by Lee Goldberg
Susan, Amanda, and Steve got obediently to their feet. The fact was, they were pretty tired and looked it. The last few days had been hard on them all.
"Sit down," Mark said. "You can't leave me hanging like this."
"You're lucky I extended your visiting hours this long," Jesse said. "Don't push your luck."
"Listen to Jesse, Mark," Amanda said. "I don't want you to become one of my patients."
"I'm the senior doctor here, and I say I'm fine," Mark said.
Susan turned to Jesse. "Would you like me to give the patient a sedative, Doctor, or put him in restraints?"
"I don't know," Jesse said, looking past her and narrowing his eyes at Mark. "Would I?"
"Okay, okay, I get the point," Mark sighed, giving in. "I'll see you all tomorrow, bright and early."
Steve leaned down and surprised Mark by kissing him on the forehead. "Good night, Dad."
Mark watched his son and his friends go. There was no way he could rest now, not while there was so much to ponder. What did Steve mean when he said Mark had gone in the wrong direction? Steve himself had gone from arguing against foul play to accepting that a killer was at work. So why was he still maintaining that Grover Dawson's death was an accident? And why was Steve talking about killers? How many were there?
Mark kept asking himself unanswerable questions, which for him was like counting sheep, and within a few moments he was lulled into a deep, dreamless slumber.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Steve got up at dawn, put on shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes, and headed out onto the chilly, fogged-shrouded beach for a jog.
He had the sand to himself. Anybody with any sense was still asleep in a warm bed, especially the people who lived on this stretch of Malibu, most of whom were so rich they paid people to jog for them. There didn't even seem to be as many seagulls as usual. The Malibu gulls were probably smart enough to sun themselves in the Valley until the fog cleared.
Steve couldn't blame them. He was freezing, so he rushed himself a little harder, hoping to quickly work up a sweat and warm himself against the cold.
The air was misty and the salt spray off the sea stung his eyes. Or perhaps what was irritating his eyes was the pollution, all those cancer-causing particles clinging to the wisps of fog as if they were cobwebs.
But, like most Los Angelenos, he consciously tried not to think about the air he was breathing, and so he immediately changed his train of thought.
Instead, he puzzled over the killer nurses and what it would take to nail them. He had only one option, and it meant gambling with the lives of innocent people.
He had to let the nurses come close to killing their next victim and try to catch them in the act before they succeeded.
It was a hell of a risk.
Then again, if he didn't take the risk, those same innocent people would surely be killed anyway, only without him sitting outside their door trying to guess the right moment to come storming in to the rescue.
The only way his dangerous plan could work was if he accurately predicted who the next target would be. Then it would all come down to surveillance, timing, and luck.
But he wasn't at that point yet. Tanis was watching Wendy Duren, while Amanda and Jesse were going through confidential medical records, compiling a list of potential victims in the nurses' sick game.
Steve was hoping for a short list. Even if there were only a few possible targets, he didn't have the manpower or the resources to protect them all or to follow Guyot and Duren around the clock.
He would have to go with his gut.
The prospect of relying on his instincts made him uneasy. His hunches hadn't proven to be all that dependable over the years, certainly not as often as his father's. It was his father's hunch that had brought these homicides to light.
Then again, Mark's investigation had gone astray. He identified the wrong patients as homicide victims and the pattern he'd discovered, of missing items and a shared pharmaceutical provider, were just simple coincidences.
It was Steve who'd managed to find the killers. Thanks to solid, by-the-book police work. No smoke and mirrors. No hunches. Just dogged determination, following the facts where they led.
He was keenly aware that this would be the first time he'd solved a crime on his own that his father was also investigating. Of course, Mark was operating at a slight disadvantage—he'd done most of his detective work while in a coma.
Even so, the victory was sweet. Not that it was a competition. It was simply nice for his self-esteem to best his old man once in a while.
Or even once.
Just once.
It was about seven o'clock by the time Steve, drenched in sweat, returned to the house. He was tired and yet at the same time he felt invigorated—the contradiction that was miracle of endorphins. He knew it was nature's way of insuring that humans would get off their butts. The more exertion, the more feel-good chemicals the body releases into the bloodstream. But nature didn't foresee satellite television, the Internet, and the Xbox. Mere endorphins couldn't compete.
Steve was planning on a quick shower, an even quicker breakfast, and then a meeting with Amanda, Jesse, and Tanis to go over their list. He would stop in to brief his dad, but he hoped to have the case solved before Mark was well enough to get involved again.
But he scrapped those plans when he heard footsteps upstairs. He grabbed his gun from his holster, which was draped over a chair, and cautiously crept up the stairs to the main floor. There was a chill in the entry hall, indicating to him that the front door had recently been opened.
Who the hell was in the house?
He eased carefully across the entry hall to the living room, where the dry-erase boards were laid out. Someone was sitting on the couch, his head swathed in bandages, like some kind of mummy. A folding walker was propped within reach.
"Dad?" Steve said incredulously, lowering his gun.
Mark turned his head and smiled. He was wearing a bathrobe and surgical scrubs. His skin was wan, his cheeks hollow, his eyes red.
"Good morning, Steve," Mark said jovially, but the effort showed in his expression. "How was your run?"
Steve set his gun on the end table and sat down beside his father on the couch. "How did you get here?"
"I checked myself out of the hospital and ordered a medical transport service to bring me home."
"Are you out of your mind?" Steve said.
"I'll recuperate better here with the peace and quiet and the sea air than I will at the hospital," Mark said. "Besides, I'll be under a doctor's constant care."
"You mean your own."
"You don't have faith in my medical abilities?"
"Dad," Steve said, "you've got a hole in your skull. What are you going to do, just put a cork in it?"
"I'll go back to the hospital next week when I'm stronger, and we'll seal it with a bone graft taken from my hip or from a cadaver," Mark said. "In the meantime, I will stay here and rest."
Steve gave him a skeptical look. "You're going to rest."
"I'm going to stay right here."
"You mean like the way you stayed in the hospital?" Steve asked.
"I'm going to lie in bed, sit on this couch, or relax in a chair on the deck, taking it easy and avoiding any kind of exertion."
"What about your meds?"
"You can pick them up for me at the pharmacy or I can have them delivered," Mark said. "I'll drink lots of fluids and we've got plenty of food. My leftover seashell casserole has proven medicinal powers. I'm sure Jesse, Susan, and Amanda will stop in to check on me, too."
"What about the case?" Steve said. "You're going to let that go?"
"Why not?" Mark smiled. "You said you've got it solved."
"I do." Steve motioned to the boards. "It's all right there."
Mark nodded. "I felt this sense of deja vu the moment I saw those boards. It was like a moment from my dream, only the boards are up here instead of downstairs and the information on them is very diff
erent."
"I'll walk you through it—" Steve began.
'You don't have to," Mark interrupted. "I've had a few moments to look it over."
"It's pretty complicated," Steve said.
"'Game Over,"' Mark said.
Steve stared at him.
"What did you say?"
"'Game Over,"' Mark repeated. "That's what Guyot and Duren are doing. They are competing to see who can spell those two words first using the names of their victims. Guyot is using the first letter of first names, Duren is using the first letter of last names."
"It took me days to figure that out and you spotted it in minutes?"
"The pattern is pretty obvious when it's laid out side by side in columns like that," Mark said, pointing to the board. "The two nurses are tied, with five names each. Guyot has Gary, Andrew, Melinda, Emilia, and Oliver, to spell ‘Game O.' Duren has Grayson, Aidman, Myack, Eames, Ohanian, to spell ‘Game O.' Your next step is finding people who fit the profile of the other victims and who have either a first name or a last name that begins with V."
"How did you know that?" Steve couldn't hide his astonishment and, with it, his irritation. As much as he loved and admired his father, Mark's feats of deductive reasoning often made Steve feel useless and stupid. This was one of those times.
"Mostly it was just seeing the lists. But it's also similar to a well-known case of medical murder committed about twenty-five years ago by two nurses at a nursing home," Mark said. "The two women were lovers and, as foreplay, they took turns smothering their patients, whose initials, it turned out, spelled ‘murder.' They thought it was cute."
"Do you think Guyot and Duren are committing copycat crimes?"
"No, I think they just enjoy killing," Mark said. "So tell me what you've got."
Steve laid out his case the same way he had for ADA Karen Cross, only this time he didn't have to dance around how he got his hands on confidential medical records, since Mark was the one who had started Amanda and Jesse on that research.
He told Mark all about how he found Wendy Duren and her employment at Appleby Nursing Services and her suspected involvement in a string of unexplained deaths in the Beckman critical-care unit. Steve explained how that led to the discovery that several patients who'd recently overcome critical afflictions were using Appleby Nursing Services at the time of their deaths. All of which led to another Beckman nurse, Paul Guyot, who worked at John Muir, where Mark had visited Dr. Barnes and Dr. Dalton.
"Your theory is that Guyot saw me there, assumed I was onto him, and then tried to run me over," Mark said.
"Pretty much," Steve said. "The locations where the Camaro was stolen and where it was later abandoned were both close to his home and workplace."
Mark motioned to the two lists on the board. "Were any of their victims missing personal items?"
"I don't know. I haven't checked. I suppose I could, but it's really not necessary at this point."
"Yes, it is. If Wendy Duren or Paul Guyot have any of those items it will connect them to the murders of Grover Dawson, Hammond McNutchin, Sandy Sechrest, and Joyce Kling for starters," Mark said. "What about Kemper-Carlson Pharmaceuticals? Did these ten victims have that in common, too?"
"Again, I don't know. We could check." Steve tried to hide his frustration, but he didn't do a very good job of it, see it seeped out in the tone of his voice. "But that's not the connection."
"How do you know?" Mark said. "Posing as someone delivering prescriptions could be how Guyot got into the homes of the patients he killed."
Steve took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "The nurses are lovers. They were killing at Beckman and they are killing now. He's picking victims that came through John Muir. She's targeting Appleby clients. It's a game."
"But Leila Pevney and Chadwick Saxelid were both patients at John Muir. They don't fit the ‘Game Over' pattern, since the first letters of their names can't be used to spell the phrase."
"Because they weren't murdered," Steve said in exasperation.
"Of course they were."
"Dad, you said it yourself. ‘Game Over.' That's the pattern, not drug deliveries or trophies."
Mark waved his hand dismissively at the boards. "None of this matches my dream."
Steve got to his feet and looked down at his father. "Because it was a dream. This is real. This is happening now."
"The dream made sense," Mark said.
"You were married in the dream. Does that mean your wife is going to walk through the front door? Or that Susan is pregnant?"
"Maybe Dawson, McNutchin, Sechrest, and the others were killed first and then the nurses began the game."
Steve shook his head. "The dates don't work. Grover Dawson, for instance, died while the game was going on and Guyot had already scored his G."
Mark was silent for a long moment, then drew his bathrobe tight around himself, as if he was feeling a chill.
"I suppose you're right," he said.
But it was a lie. Mark wasn't going to let go, and they both knew it. And that truth infuriated Steve. He wanted to lash out at his father. There were a lot of things Steve could have said, things that had gone unsaid for too long, and perhaps he would have if Mark hadn't been ill. But Steve realized this wasn't the time.
Dad's got a hole in his skull, for God's sake.
Instead, Steve choked back everything he wanted to say and decided the best thing he could do for both of them was to leave.
You mean run away, don't you, Stevie?
"I've got to go to work," Steve said. "Are you sure you're going to be all right here?"
"Positive," Mark said.
"I'll make sure someone stops in to check on you," Steve said. "And I'll give you a call, too."
"I don't need a babysitter," Mark said.
"You're right," Steve said. "What you need is a nurse."
"Maybe we should call Appleby Nursing Services and have them send someone over," Mark said with a mischievous grin.
Steve glared at him. "Don't even think about it."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
For Dr. Mark Sloan, being left alone with the files, the reports, and the data on the boards was bliss. It was intriguing, challenging, and occupied his mind far more than being in a hospital bed watching TV or reading magazines.
While coming home had its risks, infection being chief among them, the dangers were outweighed by his belief that being in a comfortable environment and engaging his mind and spirit with research would have genuine recuperative value.
Of course, if one of his patients had tried to use those rationalizations on him as a reason to check out early from the sospital, he would have vehemently argued against it. He hoped his hypocrisy never got back to his patients.
The truth was, Mark simply wanted out, which was why he'd slipped away at dawn before Jesse, Amanda, or anyone else could block his escape.
He knew that Steve was frustrated and upset with him. But Mark was frustrated, too. There were still important pieces of the puzzle missing, and the answers were in this dream.
Why couldn't Steve see that?
Mark was convinced that there was an overarching motivation or pattern to these killings beyond merely a sick game. His approach to the problem would be to examine each victim's profile, cataloging the commonalities and differences between them. He would use the ten victims Steve had identified as well as the ones who emerged from his dream.
As silly as it sounded, even to Mark, he didn't think of his dream as a dream. It was simply another form of concentration. The drama in his dream wasn't real, but the facts were. And yet the dramatic elements had investigative value, too. He was sure that the events, characters, and interactions held symbolic significance. All he had to do was interpret them and find the hidden meaning.
Yep, he thought. That was all he had to do.
Who was he kidding?
He barely had the energy to keep his eyes open, much less analyze the many possible meanings behind why he was marrie
d to a pediatric surgeon named Emily Noble or why Susan was pregnant and left brain-dead.
It was as if his own mind was taunting him.
Why couldn't his subconscious have just told him the important stuff flat-out without going to all the effort of symbolizing it?
To answer that, Mark would have to discover why people dream at all.
He decided to begin his toil by familiarizing himself with Guyot's victims. After barely an hour or so, he had to stop, unable to fight his growing fatigue, made worse by the soothing, rhythmic sound of the surf outside, which acted like a natural sedative.
Reluctantly, Mark cleared the files from the couch, stretched out, and took a nap.
Steve stopped by Krispy Kreme in Van Nuys, picked up a dozen glazed donuts and two cups of coffee, and headed east to Studio City, where Tanis Archer was parked outside of a condo complex off of Coldwater Canyon Boulevard, just north of the Ventura Freeway.
He got out of his truck and climbed into the front passenger seat of her car, setting the box of donuts between them and handing her a cup of coffee.
Tanis looked like she'd been sleeping in her clothes, though he knew she hadn't slept at all. Her eyes were red and ringed with dark circles. There were junk food containers piled on the backseat.
"Duren is inside the building, caring for a senile old lady," Tanis said, taking a donut and practically jamming the whole thing into her mouth.
"Does her first or last name start with V?"
"Clara Corn," she said, her mouth full. Steve thought he might have misunderstood her.
"Corn?"
"That's the name," Tanis said, while possibly setting a world record for the fastest consumption of a single original glazed donut. "Corn."
"Okay," Steve said. "I'll take over the surveillance from here."
"What about Guyot?" She reached for another donut, devouring half of it in one bite.
"He's at the hospital most of the day and she's on the move. So I picked her to keep an eye on, since we don't have the manpower to cover them both."
"Sure we do," Tanis said. "I'll stick with her while you cover Guyot."