“He’s crazy about Nick,” Zack said, half to himself. “It’s eating at him that he didn’t round up three armed men all by himself.”

“We’ll find them, Zack.”

“I thought he would hurt you. I saw it in his eyes. That kind of sickness can’t be disguised by a mask. He was going to hurt somebody, wanted to hurt somebody, and he had you. I never even thought about Nick.”

“It’s not your fault. No,” she said sharply when he tried to pull away. “I won’t let you do that to yourself. There were a lot of people in that bar, and you were doing your best to protect all of them. What happened to Nick happened because he was trying to protect you. You’re not going to turn an act of love into blame.”

This time, when she put her arms around him, he went into them. “I need to talk to him. I don’t think I could handle it if I don’t get to talk to him.”

“You’re going to have plenty of time to talk.”

“I’m sorry.” Alex hesitated at the doorway. His heart was thumping, as it had been ever since he’d gotten the news. “Rachel, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She kept one arm firm around Zack’s waist as she turned. “It’s Nick…”

“I know. When the call came in, I asked to handle it. I thought it would be easier on everybody.” His eyes shifted to Zack’s, held. “Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah. I appreciate it. I’ve already talked to a couple of cops.”

“Why don’t we sit down?” He waited while Zack sat on the edge of a chair and lit another cigarette. “Any news on your brother’s condition?”

“They took him into surgery. They haven’t told us anything.”

“I might be able to find something out. Why don’t you tell me about these three creeps?”

“They wore stocking masks,” Zack began wearily. “Black clothes. One of them wore a denim jacket.”

Rachel reached for Zack’s hand. “The one who shot Nick was about five-eight or nine,” she added. “Black hair, brown eyes. There was a scar on his left wrist. On the side, about two inches long. He wore engineer’s boots, worn down at the heel.”

“Good girl.” Not for the first time, Alex thought that his sister would have made a damn good cop. “How about the other two?”

“The one who wanted to trash the place had a high-pitched giggle,” Zack remembered. “Edgy. Skinny guy.”

“About five-ten,” Rachel put in. “Maybe a hundred and thirty. I didn’t get a good look at him, but he had light hair. Sandy blond, I think. The third one was about the same height, but stockier. At a guess, I’d say the guns made him nervous. He was sweating a lot.”

“How about age?”

“Hard to say.” She looked at Zack. “Young. Early twenties?”

“About. What are the chances of catching them?”

“Better with this.” Alex closed his notebook. “Look, I won’t con you. It won’t be easy. Now if they left prints, and the prints are on file, that’s one thing. But we’re going to work on it. I’m going to work on it,” he added. “You could say I’ve got a vested interest.”

“Yeah.” Zack looked at Rachel. “I guess you do.”

“Not just for her,” Alex said. “I’ve got a stake in the kid, too. I like to see the system work, Muldoon.”

“Mr. Muldoon?” A woman of about fifty dressed in green scrubs came into the room. When Zack started to rise, she gestured to him to stay where he was. “I’m Dr. Markowitz, your brother’s surgeon.”

“How—” He had to pause and try again. “How is he?”

“Tough.” As a concession to aching feet and lower back pain, she sat on the arm of a chair. “You want all the technical jargon so I can show off, or you want the bottom line?”

The next lick of fear had his palms damp. “Bottom line.”

“He’s critical. And he’s damn lucky, not only to have had me, but to have taken a bullet at close range that missed the heart. I put his chances now at about seventy-five percent. With luck, and the constitution of youth, we’ll be able to bump that up within twenty-four hours.”

The coffee churned violently in his stomach. “Are you telling me he’s going to make it?”

“I’m telling you I don’t like to work that hard and long on anyone and lose them. We’re going to keep him in ICU for now.”

“Can I see him?”

“I’ll have someone come down and let you know when he’s out of Recovery.” She stifled a yawn and noted that she’d spent yet another sunrise in an operating room. “You want all the crap about how he’ll be out for several more hours, won’t know you’re there, and how you should go home and get some rest?”

“No thanks.”

She rubbed her eyes and smiled. “I didn’t think so. He’s a good-looking boy, Mr. Muldoon. I’m looking forward to chatting with him.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“I’ll be checking in on him.” She rose, stretched, and narrowed her eyes at Alex. “Cop.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I can spot them a mile away,” she said, and walked out.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The pain was a thin sheet of agony layered under dizziness. Every time Nick surfaced, he felt it, wondered at it, then slipped away again into a cocoon of comforting unconsciousness. Sometimes he tried to speak, but the words were disjointed and senseless even to him.

He heard a disconcerting beeping, annoying and consistent, that he didn’t recognize as his heartbeat on the monitor. The squeak of crepe-soled shoes against tile was muffled by the nice, steady humming in his ears. The occasional prodding and poking as his vital signs were checked and rechecked was only a minor disturbance in the huge, dark lack of awareness that covered him.

Sometimes there was a pressure on his hand, as if someone were holding it. And a murmuring—someone speaking to him. But he couldn’t quite drum up the energy to listen.

Once he dreamed of the sea in a hurricane, and watched himself leap off the deck of a pitching ship into blackness. But he never hit bottom. He just floated away.