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drink coffee, but thank you. I’m okay. I just want to see my brother.”
    “I know, but it might not be tonight.” He was in intensive care, on a respirator. Juliet didn’t want to be the one to tell Sarah Dunnemore that. “Let’s just wait and you can talk to his doctor.”
    Sarah nodded, saying nothing, and lowered her head, fiddling with one of her rings, as if to keep Juliet from seeing that she was on the verge of tears.
    Hell.
Juliet took in a steadying breath. Now her stomach was burning. She had no idea what to say to this woman. “Where are you staying?”
    “I could stay at Rob’s. I haven’t visited since he was assigned up here, but I could—I’m sure I could get the key.”
    “That’s not a good idea, not tonight. FBI could be going through his place for all I know, but you shouldn’t stay there on your own. Forget about it, okay? Trust me. You can stay at my place if you don’t mind my fish and plants, or I can book you into a hotel.”
    “That’s very nice of you, Deputy—Longstreet, right?”
    “Juliet’ll do.”
    “Juliet. That’s a pretty name.”
    “Yeah.” She smiled. “I used to think I should change it to something meaner sounding.”
    Sarah raised her eyes. “You and Rob…” But she trailed off, not finishing.
    Juliet understood what she was trying to say. “We used to see each other.”
    “Not anymore?”
    “No. Not anymore.”
     
     
    The noise and lights of the city—the crush of people—struck Sarah as oddly reassuring as she and Juliet Longstreet climbed out of the back of the government car that had driven them to the Marriott Marquis in the heart of Times Square. It wasn’t that far from the hospital, but Rob’s bosses didn’t want her walking. They’d made that clear. They didn’t say it was because a sniper was on the loose in the city and they were afraid Juliet or even Sarah might be his next target—they said it was because Sarah was obviously exhausted, emotionally wrung out and on edge.
    But they all were tired and on edge, she thought. A steady stream of law enforcement and political types had stopped at the hospital to check on Rob and Nate and to greet her, to offer to do whatever they could for her. She’d sensed not only their concern for the injured officers, but their worry about the situation itself. The chief deputy, the district U.S. marshal, the FBI agent leading the investigation, the FBI assistant director in charge of the New York FBI office, the mayor—they’d all attended the news conference that had preceded the shooting. The shooter could have been after one of them instead and seized on Rob and Nate as a second choice, targets of opportunity—get someone, anyone, who’d been at the news conference.
    The bottom line was clear. Two federal agents had been gunned down in daylight in Central Park, and the gunman was still at large.
    “I’ll check you in,” Juliet said, briskly leading the way up the elevators to the eighth-floor lobby of the huge conference hotel.
    She’d insisted on carrying Sarah’s bag, saying it was part of the job. Sarah wanted to ask about Juliet’s relationship with her brother, who’d only mentioned in one e-mail that he’d been seeing another deputy and it hadn’t worked out—but Juliet had cut off that topic.
    When they arrived at the lobby, Sarah waited off to the side while Juliet checked her in. She’d never seriously considered imposing on her marshal escort—she liked the anonymity of the large hotel. She needed time to herself. Space. Rob’s doctors were guarded but not discouraging in their assessment of her brother’s condition. He’d lost a lot of blood but the surgery had gone well. The bullet could have done far more damage than it had, although the damage it
had
done was considerable. They’d watch him closely for complications from blood loss, a recurrence of bleeding, infection—he had a long way to go.
    Without her having to plead, his doctors had allowed her peek in on