The medic listened to his chest again. “Surprising. They’re good, your lungs. I see the scar, the ventilator, but it’s an old scar. You’ve done well. You work out. And your right arm, the prosthetic system. I’ve read about that. Very impressive.”

Except not impressive enough to save Mychal Poitier.

The paramedic rose and said, “I would rinse them, your eyes and mouth. Water. Nothing else. Bottled. Three, four times a day. And see your own doctor. When you get home. I’ll be back in a moment.” He turned and stepped away, his feet crunching on the sand and gravel.

Rhyme said, “Thank you, Thom. Thank you. Saved my life yet again and not with clonidine.” The medicine to bring down blood pressure after an attack of autonomic dysreflexia. “I tried the ventilator.”

“I know. It was tangled around your neck. I had to pull it off. Wish I’d had Amelia’s switchblade.”

Rhyme sighed. “But Mychal. It’s terrible…”

Thom lifted a sphygmomanometer from a rack in the ambulance. He took Rhyme’s blood pressure himself. As he did this, he shrugged. “It’s not that serious.”

“The blood pressure?”

“No, I mean Poitier. Quiet. I need to hear the pulse.”

Rhyme was sure he’d misheard; his ears were still clogged with water. “But—”

“Shhh.” The aide was holding a purloined stethoscope to Rhyme’s arm.

“You said—”

“Quiet!” A moment later he nodded. “Pressure’s fine.” A glance in the direction in which the medic had disappeared. “Not that I didn’t trust him but I wanted to see for—”

“What do you mean it isn’t that serious, about Mychal?”

“Well, you saw: He got kicked and hit. But nothing too bad.”

“He was shot!”

“Shot? No, he wasn’t.”

“I heard two gunshots.”

“Oh, that.”

Rhyme snapped, “What do you mean, ‘Oh, that’?”

Thom explained, “The guy who kicked you into the water, in the gray shirt? He was shooting at Ron.”

“Pulaski? Jesus, he all right?”

“He’s fine too.”

“What the fuck happened?” Rhyme blurted.

Thom laughed. “Glad you’re feeling better.”

“What. Happened?”

“Ron finished up at the South Cove and came over here. You told him that’s where we’d be. He drove up in the rental just after you went for your swim. He saw what was going on and drove right toward the one with the gun, really floored it. The guy shot at the car twice but must’ve figured Ron was the first of the reinforcements and since there was only one way out they jumped in the Mercury and the pickup and beat it.”

“Mychal’s all right?”

“That’s what I said.”

The relief was immeasurable. Rhyme said nothing for a moment as his eyes took in the choppy water nearby, an arc of spray in the sunlight, low to the west. “The wheelchair?”

Thom shook his head. “That’s not so all right.”