Go home and get some sleep.

ME

I’m comfortable here.

Finally, near 0400, our woman is admitted to a private room on the ninth floor of the Gellman Building. I flop into the chair beside the bed.

SECOND GRADER #2

You staying here?

ME

You see me leaving?

The trio grunt in aggravation. Kiriakin and one detective vacate for coffee and donuts; the other takes up a post in the hall outside the room.

What a fucking night.

The SWAT raid is for real, though. I must be in the briefing room without fail three hours from now. Can I catch a few Z’s? Should I? I’m too tired to even worry about Manning.

I close my eyes for three minutes and begin dreaming immediately about our woman running away. I jerk awake in a sweat. But she’s there in the bed, cuffed to the rail, with an IV drip-dripping into her left arm.

I realize, with a shiver, that I’m concerned for her.

Yeah, it happens. Somehow over the past seven hours, this unknown female has become “mine.”

My job is to protect her.

I’m not gonna let Kiriakin and his porker henchmen peek under her gown or make shitty cracks about her while she’s out cold.

Who the hell is this woman anyway?

I get up and take a photo of her.

I stand at the foot of the bed and snap off a shot full-length, then cross to her side and crank off two more of her face.

I never realized the damage an airbag can do. It saved her life, yeah. But its explosive deployment has cracked two ribs and nearly broken her collarbone. Both eyes have been blacked. The left side of her face is purple from jaw to eyeline.

I lean over and fix her hair, or at least tug it out of her eyes.

She’s, what . . . thirty?

Good skin.

Good teeth.

Somebody paid for orthodontia.

I’m just snapping another pic when the woman stirs and opens her eyes.

She says my name.

WTF?

Her skull sinks back into the pillow. Her lids droop shut.

ME

What’s your name? How do you know mine?

No response. I try for thirty seconds, lifting her head, speaking softly.

Again she manages to surface.

WOMAN

Help me.

Kiriakin will be back in minutes. I try to get the woman to speak more but the sedative is too strong. She manages to babble a half phrase or two . . .

She wants me to contact someone.

I tell her I can’t.

ME

I’m a cop, honey. Not your girlfriend.

But I put a pencil in her hand and hold a pad beneath it. The woman struggles to write.

AMOS BEN-DAVID

Her handwriting is squiggles.

ME

Amos Ben-David? The anthropologist? From Israel?

The woman manages a nod. I move closer.

ME

Why were you at the Rebbe’s tonight? Did you know what was going to happen?