Kissing the Key Witness

“No. Thanks, but no.” With a hand that wanted to shake, Maya closed Adam’s eyes. She regarded the paramedic who’d helped her lift him from the ground to the gurney. “Take him inside. I’ll be right there.”

“Got a bleeder over here,” another nurse called.

The words jarred. “Thirty seconds,” Maya told the redhead. “Get Jamie to take the bleeder.”

Turning away, she pressed two fingers to her temples. She needed to settle herself, to absorb what had just happened.

Adam had always been a risk taker. She’d loved him once, hated him briefly, then figured to hell with it and dealt with her mistakes. With her mistakes.

They’d been strangers, for the most part, after the divorce. He’d transferred to Orlando, but returned to Miami sixteen months ago, because his roots were here, he’d said.

She understood roots. Hers were mostly here, too. In any case, she hadn’t hated him by then.

“Doctor Santino?”

Her thirty seconds were up. Adam was dead. She couldn’t make him undead by standing outside the emergency room, ignoring the injured while a host of memories swamped her.

“I’m really sorry, Adam.” Head tipped back, she spoke to the night sky. Then shut down and fixed her attention on the living.

“ARE YOU AWAKE, TAL?” DON Drake’s voice hacked rudely into Stephen Talbot’s dream.

“Go away,” Tal said into the phone. “I’m still working the Demorno case.”

“You’re done enough to be back in Miami, so listen up. I got a call from Lieutenant Morse in fraud.”

Tal tried to prop his eyes open. When that failed, he rolled onto his back and let the watery light outside play against his lids. “You’ve got about ten seconds before my brain shuts down. This is the first time I’ve seen a bed in three days.”

“Tyler’s dead,” his captain growled.

That worked. He went up on one elbow. “Adam Tyler?”

“You got it. He was shot late tonight, died in the E.R.”

Tal swung his feet to the floor. “Eden Bay?”

“You’re two for two. He went to his ex for help—or was taken there. Details are sketchy. McGraw’s on his way over to firm up what he can, but since homicide and fraud are more or less cooperating on the Perine investigation, I want a rep there, too. Tyler was a cop, Tal. He was one of us. I know you’re familiar with the case he was working on, even if you weren’t directly involved. I want that shooter nailed. Tyler was your friend, so I’m thinking you’ll want the same thing.”

Tal’s sleep-deprived mind resisted the attempt to shove it into line. When had he and Adam talked last? Seven, maybe eight days ago, and only briefly then. Adam had called him in Tampa.

“He said he had a line on Orlando Perine.”

“Had a hook in the bastard’s mouth, near as I can tell.” Drake gave a grunt. “Grill McGraw, see what he knows, but don’t count on him giving you straight answers. You know how the fraud boys are. Vultures over a rotting carcass.”

Standing, Tal bulldozed the last of the grogginess from his brain. His old academy friend was dead. He’d died at Eden Bay Hospital. Adam’s ex-wife worked at Eden Bay. Had she seen him, spoken to him? Hell, had she watched him die?

With the light off and the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear, he located his jeans. “Adam was working with an informant last week,” he said. “Some guy who wanted out. Didn’t get a name.”

“He didn’t, or you didn’t?”

“Both. He called the guy Falcon.”

Dragging a T-shirt over his head, Tal searched for boots, sneakers, shoes—anything wearable. He found a pair of black hikers on the closet floor and, holding his keys in his mouth, laced them on.

“You know Tyler’s ex, don’t you?” the captain asked.

Tal grabbed a jacket. “We’ve met.”

“Use it. Tyler was a good cop, and homicide’s our business. We call the shots. Fraud’s on the sidelines here. Make sure McGraw understands that.”

Tal really didn’t care what McGraw understood. Adam had been his friend. Whether officially or unofficially, this was his case now.

“Heading out,” he said and tossed the handset aside.

Adam Tyler was dead. And the man responsible was going to pay.

“YOU CAN’T OUTRUN THE TRUTH, Ms. Santino. Someone shot your ex-husband. Someone who works for Orlando Perine, aka the slimiest scumbag in the Sunshine State.”

Gene McGraw enunciated the last part of his statement as if speaking to a five-year-old child. Not the best approach, in Maya’s opinion, but then if the rumors she’d heard about him had any merit, he wasn’t the most tactful cop in the fraud division. He certainly wasn’t the most incisive.

Three hours had passed since the first ambulance had pulled in. She’d lost count of how many patients she’d treated—which was just as well, since counting meant thinking, and thinking would lead her straight to Adam. Not that she could avoid that destination indefinitely. Detective McGraw was dragging her there despite the crush of activity around them.

Bumping him back, Maya palpated the ribs of a man groaning on a gurney outside an overflowing treatment room.

“Ms. Santino…”

She turned from the patient. “You don’t seem to be getting it, Detective McGraw. I haven’t got time for a cross-examination right now. Although it continues to escape your notice, we’re a bit busy here.”

“So the fact that your ex-husband’s been murdered doesn’t mean diddly to you?” He hitched a testy shoulder as a pair of paramedics elbowed past.

Appearance-wise, McGraw reminded Maya of a shaggy blond Columbo. In terms of attitude, however, the word caveman sprang to mind. Or perhaps more aptly, her cousin Diego, who she swore was a throwback to one of her mother’s nastier Andalusian ancestors.

“Believe me, Detective, I’d give a great deal to be able to reverse time and bring Adam back, but I can’t do that, and unless you know some secret science, neither can you. What I can do is help the people in the here and now. Once the last patient is treated, I’ll be more than happy to answer any question you want to throw at me. Until then, the machine in the doctor’s lounge has better coffee than the cafeteria. It’s also free.”

Tipping her lips into a quick smile, she sidestepped his arm and was out of range before he could object.

“Guess you told him, huh?”

Maya had her palm on the next treatment-room door when another man’s voice reached her. She turned to meet Stephen Talbot’s cool gray eyes. “I’m kinda busy here, Tal. Questions will have to wait.”

“What about emotions?”

“Same answer.” Frustration rose, coupled with something she knew better than to pinpoint. “Don’t push, okay? I might bite, and that’s not how I want to react. Adam’s gone. I’m making myself accept the truth, but I can’t—I won’t—let down someone whose life I might be able to save because of it. Any chance of any cop in Miami grasping that concept tonight?”

Tal raised his hands. “Message received, Dr. Santino. I’ll wait in the lounge.”

She tried very hard not to notice how tall he was or how incredibly, well, male, she supposed. How sexy. It felt wrong to be having thoughts like that. It definitely seemed inappropriate.

“Dr. Santino!”