Checked Out

by Sharon St. George

“Part of his ear.”

  “Oh, my God, Aimee. That’s disgusting. It’s like the guy from housekeeping. That looks just like those ugly things that made holes in his ears.”

  “You’re right.” It took a moment to sink in. “You think he’s the guy?”

  “He’d be pretty easy to identify if he’s walking with a limp and missing part of an ear.”

  I started giggling and she did, too. By that time the doctor and the guard arrived. They both seemed a little put out because the more we tried to stop snickering the worse it got.

  It only took a few minutes to get Cleo transferred upstairs to the ER to have her head examined. While she was there, I went to the restroom, where I wrapped the ear gauge and the attached flesh in a paper towel. After scrubbing my hands with hot, soapy water, I went back to the ER. Cleo’s doctor agreed to discharge her when I told him I’d drive her home and stay with her overnight to watch her pupils for signs of a concussion or a brain bleed.

  On our drive she told me what had happened. Before searching for the records, she’d decided to stop by Sig’s hospital room. When she got to the storage room, she searched for almost two hours before finally finding both the charts she was looking for. As we suspected, DeeDee’s tox report had been misfiled. Cleo spotted it as soon as she opened Deana DeGraw’s chart, but before she could remove it, she was assaulted by the intruder.

  “So you didn’t have a chance to read it?”

  “No, but it was definitely done by the Timbergate lab after DeeDee was admitted here.”

  “So where is the chart?”

  “I don’t know. It flew out of my hands when I was attacked.”

  We reached Cleo’s condo at ten o’clock, but it felt like midnight. Cleo refused to go to sleep. Just as well, since I wanted to keep checking her pupils. My report of the urology panel’s conclusions had not reassured her. She hated knowing that Phyllis Poole was still scheduled to take a knife to Sig’s prostate in the morning.

  Cleo insisted I call both Nick and Harry to fill them in. Harry’s reaction was typical. Anger, then concern, and finally a demand that I lock myself in with Cleo and stay put for the rest of the night. Nick’s response was different, and a distinct improvement from what I expected. He listened calmly, then asked what I planned to do about finding the chart with the tox report. My first impulse was to lie and say I was going to do nothing, but he wouldn’t have believed me.

  “The man in the basement didn’t have anything in his hands when he attacked me, so maybe the chart is still there.”

  “You’re going back to that storage room, aren’t you?

  “If it’s there, I want to find it, and it has to be tonight.”

  “But you can’t leave your friend home alone.”

  “No.” I glanced at Cleo, lying on the couch and fading fast. “I’m stuck unless I can get someone to watch her through the night.”

  “Give me the address where you are. I’ll see what I can do.”

  I jumped at the offer, and when the doorbell rang ten minutes later, I raced to open it, ready to throw my arms around Nick in a full-on hug. But he wasn’t alone. Beside him was Rella, his ex-girlfriend and current co-pilot, looking down at me from her near six feet in height. I froze in place with my mouth open and my hand still on the doorknob, trying to accept the fact that she was doing me a favor. Doing Nick a favor, at least.

  “Are you going to let us in?” Nick said.

  “Oh, sure.” I stepped back.

  “We don’t have a lot of time, do we?”

  “No, we don’t, but—”

  “Rella’s going to stay here with Cleo while we take care of that urgent matter at the hospital.” From the sound of that, he hadn’t given Rella a lot of details.

  Cleo had dozed off, so I covered her with a comforter from her bedroom. Rella assured me she had a solid background in medicine from her years in the military and could monitor Cleo’s status until Nick and I returned. She went to Cleo, felt her pulse and adjusted her comforter in a gentle but competent way that reassured me. I thanked her and realized I meant it when I said I was glad she was there.

  I hadn’t been issued keys to most of the hospital’s offices and departments, but Cleo had keys to everything except the administration suite. I dug them from her purse. Nick raised an eyebrow at me.

  “She’d give them to me if she was awake,” I said. “This whole thing was her idea in the first place.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

  Chapter 34

  We left Nick’s car at Cleo’s in case Rella needed it. Visiting hours were over when we reached TMC near midnight, so I parked in a corner of the visitor’s lot where my car might not be noticed. I led the way to the same employee’s entrance Cleo and I had used before on our late night incursion.

  “What’s your plan?” Nick said.

  “When we get to the archive room, you can stand guard while I search the area where I found Cleo on the floor. She said she had the chart and dropped it. I don’t think the thug took it, so it should still be there somewhere.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  I couldn’t get over the feeling that he was being too darned cooperative, but it was working to my advantage, so I let it go.

  We reached the storage room without encountering anyone in the corridor.

  “No crime scene tape yet,” Nick said. “Better hurry.”

  I unlocked the door and we slipped inside. Nick stayed near the door while I flipped on the overhead light and hurried to the spot where Cleo had fallen. My stomach pitched for a moment when I saw the dark patch of her blood on the floor. There were only a few inches of clearance from the floor to the bottom shelf in each four-foot section. I had to lie on my stomach with my cheek pressed to the gritty cement floor to peer under the shelves on both sides of the narrow aisle. I wondered how far a dropped chart might slide. I spotted nothing except several generations of dust bunnies. After a few minutes, I heard the scuff of footsteps near my head.

  “Any luck?” Nick was standing above me with his phone in his hand.

  “Not yet.”

  “Keep at it. I’ll step out in the hall and try to check in with Rella. I doubt if I can make a call from inside this cave.”

  He was right about checking with Rella. We needed to know if Cleo’s condition was still stable. While he was gone, I checked under the shelves in the opposite direction. I saw a disturbed path running through the dust under one of the shelves. Already flattened down on my stomach, I stretched my arm under the shelf, trying not to sneeze and straining until I felt what had to be a chart cover. I got a grip on it and pulled it out. I stood up and brushed the dust off myself and the chart. Inside the folder was the misfiled lab report Cleo had seen.

  The toxicology report documented the presence of barbiturates. That would account for DeeDee’s sudden coma after showing no complications from her head trauma. The barbiturates would not have been ordered when she arrived at TMC in a coma. She must have been drugged at the hospital in Idaho by someone who knew phenobarbital could be used to induce a coma. But who? And why? What possible reason could anyone have for wanting her dead? And why would the same person kill Cody O’Brien? Or was it the same person? I removed the report and jammed it in my purse.

  Nick hadn’t returned, so I turned out the light and found him in the corridor with his phone to his ear.

  “Okay,” he said into his phone, “he’ll be there in ten minutes.” He turned to me. “Any luck?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. Let’s get going. Rella has to go home. One of her nephews is breaking out in something the babysitter thinks is chicken pox. Harry’s on his way over there to keep an eye on your friend.”

  “How’s Rella getting home without a car?”

  “She has mine,” he said.

  “How will you get it back?”

  “You can drop me off at her place to pick it up.” Her place, meaning his apartment, loaned to her for an undetermined interval.


  “Why don’t I drop you off there right now?”

  “Not gonna happen. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “What?” We had reached my car and I slipped behind the wheel.

  “You’re taking too many chances.” Nick slid in on the passenger side. “You sneaked out to the O’Brien compound and nearly got shot, then you sneaked into that storage room and got mugged.”

  “So you’re not only here to help, you’re also here as my bodyguard?”

  “I’m afraid it’s a little of both. I’m trying to respect your independence, but sometimes the buddy system is safer than flying solo. Do you mind?”

  “No. I appreciate the help, but you’re the one that bullet grazed in Idaho. I don’t want you getting hurt again on my account.”

  “I take full responsibility for my own safety. You should know that by now.” He reached out and touched my cheek with his fingers. “Now that we’ve cleared that up, what’s your next move?”

  My cheek tingled where he’d touched it, reminding me of long-ago butterfly kisses. I rubbed the sensation away with the palm of my hand.

  “I want to go back inside and visit the ICU. That should be safe enough.”

  “All the same, I’m coming along.”

  “I stand a much better chance of getting in to see Seamus O’Brien if I’m alone.”

  “There must be a waiting room.” He pointed at my purse. “Is that lab report in here?”

  “Yes. I had to take it. Why?”

  He shrugged. “Someone knows it exists and wants it pretty badly, or Cleo wouldn’t be on the injured list. Do you have any idea who her attacker might be?”

  His question reminded me that I hadn’t mentioned the gory details when I told him about my scuffle with the man in the basement. I showed him the gruesome little morsel.

  “So you’re carrying your attacker’s earlobe around in your purse?” Nick leaned his head back and started to laugh.

  “It’s not funny. It’s evidence. What else could I do with it?” I told him about Cliff Weber, the man from housekeeping with the ghastly earrings.

  “Sorry, you’re right. But you have to admit, even for you, that’s pretty weird.”

  “I agree, it’s disgusting. Now, if you’re through laughing, let’s get going.”

  We got out of the car and went back inside the hospital. I walked with Nick to the ICU waiting room. From there I used an in-house phone to call in to the ICU nursing staff and identify myself. The nurse in charge was a regular library patron who knew me well. I explained that I was a close family friend of the O’Briens and asked if I could come in and speak to Seamus’s nurse. She told me to go to the entrance doors and wait there.

  The door to the unit opened halfway and the nurse I had just spoken to stood there looking apologetic. Behind her, the usual banks of ICU machinery hummed. Artificial lighting and the lack of windows did away with any sense of day or night. The recycled air wafting toward me through the open door seemed to hold a faint scent of hope.

  “I’m sorry, Aimee. We can’t bend the rules, even for you. All I’m allowed to say is whether his status is stable or unstable.”

  “Which is it, then?”

  “The latter, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, I really can’t say more.”

  “I understand, but I thought if his son James was there, he might step out and talk to me.”

  “I’m afraid he isn’t here. The wife has requested that she be his only visitor.”

  “What about his daughter, Keely?”

  The nurse worked her lower lip. “I feel bad about it, but the wife is on record as his next of kin, so we have to respect her wishes. The son and daughter haven’t been in since this morning.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Echo sure as heck wasn’t grieving. What was she up to?

  “Is his wife with him now?”

  “No, I believe she’s taking a restroom break. Maybe you can catch up with her there.”

  I thanked her and hurried back to Nick, telling him I needed a bathroom break. No point getting him involved until I knew what was going on.

  I pushed the restroom door open, expecting to see Echo primping or having a smoke, but she was nowhere in sight. I checked for feet under the three stall doors. In the middle stall, I spotted black leather boots with silver toe tips. The other two were empty, so I opened the first stall, closed and locked the door, then quietly climbed up on the toilet to peek over the top of the partition. It was Echo, and she was filling a syringe from a vial. I couldn’t read the print on the vial, but it could only be one thing: phenobarbital.

  Just as I tried to get down and sneak out of the stall, my foot slipped and slid into the toilet bowl. My shoe was stuck, and by the time I got my foot loose and my stall door unlocked, she was headed toward the restroom door.

  “Wait!” I shouted.

  She stopped and turned. Her eyes widened and she ran for the exit. I lunged after her and grabbed the purse strap slung over her shoulder, dragging her backward. She yanked her arm free and the purse dropped on the toes of my shoeless foot, shooting pain up my leg. I figured the only thing heavy enough to do that had to be a gun. She bent down to grab the purse, but I kicked it out of reach under one of the toilet stalls. She growled like a feral cat and lunged for the exit, but I grasped a handful of her hair and jerked her backward.

  “Let go of me, bitch.” She wheeled around and stuck my left arm just below the elbow with the needle attached to the syringe.

  I grabbed her hand before she could depress the plunger all the way and jerked my arm free, but she’d already injected me with some of the drug. How much would it take to put me out? How soon? I bent her wrist forward until I heard a pop and the syringe dropped. She shrieked and stumbled out the door with her right hand dangling oddly from her wrist. I had to look away, not sure if it was the sight of what I’d done to her or the drug coursing through my veins that was making me dizzy and nauseated. I felt myself sink to the restroom floor, then somehow Nick was there, exploding with a string of profanities. I heard most of it, but it seemed to be coming from a faraway place.

  “Don’t let her get away,” I said. “Get Quinn.”

  Then I took a little nap.

  Chapter 35

  I woke up in the ER with an IV drip in the back of my hand, a pulse rate monitor clipped to my finger and a blood pressure cuff on my arm. I wondered why I was there and why Nick was sitting next to my bed holding my free hand. Then I remembered.

  “Where is she?” I heard myself speak, but the words seemed to come from someone else.

  “The police are looking for her.”

  “She got away?” I propped myself up on my elbows.

  “Hey, relax,” Nick said. “You’re supposed to lie flat until the doctor comes back to check on you.”

  I lowered myself down. “We need to tell the police about Seamus. Echo was drugging him.”

  “Already done.” Nick gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “As soon as Quinn showed up I told him I’d found you on the bathroom floor along with the vial and syringe Echo left behind. It didn’t take him long to put the pieces together. The police have the evidence. If she wasn’t wearing gloves, her prints will be easy to recover.”

  “Seamus?”

  “They’ve checked his blood for barbiturates and posted a strict no visitors order. No one’s allowed near Seamus, especially none of the O’Briens, until this is sorted out.”

  “I need to talk to the police. Echo must have killed DeeDee. And she had to be involved in Cody’s death, too. And the earlobe guy must be in on it. If it’s who I think it is, his name is Cliff Weber. He needs to be found.”

  “They’re already on it. I got his name from Cleo and gave it to them, along with the grisly little package you had in your purse and the lab report you found in that storage room. I told the police I’d take you to the station to be interviewed, but they want to make sure the drug is out of your system before they talk to you.”

&n
bsp; Nick helped me try to stand. I felt off balance and realized I was missing a shoe. Probably still in that toilet.

  “Nick, they’re going to get away. What time is it?”

  “Four thirty in the morning.”

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “Take it easy. The police have Weber’s name and the photo from his hospital ID badge. If he’s missing part of an ear, he’s going to be pretty easy to identify. I’m guessing he’s hunkered down somewhere, licking his wounds.”

  “And Echo has a broken wrist, so neither of them is in good shape for a getaway.”

  “You broke her wrist?” Nick actually laughed.

  “I had to. If she’d pumped that whole syringe into me, you’d be having this conversation with a corpse.”

  Nick’s laughter died away. “Damn, don’t even say that.”

  An ER doctor came over and introduced himself. I reminded him that I worked in the hospital library and that we’d met. He seemed to take that as a good sign that my brain was functioning. He told me the amount of barbiturate in my system wasn’t enough to cause any severe damage. My discharge orders were to go home, rest, and monitor my heart rate and blood pressure for the next twenty-four hours. I was to report any residual dizziness, headache, or confusion. I agreed, and once I was unhooked from the monitoring equipment I signed the discharge papers put in front of me.

  “Okay, let’s get you home,” Nick said.

  An attendant propelled me out to the parking lot in a wheelchair. It seemed like overkill, but I didn’t have the energy to argue. Nick drove us to Coyote Creek in my car. He suggested I try to rest on the way, but I had more questions.

  “Has anybody talked to James or Keely? Do they know what’s been going on?”

  “Quinn gave the police their names and contact information. Last I heard, no one has been able to contact them. They checked all three houses on the O’Brien compound right after I found you. That was just a few hours ago. No one was there.”

  “What about Tucker? Do you think he was part of it?”

  Nick glanced at me. “Same as James and Keely. No one’s heard from him, either.”