“Make it faster.” Kara would never forgive herself if her pursuit of Hamilton had caused a kid’s death. She needed Joey to be okay.

People started coming out of their houses, some carrying blankets. One by one Kara returned the coats to the children who had shared them, replacing them with the blankets.

“Joey, you with me?” Kara said.

“Y-yes.”

“Good. You’re going to be fine. You get to ride in an ambulance, okay? And they’ll take real good care of you, make sure you get fixed up.”

“M-my head hurts.”

“You know what? I’ve had a concussion before. It hurts a lot. But it got better, and you’ll get better. Just do everything the doctors tell you to do, okay?”

“I’m going to be a doctor,” Joey’s little sister said.

“Good,” Kara said, because what else did you say to that?

“Shouldn’t we bring him into the house?” one of the adults said.

“We can’t move him,” Kara said. “We don’t know the extent of his injuries. Does anyone have a portable heater? An umbrella?” The snow was coming down lightly, but it was getting heavier with each passing minute. She was doing her best to keep the flakes off Joey’s face.

Three minutes later she had an umbrella over the kid, and a minute later a portable heater was blowing lukewarm air on both of them.

“Joey, keep talking to me,” she said.

“I’m sleepy.”

“I know, but you need to stay awake. If you have a concussion, the doctors like it when you stay awake, so they can ask you questions.”

“My arm hurts.”

She figured from the odd angle that it was broken.

“I had a cast once,” she said. “Broke my wrist. It hurt a lot, but everyone on my squad signed it.”

“How did you break your wrist?” Joey’s little sister asked.

“Catching a bad guy.” She wasn’t going to tell a seven-year-old that she’d finally caught up with a serial rapist at UCLA and beat him up before her partner Colton Fox pulled her off. That wasn’t one of her finest hours, but damn, that bastard had ruined the lives of a dozen women, and Kara had wanted to make him hurt. It was worth the broken wrist.

“Like that man who hit Joey?”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“You’ll find him, right?”

“You bet we’ll find him. He’s going to jail, I promise.”

She finally heard the ambulance in the distance. A car pulled up on the street and Costa jumped out of the passenger seat. He squatted next to her.

Joey was closing his eyes. “Hey, Joey, stay awake, okay? Um, my name is Kara. Do you have a dog?”

“Two,” he said sleepily.

“What are their names?”

“Fred and Daisy.”

“I like those names. What kind of dogs?”

“Um, mutts, my dad says.”

Joey’s sister said, “Mom says they’re lab mixes.”

“Joey, do you like playing with your dogs?”

“We walk them every night.”

“That’s great.” She glanced at Costa.

“We couldn’t find him,” Costa said. “But we have an APB on his car. Every cop is out looking for him now.”