s energy to ask a bazillion questions.
He helped her buckle in, then closed the door. The heavy thud of the black SUV’s door was solid, sounding like safety.
He climbed in behind the wheel, and a few seconds later, pulled out into Houston’s late-afternoon traffic. He seemed to know his way around.
“How did you get on the Mercator case?” she asked, trying to distract herself from her mega discomfort.
“I was stationed here in Houston when your story came out in Fortune. I was part of the investigation.”
“Ah.” She closed her eyes, since the traffic seemed to want to spin around her. “I was pretty surprised that the FBI paid any attention to that article.”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
“Mercator is powerful, with powerful friends.”
