“It’s in my apartment,” she begged a male nurse who was paying more attention to her gurney’s clearing the door jam. She was near tears. To an intern on her other side she cried, “I keep it…locked up because I have…a child, but now I need it.”
They tried to placate her as a resident, the male nurse, and two interns lined up her gurney alongside the bed. She turned her head to the bed and her eyes came fully awake. “Oh hell,” she breathed. “I know this drill.”
It had taken her mind off her gun, at least.
The strongest of them – the male resident and the male nurse - stood at the middle of the gurney’s outside side. “Gently now,” the resident said. A female intern at the foot of the gurney put her hands under Beth’s lower legs. The male nurse pushed one arm under both upper thighs and his other arm under her lower back. The resident pushed his hands under her mid and upper back, and a second female intern put her hands under Beth’s head.
“At my count,” said the resident. “One, two, three” – and they all lifted Beth onto the bed.
She cried out a little, then fought more tears as they got her settled, checked that her IV hadn’t been dislodged, adjusted her blanket, the wires to her monitor, and pulled up her side rails. “Well done, guys,” she whispered, closing her eyes to the blur of scrubs and white coats. “It only hurt a little.”
“It’s the old-fashioned way.” The resident smiled wearily. “There’s no spring mechanism to shoot you through the air.”
The eyes flew open. “Speaking of shoot-”
“No gun,” the resident said. “There’s a security guard right outside your door. And your little boy will be with you tomorrow. You can’t have-”
“Ricky’s used to me having a gun,” Beth protested feebly. Beep beep! Her pulse and blood pressure spiked on her monitor. “Ricky…knows…the rules.” She realized she was beaten, and her adrenalin crashed. Her pulse and blood pressure dropped back in seconds, and the meds started taking over again. She inhaled deeply, new tears streaming. “Poor little baby,” she wept. “Three months…”
Jill walked in. Surveyed the scene and greeted Ramu Chitkara, fellow first year resident, fellow intern with her last year, and friend.
Ramu nudged Jill back a bit as she turned her phone to vibrate. “She wants her gun,” he said softly in his British Oxford accent.
“She has a gun?”
“Yes. During transport she was moaning that all military nurses had guns. Cannot be without it.”
Aching, Jill gazed at Beth Willis, war nurse hero who’d seen so much bloodshed, now bandaged and wired up in a New York City hospital. Both interns were trying to comfort.
“It’s this new trauma,” Jill whispered to Ramu. “That’s why she wants her gun. I take it she didn’t have it with her in the park.”
“Right. But now she’s back in Iraq. Or maybe she thinks New York is Iraq.” Ramu shook his head and glanced back at Beth. “Awful,” he said. “So much loss. Sam said people from the VA were here. Said her soldier husband was killed by an IED just before she gave birth. She didn’t know, had been sent back home for getting pregnant and her one relative didn’t tell her for days, afraid she’d go crazy.” Ramu inhaled deeply. “She still grieves that her husband never got to hold his son. They said his name was Ted.”
Tragedy upon tragedy, their traded looks said.
“Oh, something else?” Ramu went on quietly, stepping aside as the male nurse left. “The pregnancy was…she’d adopted an embryo. Some couple had put up their embryos for adoption, and Beth used IVF. Desperately wanted another child, didn’t want her little boy to be alone in the world.”
“No words for this,” Jill breathed, simultaneously heartbroken and enraged. Her blood was on fire.
“No, no words.” Ramu touched Jill’s arm and led the interns out.
Jill approached the bed, put her photos and the toy she’d snagged on a side table. She reached over the rail and took one of Beth’s hands, squeezed it, and introduced herself. With her other hand she reached for tissues, and gently wiped Beth’s cheeks.
She was thanked with a weak smile. “I suppose you’re going to say everything’s going to be alright,” Beth breathed.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“One of those interns did.”
“They’re idiots. Oh! Sorry, no, don’t laugh.”
Beth was trying not to. Surprise, what a woman. The corners of her mouth turned down hard, and her face showed grief and humor colliding as her hands clutched her belly. “Ow, the stitches, the stitches…”
“Think sad thoughts, sad thoughts!” Jill gripped her hand harder. “The maniac in the woods, the guy with the gun!”
The moment subsided. Beth’s face eased, and her reddened, overwrought eyes met Jill’s. “You’re funny,” she whispered.
“You’re brave,” Jill answered, her heart aching.
Beth moved her head slightly. “I’ve seen so much worse. I still see them…” Her gaze turned to a weak, thousand-yard stare. Jill imagined the horror she was remembering, and tried to bring her back.
“I just saw Ricky.”
A blink, a heavy sigh. “They told me. Traumatized. Not speaking.”
“He’s gonna need a lot of hugging. Hugs heal.” Jill sat on the bed below the rails. She was being, not a doctor, just company.
“Can’t wait to hold him.” Beth tried to smile. A long moment passed. Her expression changed. “The pregnancy…I was so thrilled. I so wanted…” Her voice trailed, more tears welled.
“Your uterus is okay.” Jill pointed to Beth’s belly. “The bullet, .22 caliber, entered here, traveled superficially through your left anterior abdomen and passed through the anterior-most part of your uterus. Two little nicks, which they stitched up and will heal.”
“A little .22,” Beth echoed, her expression ironic. “I’m lucky.”
I’m lucky? From a woman who had been through trauma after trauma and still could say that? It’s so incredibly relative how people react, Jill thought. She had seen patients stress over a broken nail.
Beth exhaled. “Marty…”
“Martin Daley? The veterans’ psychologist?”
“Yes. I can’t believe it.” A mournful, incredulous headshake. “Everybody loved Marty. He was so devoted and…studious. Stayed here getting his PhD, never was in combat, and he winds up killed in Central Park?”
“The cops think he was shot first, and that maybe you saw the guy and turned-”
“I did.”
Jill stared. Beth nodded glassily. “Guy in shorts and a T-shirt under a cap…”
“You see his face at all? Anything that could help the cops ID him?”
A slow headshake. “Shadowy under the trees. I saw him like, in silhouette, and passed out.”
“Did he seem thin? Heavy? Tall, short, white, black, Hispanic?”
“White, average build. Height I can’t…he was in a crouch.”
Jill again saw the man watching her from the shadows. But he was fat…or was he? There was something wrong about how he looked, even in darkness…
She pushed the image down and reached for the photos, on the side table behind Beth’s pillows.
“These are surveillance pics of men leaving the park.” She slid closer, past Beth’s blanketed knees, angling the photos so she could see. “Taken between when you were attacked to an hour later, in case this creep hung around. The top ones are men leaving alone with their chins down under baseball caps, as if they knew cameras were there and didn’t want to be photographed.”
Beth fingered the top three photos, fanned them apart in both hands, squinted and peered from one to the other. “They’re all wearing sunglasses,” she murmured, letting out a pained breath. “He was too. The shooter.”
Most of them in the pile wore shades, dammit.
One of the photos slid from Beth’s hand to the blanket. “Ohh…”
“You’re tired.” The meds were really kicking in now; exhaustion and trauma wer
e taking their toll. Jill gathered the photos back into their folder.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “Rest. I’ll leave these here on your bed table. When you get the chance…”
“Yes…the photos…He’s there…” Beth’s eyes closed, her voice faint.
“And this is for you.” From the table Jill pulled the fluffy gray toy kitty that she’d brought with her, and tucked it under Beth’s arm.
“Oh-h.” Beth opened her eyes a little and smiled, hugging the kitty. “I love him.”
“He’s yours. Loves to be loved. Name him, uh, Nine Lives or something.”
“Yes…Niner.”
“What?”
“Niner.” Beth’s voice was a whisper. “Short for…Nine Lives.”
She slept.
Jill sat for long moments, hearing Beth’s breathing grow heavy, her BP monitor softly beeping a steady 124 over 84. In the normal range. Good.
Finally Jill inhaled. Patted Beth’s arm, patted the kitty.
“Nite, Beth. Nite, Niner. Keep Beth safe.”
9
“Okay, close her up.”
David’s head pounded with fatigue. His patients – all three of them – were out of danger. The twins were howling and getting checked in their bassinettes; mom was still anesthetized but stabilized. This one had been close, for all three.
He laid his gloved hands on the OR table and watched Sam MacIntyre finish: stitch the uterus closed, then close the layers of abdominal wall, and then the skin. Tricia had been called out to help with another delivery.
“Nice sutures,” David said above his mask.
Sam’s eyes grinned. “I learned from the master. Hey Woody, cut here, will ya?”
Woody leaned in with scissors and snipped the thread. “This delivery scared me,” he said in a tired rush. “I’m gonna give her hell when she wakes up. Why didn’t you get any prenatal care? Don’t DO this to us!”
David muttered something they didn’t catch, and headed out. The two interns who’d been there to learn followed him, jibbering questions the crisis had been too rushed to answer.
“She was having contractions, why’d you have to do a C-section?” asked the one named Kate, dogging him into the scrub room, dumping her cap and surgical gown into the laundry. The one named Ryan behind her wanted to know about Lasix and Magnesium Sulfate post delivery.
David was already at one of the sinks. To Kate, looking like she wanted to crawl into the filled laundry bin, he said, “Her contractions were too slow and she was roaring toxemic.” He pedaled soap and water and started scrubbing, sounding exhausted and drony-boring even to himself. “For pre-eclampsia, you have to empty the uterus fast. An abnormality in the placenta causes high blood pressure which can cause stroke, seizures, and heart failure.”
To Ryan two sinks down he said wearily, “Lasix is the best diuretic for emergencies. Keep it going for three to five days post delivery to make sure she’s stopped retaining fluid, which can cause high BP all over again. And Mag Sulfate’s the best anticonvulsant - keep it going too till her BP’s stable and all fluid retention is gone. She’ll have to return for post-delivery checkups. Tell her to keep taking her pills after she leaves the hospital.”
“Her boyfriend said she hates pills and doctors,” Ryan said, scrubbing.
David slammed off the water. “Tell her to keep taking her pills or you’ll come find her and beat her senseless.”
Woody was in the doorway, looking stricken. “You’ll never believe this,” he said.
“What?” David grabbed a sterile towel.
“I just got called again.”
Sam came in behind him. “I didn’t. I’m hiding.”
“Call if you need me,” David told Woody, then left through the scrub room door for the main hall and the elevator.
“See you in the on call room,” he’d told Jill. She must be there already, zonked…and hell, he was on call tonight. Gotta do something about that scheduling, he thought, getting off the elevator and heading down the darkened hall. Bed…bed…all he wanted was a mattress and sleeping Jill’s warm closeness…
Turning the key, he stepped in – and stopped.
The room was too dark and quiet. No sound of Jill’s heavy breathing, no little night light glinting low by the desk. Huh…? His hand fumbled for the overhead light. There, on the floor, were the blanket and two gurney mattresses they’d pushed together – the bed was too narrow - and Jill’s side was empty.
He groaned. What could Jill be doing, blitzed from last night and not on call tonight? Last time he’d heard from her, she was back with Jesse’s Fawzie. Frowning, he punched at his phone and…nothing more from her. Oh Jill, now what?
He turned on the night light, went back and turned off the overhead, then hit his side of their “bed” on the floor with his phone still in his hand. On his elbow in the semi-darkness, he speed-dialed and got Jill’s...voicemail?
“Christ,” he muttered, falling back onto his pillow, feeling himself grow tense again. There’d be no sleeping till she was here...
His phone rang and he bolted up, relieved.
“Yeah?” Not looking at the number.
“Well!” From the other end, a whispery, jubilant male voice. “Is this really you, David?”
Lead. The voice sounded psycho. “Who’s this?”
“Your brand new friend and fellow sharp shooter. I’m watching your movie.”
“What movie?”
“On YouTube, the news chopper coverage of you shooting that bad guy right between the eyes, and from such unsteady footing on that old roof. Really impressive.” The voice turned creepy calm. “I read about your background, too. Grew up in Denver, won shooting prizes as a kid, started to be wild so your loving, worried folks sent you to Israel for a summer to straighten out, weed or pick melons or some damn thing-”
“Oranges.”
“Ah yes. Only you found an army base nearby and did target practice with their sharp shooters, made friends with the best of ‘em.” A dramatic sigh. “I’ve only been using a .22 lately, as the police may have told you. So boring.”
It was…him. This felt like getting hit by a live wire.
“How’d you get my number?”
“A friend of yours gave it to me,” the voice said almost leisurely, as if he were lying on his bed just shooting the breeze.
David said nothing. His throat had closed.
“At one of those conferences you gave at other hospitals teaching doctors and nurses how to collect evidence,” the voice elaborated. “Trying to, anyway. Pity you met with resistance. I was there, looking quite different from the real me.” An evil chuckle.
“You were where? Which hospital?” David’s voice shook. His hands were ice and he couldn’t believe this. “Those conferences were in the news. I don’t believe anyone gave you my number. Where’d you really get it?”
A louder chuckle, chilling. “Ah, a doubting Thomas you are. Okay, I got it from one of your friends in a bar. The perils of drink, lucky me.” Lips smacked calmly at the other end, which was as quiet as a closet.
“I’m using a pre-paid phone, by the way, so don’t try to trace me. Aren’t they great, these phones? Cheap, untraceable.” Then something-something unintelligible because David looked away as the door opened…
…and Jill entered, and he was bolt upright with his frantic index finger to his mouth: quiet, this is bad. Her expression came alert in the dimness; she rushed and kneeled to him as he covered his phone and whispered, “Record.”
She hit Record on her phone and held it close as he angled his better and turned up the volume.
“…expect our future conversations to be quick so I can’t be traced. Cops can be clever with these phones too. It’s been so nice talking to you-”
“Why do you kill couples?”
“Why not? They’re offensive. Lovers can be so smug, superior-acting in their own selfish little worlds.” A hesitation. “Well, maybe not all, I admit. Your Jill looked so precious runn
ing out of your building clutching that toy. Oh, and Happy Birthday to Jesse! Soon, right? Lucky you, David, you’ve got it all. Both of you, you’re so damn perfect.”
“That’s right, we’re flawless, we don’t even cry or bleed. So you want to kill us too?” Jill’s face was slack in the dim light; the phone in her hand shook.
“Not yet. We have a game to play first.”
“What game?”
“Catch me.” A sigh. “I was getting bored. My victims are too…like shooting fish in a barrel. But going up against you makes it more exciting.” Another dramatic sigh. “Ironic how fate has brought us together. Pure fate that one of my hits was brought to your hospital. So catch me before I kill the next pair, and if you don’t it’s on you. Your fault, David. I really must go now.”
The line went dead.
Jill slumped in horror. David held her tight and she burrowed her face into his shoulder.
“I saw him.” Her voice was muffled. “A guy was watching me when I came running out with Fawzie.”
Seconds later David was on the phone with the police. Ted Connor was there, another detective they knew and had helped with cases. Ray Zienuc was his partner.
Connor was stunned. “A recording? You’ve got his voice?” he said as David explained the call. “Ray’s here, we’re working and getting nowhere, but this is good.”
“He called from a burn phone,” David reminded him nervously, knowing it was unnecessary.
“No matter, we’ll put a trap in your phone. Like now, right away.”
Connor added that they’d have a tech guy with them. Better if eyes didn’t see them.
David gave directions to their room and hung up.
10
Twelve minutes later they were there, crowding the small room with their busyness and their questions.
“Threw on the light, did sixty on First Avenue,” Ted Connor said, pulling in an extra chair from the empty call room across the hall. There were dark circles under his eyes that sagged with fatigue. His younger partner Ray Zienuc sat on the edge of the narrow bed watching Rudy Somebody, the technician, open his case and start pulling out equipment. Both detectives looked exhausted, their shirt collars open and looking slept in under jackets they kept on.
CATCH ME (EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller, Book 4) Page 5