Page 9 of Rescuing Baylee
The man cupped Catalina’s face, crying, and he looked down her body. “Why aren’t you working on her,” he demanded.
Dr. Mendez took a step closer to the room. “She had two gunshot wounds. One through the abdomen and the second one higher, through her chest. I believe that wound is the one that killed her, going through her heart. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
She didn’t say anything about the baby, and Baylee wondered if he thought the baby died as well. Her heart ached for the man for a moment, until he turned and faced Mendez. “I don’t believe you. I think you gave up on her as soon as you realized she was a Tango.”
Baylee hadn’t seen any tattoos on the woman, but she hadn’t really been looking for them. Her gaze focused on the man’s forearm, and she could see the Tango Blast ink. The gang had a heavy presence in the Austin area, and with any violence that spiked up, they always proclaimed to be protecting their home turf. The gang traffic kept the hospitals busy.
“No, we didn’t,” Mendez said softly. “I swear to you, we did everything we could to save her.”
The gun wavered, and Baylee wondered if the guy would pass out before she had to shoot him. She could hope.
“Where’s the baby?” he demanded.
“Up in surgery. He was hit while in Catalina’s womb.”
The gang member blinked. And then the baby cried.
His gun hand had been lowering, but as soon as he heard the cry of the baby, he advanced toward the doctor, his face furious. As unflappable as Dr. Mendez was, she didn’t want to die. Crying out, she held both hands up, as if to stop the bullets from hitting her as the man drew down.
“You lied to me. Where is he?”
Baylee knew she had no more time. Bracing her right arm against the side of the counter, she lined up the sights and squeezed the trigger, praying the gun worked correctly. Two shots struck the gang member center mass, and he looked down at himself, disbelief in his expression. Time seemed to stop as Baylee let up on the trigger, waiting to see if she needed to fire more. After three long, heart-ripping seconds, the gang member slowly sank to his knees and toppled over, the gun still clutched tight in his hand.
Baylee came out from behind the nurse’s counter and secured the man’s weapon. Then she looked at Dr. Mendez. “Are you okay, doc?”
The woman, normally unflappable, looked pale. Her hands shook as she ran them over her face, and tears dripped down her cheeks. “Yes, Baylee, I’m fine. Did you shoot that man?”
“I did,” she said, voice grim.
“Thank you.”
Baylee looked down at the man, then knelt down to check for vitals. He was gone.
The baby boy wailing in the background seemed to sense that he was now an orphan.
Detective Landon Hunterwalked into an incredible crime scene. He’d been in the emergency room of Dell-Seton many times for suspect interviews and the like, but he never expected to see it like this. Spattered with blood and injured people. As well as the dead.
The 911 call had come in twenty-five minutes ago that a gunman had charged into the department and started shooting people up, looking for hisJaina. His gang wife. She’d been caught in a Capirucha gang crossfire, and Chino Vega, male, Hispanic, twenty-seven years old, had followed her to the hospital. He’d shot seven people in the emergency department, killing three, in his search for his woman. He’d finally been taken out by a retired Army lieutenant.
Landon had seen many things in his career, but this was a lot. The crime scene was fucked, because the doctors and nurses were actively working on the injured.In the crime scene.There was no preserving anything here.
Luckily, he had a lot of witnesses. And he probably had video. He spotted the medical examiner leaning over Vega’s body. “What can you tell me, Simpson?”
The man looked up at him, shaking his head. “Seems pretty cut and dried, detective. He already had a bullet wound in his gut before he staggered in here. He was a dead man walking, trying to do as much damage as he could before he left this world. The guy that shot him put two in his heart, and he went quick. Excellent shooting, if you ask me.”
Hunter looked over the body. There were two gunshot wounds directly over the man’s heart, one inch apart. Further down his gut there was another wound. Obviously, Mr. Vega had been injured in the same shootout the woman had been. He’d been shot in two separate incidents.
“Crime scene techs have already bagged the weapons.”
“Where is the vet?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” Simpson said, turning back to the body.
Hunter glanced around, trying to figure out who was in charge of the medical department. Several people were talking with a shorter, dark-haired woman, and she motioned toward the ceiling, like she was giving orders to move people upstairs. He crossed to her.
“Are you in charge?” he asked.
The woman huffed out a resigned breath as she turned. “Yes, for the moment. What do you need?”