The most pressing issue, however, is the gunshot wound. Unlike the way those kinds of injuries are depicted on TV and in movies, even a flesh wound can become life-threatening without immediate treatment.
I think about my significant other, John Tomasetti—who’s an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation—and another layer of dread settles over me. I’m hesitant to involve him at this juncture, at least until I have more information and a better handle on what happened last night in Columbus. I won’t be able to put off calling him much longer.
“Gina, do you have proof of any of this?” I ask.
“I have some audio. On my cell. It’s not great. It’s not enough. But it’s a start.” She gestures toward her coat, hanging on a chair back. “If you want me to play it—”
I shake my head. “We need to get that bullet wound looked at first. Let me make a call.” I’m thinking about Tomasetti as I pull the notebook and pen from my pocket. “I need to know who is involved. I need names. All of them.”
“Damon Bertrand. Nick Galloway. Half a dozen patrol cops in the unit. I don’t have all their names.”
An uneasy familiarity curdles inside me as I jot the names on the pad. Damon Bertrand was a patrol officer when I was a rookie. I didn’t know him well, but he was a solid cop, a few years older, well thought of, and on his way up. Nick Galloway was a patrol officer and also had a stellar reputation.
I look up from the pad. “Who else?”
She grimaces. “Ken Mercer.”
The floor shifts beneath me and for an instant it feels as if the gale outside has ripped the house from its foundation and spun it. When I resigned from the Columbus Division of Police, Ken Mercer had just made detective. He was a few years older. Ambitious. Charismatic. Everyone knew he would move up. He and I worked together a dozen times. We were friends. We were more than friends for a short time. He’s the one and only cop I slept with in the ten years I was with the department.
“In case you haven’t kept up with things, Bertrand and Mercer are detectives with the Narcotics Bureau. Galloway is a sergeant in the Patrol North Subdivision. Frank Monaghan is deputy chief.”
Deputy chief is one of the highest positions in the Columbus Division of Police, just below chief.
“They are the heart of this,” Gina says firmly. “They’re tight-knit and if you cross them, they will find a way to take you out.”
I get to my feet, look down at her, and sigh. Gina Colorosa was always larger than life. Back in the day, I’d looked up to her. She was ambitious and unafraid. Flawed and unapologetic. I’d wanted to please her. Be like her. Now I look at her and I see woman who betrayed not only herself, but the institution we loved, and the laws we’d sworn to uphold.
I think about Adam Lengacher and his children. Though I haven’t yet decided how much I believe of her story or what I’m going to do about it, I’m struck by the possibility that someone—law enforcement or some other unsavory individuals—is looking for Gina.
“Does anyone know you’re here?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going until I ran out of options.”
“When’s the last time you used your cell phone?” I ask.
“I was still in Columbus.” She frowns at me. “Don’t worry. It’s a burner. No one knows about it.”
“I’m going to make some calls. See what I can find out about that warrant.” I send a nod to the bloodstain on her shirt. “We need to take care of that gunshot wound.”
She looks away, saying nothing.
I stare at her a moment. She looks wiped out. Pale. Shivering again. Somehow diminished. Not just physically, but in ways that make me think less of her.
Realizing I have nothing left to say to her, I leave the room.
CHAPTER 4
I find Adam at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, still wearing his barn coat, the shoulders of which are wet with melted snow. Lizzie and Annie are at the sink—Annie standing on a wood crate in order to reach—washing dishes. Sammy is nowhere in sight, but I hear him talking from the mudroom.
“Datt! The snow is almost up to the windows!” the boy calls out.
“It’s just a drift from the wind.” Adam smiles at me as he responds to his son. “Bring in the rest of that wood from the shed, Sammy, and stack it in the corner by the stove.”
The boy appears at the doorway, hair sticking to a sweaty forehead despite the chill. His eyes flick from his datt to me and back. Little Mr. Social. “Maybe I should go to the barn and see if Suzy had her calf.”
“Not now, son. Just the wood. We’ll check on Suzy later.”
Grinning, the boy spins and runs back to the mudroom.
The door slams and Adam rises, takes off his coat, and hangs it on the chair back. “How is she?” he asks me.
“She needs a doctor.” I let my eyes slide to the two girls at the sink. “Do you have a minute?”
He motions toward the living room. I head that way, taking him past the stairs, to the window at the front of the room, out of earshot of the children. Outside, wind and snow batter the pine tree standing guard in the front yard. We watch the storm for a moment.
“How badly is she hurt?” he asks.
“She’s been shot. I don’t know how bad it is.”
His eyes widen. “An accident?”
“No. Adam, there are some things going on you need to be aware of.”
He nods, his gaze steady on mine. “All right.”
“You know Gina is a police officer.”
“Yes.”
“She’s involved in … a troubling situation. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it,” I tell him. “Since she’s here in your home with you and your children, I thought you should be aware. If you want me to find another place for her to stay until we can get things straightened out, I’ll do it.”
He stares at me a moment, his mind working over everything that’s been said. “She is badly hurt?”
I nod. “You’re under no obligation to get involved.”
“The Amish do not close their doors to anyone in need, Katie. It’s not our way. ‘The Lord sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.’”
I nod, trying not to feel too much, for him, for the community I left behind. “Psalm Forty-one.”
“You remember.”
“Of course I do.”
He’s still staring at me, gauging, trying to read between lines he isn’t quite sure how to interpret. “This woman,” he says. “Is she dangerous?”
“No,” I tell him. But even as I say the word I know the situation isn’t quite that straightforward.
“What are you going to do about her injury?” he asks.
I shake my head, hating that I’ve placed him in the middle of this. That I’ve let myself be drawn into a situation that could bring my own ethics into question. “I need to get her to the hospital.” I glance out the window and laugh. “The problem is I’m not sure I can make it all the way to Millersburg.”
Grimacing, he looks out the window, where the snow is piled on the sill, sticking to the panes, nearly obscuring the view. “Joe Weaver was here the day last summer when Amos Yoder cut off his finger with the pneumatic saw. Joe isn’t a doctor, but he knows about medicine.”