14th Deadly Sin: (Women’s Murder Club 14) by James Patterson

cell. I slapped my window, signaling to Richie to hang in.
    Brady sounded edgy.
    “Boxer, a tipster has reported multiple gunshots coming from a Mercado de Maya on South Van Ness Avenue. He saw cops exiting the store in a hurry. Sounds like a possible Windbreaker cop hit. Check it out.”
    He gave me an address and I said, “We’re on the way.”
    Rich was still standing next to my car.
    “On our way where?” he said.
    I headed my car toward South Van Ness with sirens and lights full on, while Rich called Joe and Cindy to say we’d been detoured. Within five minutes, I pulled up to the sidewalk twenty yards down the street from a small market with a sign over the window reading MERCADO DE MAYA .
    A cruiser pulled up behind us. I got out of my vehicle and asked the two uniformed officers to drive around to the rear of the shop. Then Conklin and I advanced on the front entrance to the little grocery store.
    This is always the worst moment: when you don’t know if the scene is still hot, if bullets are going to fly, if victims are being used as shields.
    The front door of the market was wide open when my partner and I approached with guns drawn. The doorjamb was intact, lights out in the store. Smell of gunfire.
    Hugging the doorway, I called out, “Police. No one move.”
    I heard a moan and then a woman’s voice saying, “Over here.”
    We entered the store. Conklin found the lights and covered me while I followed the voice to the floor behind the counter only yards away.
    I holstered my gun and knelt beside the victim. She was writhing in pain and bleeding from what looked to be several gunshot wounds.
    “I’ve been shot,” she told me. “He shot me.”
    The cash drawer was open. Bottles had fallen off the shelves. There had been a struggle.
    I heard Conklin speaking to dispatch, and backup was coming through the back door. I said to the victim, “Hang on. Paramedics are on the way. What’s your name?”
    “Maya. Perez.”
    I said, “Maya, an ambulance will be here any minute. You’re going to be OK. Do you know who shot you?”
    “I’m pregnant,” she said. “You have to save my baby.”
    “Don’t worry. The baby will be fine.”
    I said it, but Maya Perez had lost a lot of blood. It was pooling on the floor, and she was still bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound to her thigh. I pulled my belt through the loops and cinched her thigh above the wound.
    It really didn’t help.
    I asked her again, “Maya, do you know who did this to you?”
    “A cop,” she said. “Two of them.”
    She coughed blood, and tears streamed down her face. She groaned and cupped her stomach through the blood-soaked fabric of her dress. “Please. Don’t let my baby die.”

CHAPTER 22
     
    I GRIPPED MAYA PEREZ’S hand and mumbled assurances I didn’t quite believe.
    Where were the EMTs? Where were they?
    “This cop who shot you,” I said. “Have you ever seen him before? Has he come into the store?”
    She whipped her head from side to side. “They were wearing. Police. Jackets. Masks. Gloves. Latex.”
    “Is there someone I can call for you? Maya? Do you want me to call a friend, a relative?”
    Colored lights flashed through the front window as the ambulance parked on the sidewalk outside the market.
    Conklin shouted, “She’s over here!”
    I stood up to give the paramedics some room.
    “Her name is Maya Perez. She’s pregnant,” I said.
    The EMTs spoke to one another and to their patient, lifting her onto the stretcher and wheeling her out the door. I followed them.
    My heart was aching for Maya, imagining her fear for her unborn child. I stood for a moment and watched the receding taillights as the van took her toward Metropolitan Hospital.
    Then I called Brady.
    He asked, “So, this was another cop heist?”
    “’Fraid so,” I said. “Windbreakers. Masks. Gloves. She didn’t know the shooter.”
    As I talked to Brady, I was looking at all the likely places for a security camera to be positioned