“We’re from just across the street,” piped the young man in scrubs, gesturing. “Close and we ran across. Had to get away from that stress, have a little fun, y’know?”
Goatee blinked as if just making the connection. “Oh, you’re from Madison Memorial,” he said, impressed. “My niece is pre-med. Hoping to get into Madison, fingers crossed.” He smiled and shrugged hopefully.
The blond had eased away upon hearing of Goatee’s girlfriend, and the scrub mounted her stool, sloshing his Corona. “It’s the best,” he said. “If the training doesn’t kill her she’ll be the best.”
“She’s interested in obstetrics. Are you in OB?”
“No, Charlie over there is. Hey Charlie, c’mere!”
Charlie eased his way over, and Scrub introduced him. “Charlie Ortega, meet uh…”
“Jason Winger,” said Goatee, extending his hand. Scrub explained that Goatee had been asking about the OB program for his niece, and Charlie grinned. “The best if it doesn’t kill her, ha, I’ll bet Hank here’s already said that.” He pointed through the crowd. “That little girl over there’s an OB intern, hasn’t slept in thirty-four hours, maybe talk to her. Hey, Ash!”
She was petite, what Goatee could see of her. Dark blond hair with a parka over navy scrubs. She looked very going-on-her-nerves, but caught Charlie’s eye and came over.
“Yeah boss?” She jerked her bottle toward him. “He’s a first year resident. He calls, I come.”
First name introductions. Ashley meet Jason, tell him to tell his niece to steer clear of Madison unless she wants to age fast.
“Or lose four years of sleep.” Ashley took a pull of her beer. “Charlie, if I fall asleep standing, will you carry me back?”
“But then we’d look like a couple,” Charlie said. “Dangerous. Stay awake.”
Suddenly the TV overhead was blaring the police conference.
The bar stilled.
“We have a task force and every available police officer on this,” announced the stone-faced Police Commissioner to a flash of photographers’ bulbs. He was surrounded by the mayor and grim people in uniform. “In the meantime, we urge extreme caution, especially at night, and especially to people moving about in pairs.”
“Especially at night?” Charlie Ortega scoffed. “This latest was in daylight.”
“Sunset,” said Scrub Hank sitting next to Goatee. He spun on his stool and looked out nervously. “I think we should get back.”
“I saw her in the ER. So horrible.” Ashley’s voice trailed as two televised pictures appeared: the one on the left, Martin Daley, a psychologist much beloved for his work with PTSD war veterans; the one on the right, Beth Willis, a pretty, smiling brunette in camouflage uniform, giving a thumbs up and hugging a bandaged Iraqi child. Then came another photo of her, with others tending a soldier in a field OR, then another photo of her grinning and holding two baby lambs. “…brought with her small son to Madison Memorial Hospital,” continued the voiceover – the picture switched to a floodlit close up of the hospital – “and, according to sources, reported to be three months pregnant.”
Goatee peered up at the TV and shook his head. “Terrible. So tragic.” But inside he was furious, raging, that they were giving her more airtime. So what if she was a vet? She was stealing his thunder! This was unforgivable!
He clenched his teeth, replaying in his mind the sight of her damned kid, suddenly there, yards down the slope, gaping at him with big terrified eyes and turning to run. Already too close to the trail to shoot or snap his goddamn little neck without being seen.
“Tragedy averted for Beth Willis, thank goodness.” Ashley was gazing, hurting, at pictures now of Madison’s exterior, and ambulances, police dealing with TV trucks. “They saved her. They – oh! I know them! He’s my real boss!”
THIS JUST IN blasted the graphic, fast-fading to a close up of Doctors David Levine and Jill Raney, “seen here moving through the hospital’s Emergency with police,” said the voiceover, adding, “…have often helped the police in cases of rape and assault…back in the news lately since their miracle baby, Jesse, will soon be a year old.”
Goatee glared at the screen. No! Now the media was pushing him out with THEM? Turning, he saw Scrub Hank heading for the door with other scrubs. And Charlie was nudging Ashley. “Time to go, Ash. You haven’t slept.”
“Inaminute,” she semi-slurred. “I just wanna help Jason here.”
How to separate these two? Goatee thought. Ortega’s a big guy, but Ashley…
Think, he stormed at himself, his heart whamming in hatred. He’d get this turned around. This was his game to control…
7
Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck waved from a blue curtain. A soft nightlight showed Ricky asleep, his thumb in his mouth and his body curled into a ball under his blanket. The rails of his bed were pulled up and a small teddy bear shared his pillow.
“Skin’s clammy,” David said, leaning over the rail, his free hand touching the child’s brow. His other hand held Alex’s photos.
Jill gently patted Ricky’s light brown hair, spikey with sweat on his pillow. “He looks so little,” she whispered sorrowfully. “What a trauma he’s been through.”
The curtain swished open behind them. “Hey, you two,” came a soft voice, and they turned to see sweet-faced Jamie Wong come in. She was a resident in pediatric psychiatry.
“I’ve been checking on him,” Jamie said. “Don’t want him to wake and feel scared.”
David looked back to Ricky. “How’s he doing?”
“Okay. He was awake and back, briefly. Cried for his mom and we told him she was near, getting better and sleeping. We got him to eat some oatmeal.” She smiled.
They saw Ricky’s small body flinch under the blanket, and Jamie whispered, “Oops, nightmare,” and bent to hug him. “It’s okay, honey,” she soothed. “It’s gonna be okay.”
The flinching stopped, but the thumb was still in the mouth. In his sleep, he was sucking hard on it.
Jill asked about that and Ricky’s clammy skin. David’s phone vibrated. He switched the photos to his other hand and stepped away to answer.
“That will change,” Jamie told Jill. She looked feelingly back at the child. “But he’ll likely be fretful and clingy, may have continuing nightmares and feelings of helplessness, sadness or depression.”
“Great,” Jill sighed. “A mother and child with PTSD.”
David stepped back to them. “I just got called,” he said reluctantly, as if he didn’t want to leave. With the other two he looked back to Ricky.
“Early intervention,” Jamie said. “Emphasize emotional comfort, feeling safe. It’s the most important thing.” She looked from Jill to David. “How soon can we get him to see his mom?”
“Tomorrow,” David said. “Tell him first thing when he wakes.”
“You have a guard on her?”
David nodded. “All set. She’ll be moved from recovery to her room within the hour.”
“Awesome.” Jamie gave a little grin.
Out in the hall, Jill checked her phone’s baby monitor and David nervously checked his watch.
“Jesse doesn’t want to go to sleep.” Jill’s brow creased. “Look, he wants his Fawzie bear, it’s in his crib at home.” Jill turned up the sound and David peered hurriedly at her phone: Jesse standing in his jammies in his staff childcare crib, clinging to its rail and fussing at a nurse. “Fawie! Fawie!”
“Jill, I gotta go. Severe case of toxemia came in, contractions started and they’re worried about eclampsia.”
“Go,” Jill said. “I’ll get Fawzie.”
“You’ll…what? Jill, they’ve got a million toys for the kids-”
She was already on her phone, telling the nurse to tell Jesse that Mommy would bring his Fawzie. The nurse did, and the picture on Jill’s phone showed Jesse’s face light up. “Mammy Fawie!”
“Ah, Jill?” David bent at the waist and looked at her incredulously. “There’s a mu
rderer out there.”
“I wouldn’t be a couple, and it’s only a block away.” Her voice rose a little. “I’ll be back in five minutes!”
David looked suddenly frantic. “Hospital’s been on TV. Killers like to circle where the action is-”
“Five minutes, most of it running inside buildings.” She gave him a gentle shove. “Go. Save two lives.”
“It’s twins. The mother’s blood pressure’s rising, twenty-eight years old and she could have a stroke, heart failure.”
“Save three lives. Gimme the photos and go. I’ll call when I’m back.”
She took off down the hall, leaving David gaping after her. Anxiety about Jill – it was always there, wasn’t it? She was emotional, intuitive and reckless, too often jumping into situations where others wouldn’t go…
He looked crazy torn for a moment, then turned and ran in the other direction.
Coatless, down in the elevator and out through the ER. Lots of cops in the ambulance bay, then out to the street. Whew, it was cold. The white jacket was so thin, should have run back for a heavy jacket. One block, running, she could see her breath, dark, no cops here… Jill felt guilty for making David worry. Then realized she would’ve fretted if Jesse had gone to sleep crying for his Fawzie. Ah, family. Worry and fret no matter what you did.
On the other hand her family was her joy, her whole life, really…
The light was red, but she wove and dashed across anyway. Their building was on the corner. Up in the elevator – ding! – out at their floor and unlocking their door.
“Oh hi,” said a woman just emerging from her apartment one door down. They’d met once, briefly, in the hall.
“Hi Terry.” Jill remembered her name. She was blond and looked to be in her mid thirties. “You’re going out?”
“Late for a party. Cab’s waiting, can’t be too careful.”
“Wise,” Jill said, and then was in, turning on one light, rushing to the small living room crowded with Jesse’s crib and toys. What a mess, no time to straighten. She grabbed Fawzie from the crib, started to run out, and then stopped, looked to their bedroom door.
Bed. Their bed, how she missed it, this was painful.
Just for a minute, she thought.
She went in and flopped down on it. Placed Fawzie and the photo folder near her, hugged her pillow, hugged David’s pillow and kept her face in it. It smelled of the cologne he sometimes used…oh what a feeling. It smelled like Home. She’d never really felt she had a home. Mom who wasn’t there even when she was there - on the phone, cramming her briefs, lifting her eyebrows and her glasses at any interruption as if to say, What?
Growing up, Jill heard snippets about her father, living in L.A. with a whole new family. “A new wife, a new daughter,” was how Sensitive Mom termed it in her self-pitying moments, never thinking how such comments would affect her own child. Still, her father sent gifts and birthday cards every year, and she saw him several times before his early death. Her half sister, too, but not since the funeral when Jill was fourteen and Liz was ten. She’d invited Liz to her college graduation, and never heard back.
Her mother had finally turned grateful, even sweet, when she was dying of cancer and Jill would rush home from NYU to help take care of her…often with Tricia’s help. And then Jill would cry, so bad. She still loved her mother and was at last getting her attention, for just months. Depression followed. It was Tricia who pulled Jill out of it and got her interested in obstetrics. Tricia…Jill’s rock of a friend had gotten her through so much.
Just thinking of the past hurt, so Jill did her best not to. She’d been so walled off before David, who saved her life, literally. It was a miracle, all of this. This bed, this lovely life of strewn toys, Jesse’s flung-all-over Cheerios - “Leave it!” she could hear David laugh, feel him lift her and squeeze her tight, whirl her around…
How had all this come to such a lonely girl?
And what the bleep time was it? Oh jeez, eight minutes had passed.
She grabbed Fawzie and the photos and ran out, locking up.
Then was back on the street again, dashing across against the light.
A figure stepped out of the shadows, watching her.
Two times in one night! Even closer to her than he’d been in the ER. How pretty she was, he thought, her lovely features and long hair caught for seconds under the red light. And oh, how revoltingly adorable she looked with that kid toy clutched to her.
He crossed behind her, watching her thin white jacket billow in the chill over her flimsy green scrubs. He could have shot her right there. But not yet. He wanted his new game to last. Maybe get them together? That would be his biggest triumph. Headlines to last forever!
She disappeared into the ambulance bay and his eyes narrowed, replaying in his mind intern Ashley in the bar, her face blitzed with fatigue, a little drunk, and so stupidly nice. “Sure, your niece can call me. Coming, Charlie! In a minute!” She scribbled her full name on a cocktail napkin and gave it to him. “Just have her page me, leave a message if I’m not available.”
He’d followed her out to the darkened sidewalk, checked that her pals had already crossed the avenue, bashed her head and dragged her into the alley. In his pocket, the grip of his pistol was still bloody from the more serious bashing he’d administered.
Pity he had to kill her, but it had to look like a vicious mugging, nothing connected to the Couples Killer – because she hadn’t been a couple, right? He’d worked hard on his image, couldn’t muddy it. Had worn gloves anyway. Had barely touched her except to haul her by the hood of her parka.
Cold wind gusted as he turned, peered back at the building where Raney and Levine lived. So many times, it had been in the news. Reporters made such a goddamn fuss over them, especially when they appeared with their kid.
Did their building or the one next to it have surveillance cameras? He chuckled to himself. If they did, they’d only show some overweight guy taking an evening stroll. Ashley’s full shoulder bag holding her cell with everyone’s phone numbers was over his belly, under his zipped-up jacket. He’d ditched the wig and goatee, combed his hair straight back to reveal his growing bald spot, and now wore dark-rimmed glasses.
He was pumped! Now began his whole new game. He rushed to a better place to get started.
8
Something had brushed her back there. She realized it was fear.
Running the darkened halls to Childcare, Jill first dismissed the feeling to no sleep, going on her nerves. But what was this creeped-out, cold knot in her chest?
Peripherally, she’d seen some guy watching her. Just a flick of him crossing her vision. In the shadows and… not moving, that was the thing.
She swallowed, slowed to a fast walk, and called David. To her surprise he picked up.
“I’m back and in,” she said.
“Can I breathe now?” He sounded exasperated. Voices piped in the background.
“Sure! Forget that the last two psychos got into the hospital. The killers were on the inside.”
“Humor me.”
“Okay.” She said nothing about the guy watching her. It happened. House staff walking around the neighborhood in their scrubs and white jackets often got stares from people moving past…but this guy hadn’t been moving. He was just there, in the shadows…
“Hey Jill!” she heard from the din at the other end. Tricia, sounding hyped.
“Tell Trish hi back.” Jill entered the dimmed crib room of staff childcare, greeted a nurse and another resident getting little Whatsername to bed, and the bad feeling nagged.
“Where are you?” she asked David.
“Just leaving the scrub room with Woody and Trish. Already started the Lasix, Robbins had a little trouble getting her intubated.” Water splashed, and Woody was heard shouting something to someone else. David said, “I’ll see you in the on call room. Watch yourself, please,” and signed hurriedly off.
Fear…fear… Jill rubbed goose pimples on her a
rm and placed the photos on a small table. Picked up Jesse, kissed him and hugged him hugging his toy - “Mama, Fawie!” He was so happy. Getting sleepy at last, too. David called him the Duracell kid. She got him back down under his little blanket and stroked his back, as she always did at bedtime.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” greeted the other resident, coming over. Peter Dillard from neurology. “You’re not on call. I heard you barely slept last night.”
“Ha. What else is new?” Jill picked up the photo folder, held it to her.
“Come to think of it, what was Jesse still doing up?”
“He napped. We gotta take away the nap.”
“At his age? Wow, when Katie was that age she napped and we had her back down at seven. Jesse’s, uh, amazing.” Peter’s fascinated clinical gaze at her child made Jill mad. She was overprotective, hated people comparing him, scrutinizing his development as if anticipating Superman or Einstein or something.
“Global big shots coming to see Jesse.” Peter’s brows raised. He looked so impressed. “That symposium’s soon, right?”
“Yup, three days.”
“You excited?”
“Yeah, thrilled.” Dillard was a nice guy but clueless; hadn’t seen the look on her face that was anything but thrilled.
“And his birthday’s what, in five days? Everyone’s excited, you saw it in the hospital emails?” Dillard’s grin widened. “You gonna have a room-sized cake? Invite the whole hospital?”
“Sure,” Jill said, checking her phone, listening briefly. “And the media.” On impulse she turned and grabbed a stuffed toy from a shelf, held it to her with the photos. “I gotta go, Peter.”
In the hall she re-listened to a nurse’s message, and hurried back to OB.
Beth Willis wanted her gun.
As they wheeled her into her room she was still half out of it and pleading, as if adrenalin had kicked in hard, overriding her meds.
CATCH ME (EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller, Book 4) Page 4