He’d just reached the door when there was another muffled pop and the shattering of more glass.
He groaned as he yanked open the door. “God, please!”
***
“Don’t shoot her! Please don’t shoot her!” Evan stumbled over the wreckage of the other computers and stared into the face of hatred—the man held the barrel of a gun with a long silencer shoved just below Brooke’s left ear. He held her throat with his other hand.
“Then tell me what I need to know.” The man tightened his arm around Brooke’s neck.
She gagged but to Evan’s relief she didn’t struggle. Her panicky glance traveled from Evan to the computer screen and he knew what she was thinking. If Peregrine saw his own picture on the monitor they’d be dead.
“Who turned me in?” he growled
“How should I know? Who are you?”
“You know who I am. You’re the guy with all the answers. You’re the guy with all the words. Who called the police on me? How do you know so much about me?” The rumble of his voice spiraled out of control and his teeth glared yellow in the fluorescent light while he stared, unblinking, into Evan’s eyes.
“The police? What are you talking about?” Evan forced the tremor from his voice with difficulty. He had to bluff through this one. The man was obviously tweaking.
Peregrine faltered. Evan saw Brooke signal again with her eyes toward the computer screen.
“Mister, I think you’ve made a mistake.” Evan stepped around the side of the computer table, hoping to distract Peregrine from his forward progress toward it. “All I do is write about stuff I read on the Internet everybody’s interested in—”
“Shut up! You think I don’t know how to read?”
The man was crazy. Psychotic. Kent just stood in the open doorway like an ice sculpture. He looked too scared to move.
Peregrine jerked Brooke along the inner wall of the cavernous room.
“You turned the whole town against me—people started staring at me everywhere I went. The police followed me all the time, wouldn’t leave me alone!” His shouts grew in volume with each accusation and still he dragged Brooke closer to the monitor. He was close enough now that Evan could smell the alcohol on his breath and the ripe odor of his body. If the man saw his own face staring back at him—
“We never followed you.” Evan kept his voice soft and nonthreatening. It was true that they’d never followed him. They just took his picture when they saw him. Why had he allowed Brooke to get involved in this?
“You told everyone!” Peregrine was within sight of the screen now. All he had to do was look down. He hadn’t yet.
Paranoia. Bad paranoia. The guy was deadly. He looked around the room and to Evan’s horror he focused on the monitor screen.
“Somebody’s coming!” The ice sculpture that was Kent suddenly came to life.
At the same moment Peregrine recognized himself. His bloodshot eyes stared and then blinked. He frowned and shook his head as if he didn’t understand what he was seeing.
“Did you hear that?” Evan asked. “Kent said someone’s—”
“You!” Peregrine’s arm straightened. He pointed the gun into Evan’s face as Brooke stumbled away from him. “You’re still doing it!”
Evan sucked in his breath. He was going to die.
“No!” Brooke grabbed for the man’s arm and drew her knee up. She was going to stomp his instep!
But before she could kick down the man shoved her forward into a desk, took aim at her head with his pistol, and—
Evan hurled himself forward but their attacker smacked him in the right temple. The room dimmed. Brooke’s shout echoed in his ears as he fell.
***
Beau raced along the third floor corridor, listening to his sister’s gasp, Evan’s moan, and Kent’s pleading voice.
“Don’t do it, man!” Kent cried. “You’ll go to jail. We’ll go to jail! They might even give us the death—”
“Evan!” Brooke shouted.
Beau plunged through the open doorway and stopped in stunned horror.
Peregrine straddled Evan’s prone body, holding a pistol with both hands. He put his finger to the trigger and started to squeeze. Beau dove forward and shoved Peregrine hard enough that he squeezed the trigger and blew the computer monitor away.
Brooke lunged toward the man’s right side and drove her heel down the side of his right leg with the full force of her body.
He roared with rage and stumbled forward. Before he could recover Beau tackled him again and knocked him to his stomach.
“Brooke, the gun!”
Brooke scrambled over Evan’s back and kicked the gun from Peregrine’s hand. The Sig Sauer spun across the wooden floor and clattered to a stop against the far wall.
“Police! Stay down, don’t move!” came a voice from the door.
Peregrine rose from beneath Beau, gave him a hard shove, and lunged away. He scrambled over broken glass and dived for the window, hitting it shoulder first. The pane cracked and he stumbled backward.
“Stop! Police!”
Again Peregrine plunged toward the window. It stopped him but it shattered. Shards of glass flew out into the night air. He jumped again, tripped, and screamed as he fell. His cry ended suddenly.
Evan moaned and stirred. “B-Brooke? Where’s Brooke?”
“I’m here, Evan. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Chapter 30
“It’s okay.” Lauren held Grant’s hand, repeating the words as they rushed through the sliding glass doors into the ER waiting room.
“Hi Dr. Sheldon, hi Lauren,” Becky greeted as she hit the door-lock release for them to pass into the ER proper. “Dr. Sheldon, your kids are fine but if they keep hitching rides with the ambulance you’d better upgrade your health insurance policy.”
“I might do that. Which room?” He didn’t slow his stride and Lauren kept pace with him.
“We’ve got ‘em corralled in nine,” Becky said as they passed. “Dr. Caine wanted to keep a close watch over them until you could get here.”
In the room they found Brooke with blackening left eye, perched on the edge of the cot. Beau sat slumped in the chair. He stood when they entered.
Brooke slid from the bed. “Dad, don’t freak, it’s not as bad as it looks. Dr. Caine says we’ll be fine and he’s already sent Evan home with more staples in his head and some superglue over a cut on his left eye.” She hugged her father with barely a break in word flow. “I’m sorry Beau’s such a crybaby and insisted on calling the restaurant and interrupted your first-ever date with Lauren.”
“Shut up, Brooke.” Beau got up and hugged his dad. “How would they have felt if they’d heard about this over the radio or something?”
“They wouldn’t have broadcast our names, dummy.” She reached for Lauren. “How was the half-date?”
Lauren pulled her into a tight embrace and held on, blinking away sudden tears. Welcome to the joys of loving teenagers with a death wish. “Lambert’s was fun but the drive back here was horrible. We were so scared.”
“As you can see, we’re fine,” Brooke said. “So we ended your date for nothing.”
“This date isn’t over yet,” Grant said. “Evan’s already been sent home?”
“Yeah.” Brooke made a face. “He’s already spoken to an officer and is probably composing his next wordy article for the paper, telling readers all about how he saw his lifeblood draining out on the floor of Publications.” She rolled her eyes.
“Brooke,” Beau said, “you need to take a course in compassion before you sign up for the police academy. Evan probably saved your life.”
“But I saved his first. Dad, they nabbed Peregrine a few minutes ago. We heard it over that radio thingy they keep at the desk.”
“It’s called an ambulance radio,” Beau said.
“Anyway the creep jumped out of the window in Publications. Third floor. He obviously fried his brain years ago.”
“
He must have fallen onto the glass from the window he’d broken.” Beau nudged Brooke aside and hugged Lauren. His arms were strong. He was nearly as tall as his father. “He got away but left some blood behind. And there’s more good news. Norville Webster actually called Evan’s mom to tell her about this. She and Stan are meeting them at Norville’s house.”
“Is that a miracle or what?” Brooke exclaimed. “Evan says his mom and dad are actually trying to play nice and he says it’s because Jessica’s been telling Lucy how important it is to try to get along. Too bad Jessica didn’t interfere with that family years ago.”
“Heads up in the ER!” Becky shouted from the central desk. “The perp is being brought here by ambulance.”
“Dad, can we get out of here?” Brooke asked. “I don’t want to see him again. I’m going to have nightmares forever.”
There was a knock at the threshold of the room. They turned to see Dr. Caine in the doorway. Lauren noted that the man’s face was nearly as pale as his lab coat.
“Dr. Sheldon, Brooke and Beau are doing well,” he said. “I checked them thoroughly but if you want to get an orbital x-ray on Brooke that would be fine with me. The police want to question them before you take them home.”
He turned away as the familiar squall of a siren echoed through the ER, then straightened his shoulders and marched from the room, calling orders as he went.
“I don’t think she needs an x-ray, Dad,” Beau said. “Dr. Caine was thorough.”
Grant nodded. “Okay then, the police are waiting. Brooke and Beau, I want you two to go with Lauren to the conference room down the hall from Mr. Butler’s office. Use the employee entrance. I’ll meet you there with the police in a moment. I don’t want you anywhere near Royce.”
He kissed each of his kids on their foreheads and herded them out the door with Lauren in the lead.
***
Grant was on his way to his office to intercept the police when the rough growl of Mitchell Caine’s voice echoed down the hallway.
The doctor had donned protective gear. He stepped into the trauma room, where other members of the staff assembled to await the patient.
“Listen to me, boys and girls. Nobody gets near this patient without a full complement of protection. Keep in mind this is a hazardous situation with multiple lacerations. I don’t want to hear later that someone on my team let themselves be contaminated. This patient could have any number of communicable diseases.”
The ambulance entrance doors opened and the attendants stepped from the cab of the van. With a sense of unreality Grant watched as they joined the police officers at the back of the ambulance. They pulled the swearing patient out and wheeled him inside.
Grant experienced a wash of ugly memory when he recognized the face of the patient he had treated during the mercury scare last summer. The man had been so laced with drugs he had broken one of the straps that secured him to the board and escaped the hospital before the police could arrive.
Tonight four officers surrounded the cot with their hands on the butts of their pistols. This time they would keep their man. Too bad they couldn’t muzzle him as he shouted obscenities at them and at the attendants for not giving him pain meds.
When the attendants reached the trauma room with him, Dr. Caine stepped forward and grabbed the man by the jaw.
“What’re you doing?” Peregrine cried. “You’re hurting—”
“When you do receive medication,” Caine growled, “it will be directly by my order, not yours. If you continue to cause trouble for this staff, that will delay treatment.” He glanced at Grant. For that moment the two of them were in perfect accord.
Caine turned his attention to LPN Todd Lennard, who waited beside him. “Strip him. I don’t want him pulling a gun or a knife. Get the undershorts and socks off too, if he’s wearing any.”
“You’re crazy!” the patient shrieked.
Everyone else ignored him as they rushed to do as instructed.
“The police shoved me out a window!” he shouted. “I’m dying here and these freaks want a peep show! I need some pain killers. My gut is killing me! My back hurts. I’m calling my lawyer!”
“He’s clear, Dr. Caine,” one of the officers said.
“Strip him anyway,” Mitchell ordered. “We don’t want to miss any injuries.”
“My lawyer will tear you people to pieces,” Peregrine hissed. “You can’t keep me in jail, you’ve got nothing on me!”
He was still spouting curses when Grant went to his office to speak with the police.
***
Archer Pierce strode down the hallway of the brilliantly lit ER. Rancid body odors and a whiff of stale alcohol stung his nose and the sound of angry swearing blasted his ears. He needed to be somewhere else—anywhere but here—and he would have been if he hadn’t felt such a strong urge to come to the hospital after hearing about the kids.
Two uniformed officers stood in the hallway outside the trauma room and two more stood beside the bed where a naked man lay condemning the world—especially everyone in the ER—to hell.
Mitchell Caine, wearing ER camouflage, stood beside the bed giving orders for treatment. “Staff, this isn’t the only patient in need of care. Tina, you’re needed in five. Emma, six and seven have patients needing discharge as soon as you finish with this one. Officers, I’ll be checking him for a few more minutes. If you don’t mind, stay nearby, but stay out of my way.”
Dr. Caine had everything under control. For some reason Archer felt a need to be here. Was it for Mitchell’s sake?
Archer paced along the hallway while Peregrine received his pain medicine. How would it feel to be treating the man who had seduced your own daughter into the underbelly world of drugs and sex? How difficult would it be to concentrate on saving the life of someone who held life in contempt? Archer didn’t know if he could do it.
The pusher’s voice grew less strident and demanding. The relief in the department was palpable.
Emma stepped out of the room and rolled her eyes at Archer. “That’ll shut him up for a while.”
Archer was at the far end of the hallway when Mitchell stepped out of the room and called for the patient to be taken to X-ray. He ripped his mask off. His face glistened with moisture. He nodded at Archer and walked slowly toward the doctor’s call room at the rear of the department. He snapped off his gloves and tossed them into a biohazard container as he passed it on his way to the call room. He left the call room door open and pulled a bag from the closet. From it he retrieved an amber prescription bottle.
As Archer approached, Mitchell shook two small white tablets into his hand and tossed them into his mouth.
Archer knocked at the threshold. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. What do you want?”
Archer couldn’t miss the way Mitchell’s hands shook. “For some crazy reason I keep finding myself where you are. Believe me, I haven’t planned it that way.” He heard the bluntness of his own words but honesty worked best for him.
Mitchell gave a snort. “Don’t tell me Jesus made you do it.”
Archer let that pass. “You’re obviously not feeling well and it can’t be easy for you to treat Royce after all the people he’s hurt.”
For several seconds Mitchell didn’t move. Archer braced himself for a backlash that didn’t come.
Mitchell took a shuddering breath, rubbed his face, turned around. “You don’t have a clue about how I feel. You don’t know anything about it and I believe you’d be shocked out of your shirt if you did.”
“Try me.”
The smile that spread over Mitchell’s face was not a pleasant one. He leaned forward until Archer could almost make out his own reflection in the silvery eyes. “The patient has multiple system trauma. Probably internal bleeding. He could die. I hope he does.”
“I doubt anyone in the hospital would be surprised by that. Most probably share your opinion.”
“There’s a crash cart down the hallway from the trauma ro
om. We used it earlier today but no one’s had time to inventory or restock it. There are drugs in that cart that anyone in the ER could easily get to. They could fill a syringe and jab the needle into that sick monster’s IV site and no one would be the wiser when Simon Royce, aka Peregrine, died a few moments later.”
“That’s supposed to shock me?” Archer asked. “Try again.”
Mitchell waved the remark away. “Brooke and Beau Sheldon are safe. I treated them and their friend with the utmost care. Those kids nearly lost their lives to that monster tonight but they’re safe thanks to their own courage and good police work.” He raised his still-trembling hand to his face. “My own daughter, however, is still being held by that man’s poison.” His voice cut with a bitter edge.
“Yes Mitchell, I know.”
Mitchell stalked to the end of the room. “My wife is so clueless she insists on sending money to Trisha even though I’ve warned her she’s supporting a drug habit.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine the pain.”
“Forget my pain.” Mitchell shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat and peered out the window over the central court where employees went on nice days to eat lunch. “You Christians are always talking about the effects of sin; isn’t this hospital perpetrating the worst imaginable sin when we treat these depraved monsters who are killing our children? There’s something I find unconscionable about that kind of so-called service.”
“It seems that way, doesn’t it?” Archer prayed for the right words. “But you’re doing the job you swore an oath to do. You swore to uphold life. You’re a doctor, not an executioner or judge or lawmaker. You can’t take all those responsibilities on your own shoulders.”
For several seconds Mitchell stared out onto the courtyard. “She didn’t even think to tell her own father about the baby.” His voice broke.
Archer was finally shocked. Baby?
“My granddaughter.” Mitchell turned from the window and Archer caught a brief glimpse of mortal pain before a mask replaced it. “It still amazes me that Darla didn’t find a way to broadcast that all over town, as well.”
NECESSARY MEASURES Page 32