Murph waved at Jessie to get her attention.

“You’ve got a call,” he said. “It’s from Detective Hernandez. It’s being patched through to my phone. You can take it in the closet across the way.”

Jessie looked at Dolan.

“You mind?” she asked.

“Of course not,” he said. “I’ll coordinate letting Collison out and see what Decker has planned in the way of surveillance.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “When I get back, I think we should go back to the drawing board. We can’t pursue this guy more aggressively without something firm to connect him. So we should go back through the other texts from clients on the site to see if we missed anything.”

“That sounds fun.”

“It’s what my gut recommends,” she said.

“I’ve got Hernandez on the line,” Murph interrupted, handing her the phone.

She took it, stepped into the small closet that was becoming her second office, and pretended not to notice the butterflies flitting around in her stomach.

She’d managed to successfully force Ryan from her mind while investigating Collison. But now, with him conscious and ready to talk, all her confused emotions reared up again. She put the phone to her ear and spoke.

“I can’t leave you alone for a second,” she said, feigning anger.

“I know, right?” he replied. His voice sounded weak and distant.

“How are you doing?” she asked, unable to keep up the charade of light banter.

“Peachy,” he answered raspily. “They say I’m getting transferred downtown to California Hospital Medical Center later today. It’s less than two miles from the station so it’ll be easier to provide security for me.”

“Good to know,” she said. “That’ll make it easier to visit you. But it doesn’t really tell me how you’re doing.”

“I’ve been better,” he admitted. “But the doctor says I get another hit of pain medication in a couple minutes, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.”

“It sounds like you could use it now.”

“I didn’t want to get fuzzy before I spoke to you,” he said earnestly.

“I appreciate that. So maybe while you’re clear-headed you can tell me how you’re really doing rather than repeatedly avoiding the question.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. For a moment, Jessie thought he was debating whether to update her. But then she heard a loud gulp and realized he was struggling to catch his breath.

“I’ll be okay,” he finally said. “My arm is all stitched up. The knife didn’t get anything vital. And it’s not my shooting hand, so there’s that. They were worried about the jab to the stomach for a while. But it missed everything vital too. Mostly just got belly fat.”

“You don’t have any belly fat,” Jessie pointed out.

“I’m trying to be self-deprecating here,” he wheezed. “Anyway, the doctors say I was incredibly lucky; that I should be back at work in a month and cleared for field duty in two.”

“That’s great,” Jessie said. “But why do I sense that you don’t think your quick recovery is luck-based.”