maybe he wasn’t over his wife. What else could his response mean? Did the judge blame her for not being able to save the woman? God knew she’d tried, doing compressions and breathing into the woman’s mouth until she thought she’d pass out herself.
Greer could feel words of protest rising to her lips. Again she pressed them together. This definitely wasn’t the time to get into that. Besides, the judge hadn’t actually come out and said anything to accuse her. Maybe she was just being paranoid.
As she was trying to decide whether or not she was overreacting, she saw Kincannon make his way over to Munro’s attorney. The small, slight man looked very shaken. His hands trembled as he attempted to pack up his briefcase. Twice papers slipped out of his hands, falling to the table and onto the floor like giant, dirty snowflakes.
“Until I’m persuaded otherwise, I’m holding you responsible for Munro’s escape, Mr. Wells,” Kincannon said to the man.
In response, Hayden Wells abandoned his briefcase and began stuttering, unraveling right in front of them.
“I didn’t—I wouldn’t—” All but hyperventilating, Wells cleared his throat and tried again. “Your Honor, you can’t be serious.”
Greer saw the steely look that came into the judge’s eyes. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of that, she thought.
“I can,” Kincannon informed him, “and I am.”
“But, Judge,” Wells squeaked, his voice cracking out of sheer fear, “I had no way of knowing that this was going to happen. No way,” he insisted. “I’m just as surprised as you are.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Blake responded coldly.
Reining in his frustration, he set his jaw hard. This shouldn’t have happened, he thought. There were supposed to be safeguards in place. Were all the security measures just a sham?
Taking a deep breath, ignoring the babbling lawyer, Blake slowly looked around the empty courtroom.
Frustration ate away at him. He sincerely regretted his own ruling which had specifically forbidden any videotaping of proceedings. At the time his thinking had been that he didn’t want tapes to be leaked to the media, didn’t want cases to be compromised because some reporter wanted to break a story.
But in this case, if there had been a video camera on, it would have caught the events preceding Munro’s escape on tape and that would have been a godsend. Blake had a gut feeling that Munro hadn’t acted alone. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. The man had to have had help. A lot of help. Blake was willing to bet a year’s salary on it.
Wells was still sputtering that he was offended that someone of the judge’s caliber would actually think that he would lower himself to aid a criminal.
“I could be disbarred!” he declared dramatically.
Greer had a feeling the man was just warming up. She was about to tell him to keep quiet when Kincannon beat her to it.
“Please spare me your self-righteous protests, Mr. Wells. I am well aware of your record. No one enters my courtroom without my knowing his background,” he told the man. “Someone who loses as often as you do can’t possibly support himself in this line of work without having something else going on on the side.”
Wells’s dark eyebrows rose all the way up his very large forehead, all but meeting the semicircle of fringe that surrounded the back of his head. “Your Honor, I give you my word—”
Greer didn’t know how much more they could take. “That and two dollars will get you a ride on the bus,” she observed.
Damn, she’d done it again, Greer thought. That wasn’t supposed to have come out. Not because she didn’t mean it, but because she had no idea how Kincannon would react to her flippant attitude.
But when her eyes met his, if anything, Kincannon appeared to be somewhat amused. Or, at the very least, in agreement.
“My sentiments exactly,” he told her.
The din just beyond the double doors in the hallway suddenly increased, swelling to three times its original decibel level.
Hopefully, there was only one reason for that. “Maybe they found him,” Greer guessed, looking at Kincannon. With that, she decided to see for herself. Moving quickly, Greer hurried out the double doors to find out. She’d intended to report back.
She should have known better. Apparently Kincannon didn’t like to remain stationary.
“Maybe,” she heard him agree, then add, “You stay here.” Since she was all but out the door, he had to be addressing the order to Wells. “I want to have a few more words with you when I get back.”
Greer stopped dead the second she was out the doors.
There were two paramedics in the hallway. Two paramedics pushing a gurney.
A feeling of déjà vu slid over her. That and a great deal of uneasy confusion.
She wasn’t the only one experiencing it.
Even before Greer reached the paramedics, she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was terribly off.
The lead paramedic looked only slightly friendlier than a rattlesnake.
“Look, we got the call and got here as fast as we could. MacArthur Boulevard’s a parking lot,” he bit off, his words directed at the chief. “Now, is there a patient or isn’t there? We’re short-handed and we don’t have any time for some damn game.”
Instead of answering the man, Brian put in a call to dispatch.
“Yeah, Hallie, it’s Chief Cavanaugh. How many ambulances did you send out?” He listened to the answer. “Okay, describe the paramedics.” He frowned. “What do you mean you can’t keep track?”
“Chief,” Greer interrupted, pushing her way through the crowd. “Let me send her a picture so she can identify them,” she suggested.
Brian paused. He looked at his cell phone uncertainly, then lifted his eyes to Greer’s. “Does this—?”
She nodded, knowing what he was going to ask, sparing him the embarrassment of having to put it into words. “Yes, it does,” she assured him. Taking his phone, she snapped a shot of the two disgruntled-looking paramedics. Done, she quickly forwarded it to the woman on the other end of the line, then handed the cell phone back to the chief.
Confirmation was almost immediate.
“You didn’t send another team?” Brian knew the answer before he even asked the question. His mouth was grim as he muttered, “Thanks.”
Flipping the phone closed, Brian regarded the officers gathered around him. The paramedics were all but forgotten. “Right under our noses,” he declared, his voice low and steely.
He made Greer think of a volcano that was trying not to erupt.
