Page 42 of Misadventures in Blue
“Sutton.”
“Um, hi,” comes a hesitant voice. “This is Shelley Abadinksy, from the Mastin Cancer Center office? I’m calling for Detective Day?”
“She’s away from her desk at the moment,” I say, glancing at her note. Conclusions are fitting together in my mind, and there’s a sharp bite of worry in my chest. The itch to go find her is difficult to think through. “I’m one of the officers assisting her on the case. I can take a message and make sure she gets it.”
“Sure,” Shelley says, sounding relieved. “And actually you might be able to help me anyway. I had our office manager, Gia Pisani, send in an updated inventory of all the missing items, but I just realized we might have to contact some federal authority, and I thought maybe Detective Day would know which one.”
I’m standing and my body is already angled toward the cubicle opening, I’m that desperate to get to Cat right now. So I say hurriedly, “No need to report the televisions to anybody federal, ma’am. We’ll handle it all here at HGPD,” and make to hang up.
“Oh, I’m not talking about the televisions,” she says, surprised. “Did Gia not tell you? Our cobalt therapy machine has been damaged, and the cobalt inside was stolen.”
“Cobalt?”
“Nuclear material? It’s used for radiation therapy.”
Cobalt. It rings a bell from my army days, and my already tight hand practically cracks the phone receiver in half.
Cobalt. It’s used for radiation therapy…and dirty bombs.
“And you didn’t notice it was missing until now?”
She sounds defensive when she answers. “Look, we just refitted a new therapy room with a LINAC machine, so we haven’t used the cobalt machine in over a month. It was scheduled to be removed next week. I went in there Friday to take a few measurements for the disposal company. That’s when I noticed it had been pried open.”
And Gia Pisani is the office manager. Cat is interviewing her right now.
Things come together in a horrible rush.
“And I just wasn’t sure if we needed to contact someone like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or if you did that,” she goes, oblivious to the fact that I’m splitting apart with panic on my end.
“Shelley, I’m going to call you back, but I have to go right now.”
“Okay, but—”
“We didn’t know about the nuclear material,” I tell her, already reaching up to click on my radio. “And I have to tell a lot of people about it right now so no one gets hurt.”
“Oh,” she says faintly, the gravity of it finally seeming to sink in. “Oh, of course. I should have—yes, of course.”
“Goodbye, ma’am.” And then I’m hanging up the phone and calling for a captain on the radio.
“Day’s got two uniforms with her,” Captain Kim tells me as I’m speeding south to the medical office. “More are on the way.”
“And the NRC?”
“Notified.” A pause. “And the KBI and the FBI.”
“Is she with Pisani now?”
“They’re in the staff breakroom at the back of the building. The uniforms are just outside the door. Pisani doesn’t know they’re there. Everything’s under control, Sutton.”
Funny how hard that is to believe when the woman I love is alone with a criminal who is apparently selling nuclear material on the black market. I click off the radio and focus on driving, pushing the low-profile detective car to its limits. It roars into the parking lot before any of the supervisors arrive, which is good. I don’t need them forbidding me from going in, because I’m going in no matter what.
I park and push my way into the building. There’s an unfamiliar woman at the desk who looks puzzled at my appearance, so I assume she doesn’t know about the other cops in the building.
“Where’s your staff room?” I ask through gritted teeth, trying to keep my voice low.
“Back by the lab,” she says, still puzzled. “First left. Hey, are you with that one lady—”
I don’t stay to chat. I move down the hallway as quick as I can, pressing the hood of my holster down and forward in preparation for drawing my weapon. I pray I don’t have to, because if I have to, it means Cat’s in danger…
