Projection Read Online Free PDF Page A

but no time to ask them and nothing much in the apartment worth stealing.  I looked into her eyes, searching for danger.  I didn't sense any — not that I had been even a fair judge of danger in the past.  And I couldn't know what my miscalculation would cost me this time.  "Stay, if you want," I told her.  "Sounds like we're both due for a good idea."
     
    *            *            *
     
    I sped down Route 16 to the Lynnway, took a right on to Union Street and followed it through the decay of Lynn until it dead-ended into Jessup Road, almost at the Saugus line.  Halfway to the state hospital, I stopped at a roadblock of wooden horses.  A state trooper in black leather boots laced to the knee was standing in front of them.  Three TV vans and a few other cars were lined up on the side of the road.  I noticed Calvin Sanger from the Item talking with Josh Resnek, an investigative reporter for the Boston Globe .  Sanger noticed me, too, and nodded.
    The trooper lumbered to my window and passed the beam of his flashlight over my face.  "Only official vehicles past this point," he said.  "Trouble at the hospital."
    "I heard.  That's where I'm headed."  I pointed at my Forensic Examiner's badge on the dash.
    He aimed the light at it and squinted doubtfully.  "I don't think they're looking for more local people," he said.  "We've got experts from the state up there."
    I glanced at my watch.  8:50 P.M.  "Stop busting my balls," I said.
    "Huh?"  He planted his hands on his hips.
    "I said, ‘Stop busting my balls.’  I've got to meet Emma Hancock, and you're wasting my fucking time."
    "Get out of the car."
    The thought of Lucas killing somebody at the hospital when I was the one responsible for him being locked up there overshadowed everything else.  "You want me out, drag me out.  My friends over there in the press will eat it up.  You'll be patrolling skating rinks and public bathrooms.  Tomorrow."
    He didn't flinch.  His hand moved to his baton.
    "Look," I said, trying another tack.  "Hancock told me to get my ass up there.  If I'm late, she'll come down on me like a ton of bricks."
    "Cunt."
    His venom took me by surprise.  I knew I should try to keep pace with it, but didn't have any hatred toward Hancock to draw on.  "Give a woman a little power," I managed, "and she thinks she's actually supposed to use it."
    "Somebody ought to give that bitch what she really needs."  He patted the handle of his baton.
    I reached back to my college football locker room days.  "The high hard one."
    He slammed his fist into his palm three times.  "Right up the ass."  He walked to the horses and dragged them out of the way.  As I accelerated past him, he gave me a thumbs-up sign.
    A convoy of ambulances and fire trucks lined the last fifty yards leading to the hospital.  A dozen cruisers, lights flashing, were parked haphazardly on the green out front.  Two SWAT vans were nose-to-nose in the semicircular driveway.  A huge spotlight illuminated the façade of the building, its seven stories of brick a monolith against the darkness.
    I spotted Emma Hancock's red Jeep Cherokee in the center of the chaos.  She was standing beside the car, talking with a willowy man in a trench coat.  I parked and started toward them.
    Hancock saw me, waved and walked to meet me on the green.
    "What the hell is going on here?" I asked her.  "It's like World War—"
    She held up a hand.  "I'll bring you up to speed."  She let out a long breath.  "Lucas took control of Ward Five.  We don't know how, but he got hold of a knife.  A couple of other maniacs up there have knives, too."
    "Did somebody hit a panic button?  How did you find out?"
    "Lucas sent one of the orderlies down to the station with an ultimatum."
    "What did he say he wants?"
    "Cardinal Bernard Law, for starters.  He wants a private consultation with him."
    "Is Law in town?"
    "Who knows?  We're certainly not getting the Boston diocese