Always Watching Read Free

Court
officers quickly restrained him.
    “ Call for an ambulance,” I
said to Devlin.  I pushed my way down the aisle.
    Datello spotted me and started yelling, “Get
that bitch away from my wife!  Judge, she’s probably the one
threatening my family!  She won’t rest until we’re all
dead!”
    “ Get him out of here,”
Judge Gates ordered.
    I eased Celeste onto the floor.  A
bloody hand slid into mine.  “Don’t be mad at Danny, Detective
Eriksson.  He’s scared and afraid that someone will hurt our
baby.  Please help me!  I know you can protect us. 
Please!”
    Instead of easing her worry, I held her hand
and coached her breathing until the paramedics arrived.
    “ Please, please help me!”
she wailed.  If not for the slimy lubricant on her hands, I
doubt anything could’ve broken her death grip on me.  “Helen,
please.  We’re practically family!  Help me. 
Someone is going to hurt my baby!”
    I let the paramedics pry us apart and
stumbled backward against Devlin’s chest.
    “ You all
right?”
    I shook my head.  “I have no idea what
to make of that.  What just happened?”
    “ Hysterics, I think,” he
said.  “Datello probably staged the whole thing for
sympathy.”
    “ I don’t think so,
Devlin.  You don’t fake that kind of bleeding.  She’s in
trouble.”
    “ Really?”
    “ I think it’s called an
abruption.  The placenta tears away from the uterine
wall.”
    Devlin’s eyebrows inched close
together.  “Is this something someone could’ve done to
her?”
    “ No,” I said.  “If
someone had attacked her, believe me, we’d have known about
it.  This was spontaneous.”
    “ Do you think somebody is
really threatening Datello’s family?”
    “ I wouldn’t be a bit
surprised.  It’s like I said before, Devlin.  Datello is
living on borrowed time.  What I find shocking is that Stefano
got this hearing before the judge in the first place.  I
wonder why Zack looked so worried.”
    “ Let’s ask him,” Devlin
said.
    The crowd was pushed back to the
prosecution’s side of the aisle anyway to make room for emergency
treatment of Celeste Datello.  Devlin and I inched our way
toward Zack and his co-counsel.
    “ Hey,” Dev tapped on his
shoulder.
    “ Oh, hello
detective.  Helen.”
    “ You looked a little
worried when we came into court today, Zack.  What’s really
going on behind this motion for a continuance?”
    He shook his head.  “I wasn’t
certain.  We thought that Stefano might’ve hurled accusations
that the police department was behind these threats.”
    “ Not the department,” I
said.  “You were afraid that Datello would point the finger at
me, which he did, but not before the judge already made her
ruling.”
    “ You haven’t had any
contact with him since his arrest, have you, Helen?”
    “ Not a single word. 
I hadn’t seen his wife until the first pretrial hearing.  It’s
not my style to do something like that anyway.  If I have a
problem with someone, we’ll have it out then and there.  I
have no interest in Mrs. Datello, beyond feeling a great deal of
pity over her poor choice in husband.”
    “ Curious that she seems to
think you’re the one to protect her family now, isn’t it, Helen?”
Zack said.  “Danny and Celeste seem to be divided on their
opinion of you.”
    I snorted softly.  “We’re practically
family.  That’s what she said.  She ought to be careful
about making such statements.  Might get back to her
husband.  God only knows what he’d do to her if he heard her
say such a thing.”
    “ Helen, about that,” Zack
said.
    “ About what?”
    “ I have concerns about
them using this familial relationship in open court.  Now I
know that you never had anything to do with Datello while you were
married to his cousin, but –”
    “ Don’t go there, Zack,” I
said with soft finality.  “I didn’t even know that my ex was
related to Datello while we were married.  Had I known