had gone out over the police radio frequency.
“Shots fired! Shots fired! Officer down! We need assistance!”
Within seconds, every available man and woman on the Houston police force had raced to aid the besieged detectives at the scene of a drug bust gone bad.
Now, grim-faced and tense, those same men and women waited for news of their fellow officer’s condition.
John Werner and Hank Pierson, the two men who were closest to the wounded officer, paced like caged lions, their faces dark and stony.
Guilt and worry ate at Hank like sharp-toothed animals. Dammit, it was his duty to protect his partner’s back, and he had let Matt down. Now he might die. Matt had taken two bullets, and for that he blamed himself. Under a hail of automatic weapons’ fire, hunkered down behind their squad car, he had radioed in the frantic call for assistance and fired random shots at the attackers over the hood of the vehicle, but beyond that he had been helpless.
Hank suddenly stopped pacing, and with an oath, he slammed the side of his fist against the wall. Several of the other policemen eyed him askance, but no one said a word.
Lieutenant Werner understood his detective’s frustration and ignored the outburst.
As chief of detectives, John Werner felt a personal responsibility for every man and woman on his squad, but he shared a special friendship with the wounded officer. John had gone through the police academy with Matt’s father. Patrick Dolan had been John’s best friend and one of the finest officers the city had ever had.
That it was Matt Dolan who had been shot had spread like wildfire through the Houston Police Department. The news had stunned everyone and left them shaken. Matt was a smart, straight-arrow, tough cop, a twelve-year veteran on the force. He had seemed invincible.
The double doors of the operating room swung open and every officer in the hallway sprang to attention. A middle-aged man dressed in green scrubs emerged and flashed a look around at the crowd, meeting the anxious expressions with a grim look.
“I’m Dr. Barnes. Who’s in charge here?” He raked the paper scrub cap off his head and absently massaged the tense muscles in his neck.
“I am.” John Werner stepped forward. Hank edged up beside him. “How is he, Doc?”
“Alive. Just barely. The first bullet nicked his right lung. The second caused severe damage to his right leg. Plus, he lost a lot of blood before he arrived here. He’s a tough nut, though, I’ll give him that. If he weren’t, he’d never have made it this far. But he is in bad shape.”
“I see.” John’s jaw clenched and unclenched for several seconds. At last he asked the question that was foremost on his and every other officer’s mind, the question to which they all dreaded the answer. “Is Matt going to make it, Doc?”
“Barring complications, yes.”
“Thank God for that.”
“Yes, well…I feel it’s only fair to warn you, given the condition of that leg…well…”
“What? What’re you trying to say, Doc?” Hank demanded.
“Just that…well…I think you should know that it’s unlikely he will ever be able to return to police work. At least, not on the streets.”
Matt turned his head on the pillow and gazed out the window at nothing in particular. The lady in the mist had come to him again last night.
The fanciful thought brought a hint of a smile to his stern mouth. Nevertheless, that was how he thought of the recurring dream that had plagued him all his life: a visitation by a phantom figure.
It was strange. For the past fifteen or twenty years he’d had the dream very infrequently—once or twice a year at the most—but since awaking in the hospital two weeks ago, it had been nightly. Not even the sleeping tablets the staff administered so faithfully had helped.
Absently, Matt fingered the jagged fragment of silver that hung from a chain around his neck, his thumb rubbing back and forth over the lines etched on either side. The pie-shaped wedge had been roughly cut from a silver medallion approximately two inches in diameter.
The instant Matt had regained consciousness he’d reached for the piece, and he’d panicked when he discovered it was no longer around his neck.
The medallion piece had been returned to him only because he had threatened to tear the place apart if it wasn’t. The hospital prohibited patients from wearing jewelry of any kind. Matt, however, had worn the medallion fragment since he was a small boy, never taking it off.
Matt’s fingers continued to rub the etched surface and jagged edges. Somehow, merely touching it seemed to soothe him. Particularly after a night of chasing after the lady in the mist.
He smiled again. The lady in the mist. He’d named the dream that years ago. It wasn’t scary or in any way threatening—just him and others he couldn’t identify, chasing through swirling mist after the shadowy figure of a woman, calling out to her, reaching for her as she backed away and disappeared—yet the experience always disturbed him. Invariably, he awoke with a start, his heart pounding. Last night had been no different. He wondered, as he had countless times, if he’d ever decipher the meaning behind the subconscious message.
Pushing the futile thought aside, Matt sighed and focused his attention elsewhere.
The impersonal atmosphere of the hospital made him feel adrift, removed from the world outside, a spectator with no part to play. Which, he supposed, was appropriate, since the life he had built for himself was most likely finished.
“Dammit, Matt, are you listening to me?”
John Werner stepped between the bed and the window, blocking Matt’s view of the street and giving him no option but to acknowledge him. The older man glared, his jaw thrust forward. “I’ve put up with your silent treatment long enough. If you think you can just clam up and pretend I’m not here, like you’ve been doing to me and everyone else for the past two weeks, think again. I won’t stand for it, you hear?”
John was a big bull of a man, standing six foot seven and weighing more than three hundred pounds. He had a broad, menacing face that looked as though it had been hewn from oak with a blunt ax and a voice that rumbled out like the wrath of God when he was angry. Most of the detectives on his squad cringed when he got on their cases.
Matt didn’t turn a hair.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The hell you don’t. You’ve had a steady stream of visitors—family and friends, the guys on the force, the department psychologist, even your doctors—but you barely talk to any of them. You just turn away and tune them out. The few times you have bothered to speak was just to bite someone’s head off. Well, it won’t work with me. Like it or not, we’re going to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Oh, no? How about the fact that you’ve refused all the offers of help you’ve received? Huh? How about that? Hank here has practically begged you to come stay with him and his wife while you recuperate. So have several others, but you’ve turned them all down flat.” He nodded toward Hank Pierson, who stood on the other side of the room watching his partner with a worried expression. “Isn’t that right, Hank?”
“Sure is. Look, old buddy, it’s no problem. Patty and I really want you to stay with us.”
“Patty’s got enough on her hands with three kids to look after.”
“Hey, one more won’t bother Patty. Really. In fact, she insists. You know she thinks of you as family. We all do.”
“Thanks all the same, but no.” Matt shook his head and looked away.
“If you don’t want to stay with Hank and Patty, then how about someone else?” John persisted. “Several of the other guys and their wives