Cobb shoved Matthew hard into the side of the cruiser. Matthew's face smashed against the wet glass of the rear window. Pain flared in his cheekbone. "I don't care if the kid is the president of the United States," Cobb hissed, leaning in close so Matthew could smell the stale coffee and chewing tobacco on his breath. "You're going to sit in the back of my car and you're going to shut your mouth, or I'm going to add resisting arrest and assaulting an officer to your charges.
Do we have an understanding?" Lawson stepped forward, raising a hand. "Cobb, wait. Did he just say Hayes, as in—?" "I said get in the car," Cobb barked, opening the rear door and violently shoving Matthew into the cramped plastic-lined back seat of the cruiser.
He slammed the door shut, locking Matthew in the darkness. Matthew fell sideways against the hard seat, his hands bound painfully behind his back. The cruiser smelled of bleach and old sweat. Through the metal mesh dividing the front and back seats, he could see the dashboard clock of the police car. 2:41 a.m. The heart had arrived at the hospital.
Sarah would be frantically paging him. The anesthesiologist would be checking the monitors, watching Leo's failing natural heart struggle to maintain blood pressure. The entire surgical team would be standing in silence, staring at the double doors of the operating room, waiting for their chief. And their chief was caged in the back of a police car 3 miles away, a victim of an arrogant man with a badge. Outside, Matthew could hear Cobb and Lawson arguing through the muffled glass.
Lawson was pointing at the Mercedes, looking agitated. Cobb was waving his hands dismissively, walking over to Matthew's car and opening the driver's side door to begin a slow, meticulous, entirely illegal search of the vehicle. Tears of absolute fury and profound grief mixed with the rainwater streaming down Matthew's face. He wasn't crying for himself. He was crying for a 14-year-old boy who was bleeding out on a sterile table.
He leaned his head back against the hard plastic divider and began to pray. He prayed for a miracle. He prayed for Sarah Jenkins to find a way to keep the boy stable. And as he watched Officer Derek Cobb casually toss his expensive leather medical bag onto the wet asphalt, Dr. Matthew Ryan prayed for absolute unapologetic justice. What Cobb didn't know, what his arrogant, prejudiced mind had failed to process when Matthew shouted the patients name in the rain, was exactly who Leo Hayes was.
Leo Hayes was not just any child. He was the only son of Richard Hayes. And Richard Hayes was the newly appointed police commissioner of the city. Cobb's ultimate untouchable boss. Matthew watched the minutes tick by.
2:45 a.m. 2:48 a.m. The golden hour was dying, but a storm of entirely different proportions was about to make landfall on Officer Derek Cobb. Inside the suffocating, bleached back seat of the cruiser. Dr. Matthew Ryan watched the digital clock on the partition flip to 2:51 a.m. The ischemic window for the donor heart was closing with terrifying speed. Every passing second was a literal death sentence for Leo Hayes, whose own damaged heart was currently hooked to a bypass machine, failing fast. Outside, the heavy rain continued to batter the roof of the police car.