I was sad, too. He was my partner, and he’d become an important part of my life—and dealing with the drama vampires in Chicago seemed to frequently face. But what could I do? I was certain I could help the RG without sacrificing my relationship with Ethan. Love hadn’t taken my honor. But since I wouldn’t concede that love could make me blind or stupid, I supposed we were at a standstill.
“You appear to have injured yourself, Sentinel,” Ethan said, his gaze on the tender spot beneath my eye.
“He kicked me in the face, so I stabbed him. Is it bruised?”
He angled me for better lighting, frowned at my face. “It’s swollen and purpling but doesn’t look broken. You should heal. You’re all right otherwise?”
“I’m fine. How’s Nadia? And Malik and Juliet?”
“Nadia’s resting,” Morgan said.
“And Malik and Juliet are in the House with Irina,” Ethan said. “We thought it best for them to keep untangling the knot, such as it is.”
I nodded.
“The perp ran?” Scott prompted.
I nodded. “Down Michigan, into Streeterville. He pulled a gun and used it,” I said, glancing at my grandfather. “I can give you the details of the route if you want the bullets for forensics. And there’s this,” I added, sliding the dagger from my sleeve, and extended it with two fingers to my grandfather.
“Blood?” he asked, scanning me for injuries.
“His, if you’ve got an evidence bag.”
He nodded, pulled a plastic baggie from the pocket of his jacket. “Just in case,” he said with a light smile, and opened it so I could slip the knife inside. Then he closed it, sealed it, wrote the information on the outside with a felt-tip pen he’d pulled from the other pocket.
“Any word on the bus?” I asked.
“Uniforms stopped it,” my grandfather said. “He wasn’t on it.”
I dropped my head back, squeezed my eyes shut. He’d been my responsibility—a responsibility I’d taken on—and I’d blown it.
Sentinel, Ethan said silently, in a tone meant to comfort. But it didn’t help. Not this time, when I’d been so close to such a good lead. No one is questioning your efforts.
I am. I’m questioning the hell out of them.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Morgan, lifting my head again. “I was so close, and then he moved onto one of the lower streets. I followed him down, but I didn’t realize he’d hopped the bus until it was moving.”
Morgan just nodded.
“He wouldn’t have gotten far,” my grandfather said. “The uniforms are canvassing in case there’s any sight of him.”
“There won’t be,” I said. “He didn’t want anything to do with the sirens. And he wouldn’t confirm he was with the Circle, but I presume that’s what we’re thinking?”
“That’s the logical conclusion,” my grandfather said.
“Why would they hurt Nadia?” Morgan said. “She had nothing to do with this. Nothing at all. They should have come after me.”
“Because it isn’t money they’re after,” my grandfather said.
Which meant Morgan was going to have to figure out a way to satisfy them, or hope the CPD could bring down an enormous criminal enterprise before they got to anyone else. Neither of those options sounded especially easy.
“When we have all the information,” Ethan said, “we’ll chart a course.”
Morgan nodded but didn’t look at all convinced.
“I’m going to get this to Jeff,” my grandfather said into the intervening silence, lifting the evidence bag, then glancing at me. “Walk with me?”
I nodded, fell into step beside him as we walked slowly across the grass, at his pace, toward the van.
“Did I ever tell you about the Moody case?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Darryl Lee Moody had a very bad habit of stealing cars. Twenty-three before anyone identified him. Twenty-seven before anyone found him. I was twenty-eight years old, had just gotten my detective’s shield. I wanted to prove myself, did some investigating, found a man who knew a man, and was able to locate his shop. I scoped it out, realized he was the only one in there—and with two cars. If I waited for backup, he’d have disappeared. I knew that in my gut. So I went in, gun blazing, all by my lonesome. It did not, let’s say, go well.”
“What happened?”
“General Tso’s chicken,” he said, each word heavy as it dropped from his lips. “Moody had just ordered dinner, and the delivery arrived five seconds after I’d walked in. Kid was nineteen years old, walked in to find his customer being held at gunpoint by a cop.”
“Yikes.”
My grandfather nodded. “Moody grabbed the kid, used him as a shield to get out of the room. He didn’t hurt him, thankfully, but Moody was gone by the time I made it outside, made sure the kid was safe.”
“Did you find him again?”
“I didn’t—not in so many words, anyway. Four months went by without a single sign of him. And then, one night, I pulled over a car for running a red light. Darryl was behind the wheel.”
“I doubt I’ll get that lucky.”
My grandfather chuckled, turned to me, and smiled. “Maybe, maybe not. The point of the story, Merit, is that not every op is successful, even if you tried your best. Sometimes there’s General Tso’s chicken.”
“And it is infuriating. Delicious, but infuriating.”
“So it is. You’re a perfectionist, just like your father.”
I humphed.
“I know you don’t care for the comparison, but it’s the truth, baby girl. You’ve both worked very hard to craft your particular worlds. You, with school, ballet, now Cadogan House. Your father with, well, every other house. You won’t succeed every time. But if you’re lucky, and you work hard enough, you’ll come out on top more often than not.”
We reached the van, and he stepped carefully down from the curb to the road, knocked on the back door twice. After a moment it swung open, revealing Jeff and Catcher in matching red Ombudsman T-shirts and khaki shorts. Jeff had opened the door with a grin; Catcher sat at one of the very swank van’s computer stations, eyes tracking across the black-and-white image currently on the monitor.
“You ran a good race,” Catcher said, without looking at me.
“Did I?”