Dangerous Minds

by Dee Ann Palmer

  Back in the unit, she thanked Katie.

  Together they finished the change of shift ritual of counting the controlled drugs in the narcotics box, but Margo’s mind wasn’t on it. She was deciding when she would leave St. Michael’s for good, finally settling on Sunday as her last night. After her shift ended the next morning, she’d change in the staff lounge into jeans and T-shirt, stuff her tailored scrubs into her gym bag, and walk out of the hospital into the fresh morning air. This headache would be gone, and she would be able to breathe freely. Later she could dispose of the scrubs in someone’s trash bin.

  She smiled a soft smile.

  “Headache better?” Katie handed over the keys to the narc box and medicine cart to her.

  Margo pulled her thoughts back to the present. “Not yet.”

  “Want me to stay until your medication kicks in?”

  Margo shook her head more violently than intended. She wanted the woman out of here. “I’ll be okay. You’ve spent enough time here. Go home and get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Well, if you’re sure—”

  “I’m sure. By the time we finish the pre-op checklist I’ll feel better.”

  They began. Margo read the list aloud and Katie answered. “Does he have any known allergies?”

  “None.”

  “Pacemaker?”

  “No.”

  So it went, but again Margo’s mind was only half on the work. The Urge was increasing. It was as if the syringe in her fanny pack would leap into her hand at any moment and cry out to be used. She tensed, afraid Katie could read her thoughts. Glancing at Cratchert, she was sure the pre-op Valium Katie had injected had put him to sleep and he wasn’t aware they were at his bedside.

  Margo imagined wiping his IV port with alcohol and injecting the toilet water. He would snuffle slightly as the cold liquid hit his vein. Then he would settle, not ever knowing what had been done to him. In a day or two the infection would begin, and his depressed immune system would be unable to handle it.

  He would die, and she would leave.

  In a way, Margo could thank her college microbiology professor for how she satisfied The Urge. The professor had made the students culture toilet water, so Margo had learned what pathogens were in it. Two years ago, people had died ingesting the same type of germs in hamburger meat. By then Margo had already known how effective they could be. She had changed hospitals twice, leaving death behind.

  By the time the door finally closed behind Katie, Margo could hardly stay upright because of the suffocating, pounding Urge. Hands trembling, she tore open an alcohol wipe and swabbed the port. Tugging the syringe from her pack, she uncapped it. Steadying the IV line with her left hand, she poised to plunge the needle with its lethal payload home with her right.

  A vice-like grip stopped her.

  Someone wrenched the hypodermic out of her hand.

  “NO!” Margo’s cry was guttural, anguished. Kicking and biting, she pulled free and flung herself away from the arm that held her. Facing her opponent, she saw the blue scrubs of Victoriana Sanchez. Disgust rose in her throat. What did the woman want? Money? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  Victoriana’s face twisted into a smile, then she extended her left hand to show a clear plastic bag. It held a used syringe. Next, she held up the one she’d just wrested from Margo.

  Syringes Margo had handled without gloves. Syringes from which the murderous organisms could still be grown.

  Rage at this betrayal, this intrusion into her private world ricocheted through Margo. She launched herself at the grinning figure facing her just as Sanchez metamorphosed before her eyes. The stooped figure straightened, a wig came off, and a woman as young and as tall as Margo emerged, the badge of a homicide detective with the San Francisco Police Department flashed from a cord around her neck.

  Before Margo could reach her to claw out the detective’s eyes, two male officers grabbed Margo from behind. As ferocious as a caged animal, she fought them, and as she fought she heard the door clang open, saw the supervising R.N. stride through with a surgery attendant.

  The motorcycle accident and his bed were whisked out of her reach to safety. Another R.N. arrived to take over the ICU.

  Margo couldn’t satisfy The Urge. She uttered a feral moan as the officers took her down.

  “Super Nurse made two lousy mistakes, didn’t she, Margo?” Sanchez said. “No gloves, so she left fingerprints. And, worst of all, something no professional should ever forget—she didn’t drop the hypodermic syringe used on Mister Samson into the hazardous waste container.”

  The contempt, the triumph in the detective’s voice curdled something inside Margo as she lay handcuffed. Her cheek rested on cool vinyl flooring that looked clean, but which every hospital employee knew was covered with potentially virulent pathogens.

  “Margo Lindsey, I’m placing you under arrest for—”

  As she descended into darkness, Margo shut them all out. Nothing Sanchez said was important. The idiots. The absolute idiots. They didn’t get it. The Urge would kill her before the state could. That was what was important.

  It was the only thing that was.

  The End

  About the Author

  Dee Ann Palmer’s love of language and words began while listening to her mother practice as a member of the Texas Storytellers Association. Later, the King James language of the Bible and Shakespeare increased her fascination. A lonely child, she entertained herself by making up stories which she first wrote down when she was eight.

  A registered nurse with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she didn’t realize she was also a writer until she mailed an article cold to a magazine. They bought and published it. Soon after, she won First Award for Writing from RN magazine. After such encouragement even marriage, a career and children couldn’t squelch her need to write. She wrote while her family slept and the night birds sang.

  Now an award-winning, multi-published author in fiction and non-fiction, in recent years her focus has been on tales of romance, murder and suspense. Palmer is a member of the Published Author Network of Romance Writers of America (RWA-PAN) and of Sisters in Crime. She was a Guideposts Writers Workshop winner, and in 2002 The National League of American Pen Women honored her as Pen Woman of the Year.

  Dee Ann and her husband, who was her college sweetheart, live in southern California.

  About Killer Minds

  As a registered nurse with a bachelor’s degree, I finished my university days with the understanding that environment was the major factor in shaping a young child’s life. After becoming a mother, I humorously suspected genetics had more to do with how a child turned out than I’d been taught.

  These days, that purely observational theory may have merit.

  The brain has long been known in medicine as the black box—a complicated organ still only partially explored and understood. As for why people kill, we’ve had examples for almost twenty years that some murderers have abnormal PET scans in the prefrontal and orbital cortex behind the eyes. (And, no, Charles Manson’s brain wasn’t included.) It is in these areas that humans think, imagine and make informed decisions. It is what keeps us civilized and productive. Low activity in these areas can result in impulsive, unpredictable and uncontrolled actions.

  Interestingly, scientists have somewhat confirmed what William March explored in his 1954 novel, The Bad Seed. They have isolated a gene—known as the warrior gene—in which one form of it causes resistance to serotonin, a naturally occurring chemical that calms us. This gene form seems to be related to both homicidal and suicidal tendencies, particularly in males due to the testosterone hormone. I speculate this may be why rampage killings such as those at Sandy Hook Elementary, and the carefully planned slayings at Columbine Senior High and Christopher Dorner’s murders of California law officers, ended in suicide by the perpetrators.

  Prior to these discoveries, we’ve believed only an abusive, violent environment turned a child into a potenti
al killer. I opened Compulsion this way, long before I knew about PET scans and a warrior gene.

  For now, scientific evidence indicates that some of us are predisposed to waves of violence and psychopathic tendencies not only because of our brains but also due to a “bad seed” gene that may be passed down from one generation to another. But, and I quote from Jim Fallon’s account below, “…brain patterns and genetic make-up aren’t enough to make you a psychopath. You need a third ingredient: abuse or violence in one’s childhood.”

  Dee Ann Palmer

  Do read Jim Fallon’s account of how his genetics and PET scan fit the above picture yet he is not a killer. A Neuroscientist Uncovers a Dark Secret

  Other ideas you might be interested in:

  Are Murderer’s Minds Different?

  Minds Designed for Murder

  The Brains of Violent Males: The homicidal and suicidal brain

  Bonus

  Where Eagles Cry

  Western Historical Romantic Suspense

  By Dee Ann Palmer

  Jilted by love in 1834, Cara Lindsay sails from Boston to Mexico’s rugged California to begin a new life with a favorite aunt. Heartbroken to learn her aunt has died, she takes a companionship position to the wife of Don Miguel Navarro, the tough and irresistible owner of a major inland rancho. Prior to her arrival, Miguel’s wife had suffered a permanent brain injury in a suspicious fall, and the lonely ranchero’s heart opens to Cara’s kindness and beauty like parched earth to rain. Yet love may break Cara’s heart again, for she would never be any man’s mistress. Until ships sail for Boston months away, she’s trapped in the midst of danger and an impossible love. When the bells ring and the eagle cries, will she be the next to die?

  Praise for Where Eagles Cry

  “Like its heroine watching the sensual, seductive dance of the Flamenco, a reader quickly surrenders to this book’s breathtaking imagery. Dee Ann Palmer has filled her first novel with an original and engrossing story line, mesmerizing characters and a heart-stopping conclusion. One would be hard pressed to find a better historical romance than Where Eagles Cry.” Reviewed by Helen Haddad, author of Picture of Guilt

  Winner, 2003 EPPIE—Best Romantic Suspense

  Winner, 2002 OCC/RWA Orange Rose—Best single title

  * * *

  “The fine and tangible sexual tension between Miguel and Cara grows, and the danger she’s in only heightens its power and seductiveness. Dee Ann Palmer pulls readers into her story, and makes them feel and see what she’s written with incredible clarity.” Reviewed by Fallen Angel Reviews

  Chapter One

  1834—El Rancho Navarro

  Nueva California

  Méjico

  It was late afternoon when Don Miguel Navarro, riding bareback, gave Black Silk his head and let him break into a cantor for the springs east of the hacienda. A sense of freedom after a long day rushed through the young Spanish ranchero, and he laughed with the pleasure of it.

  As his laughter faded, only the sound of Black’s hoof beats and the occasional scream of a raptor broke the stillness.

  When they reached the cool waters, Miguel pulled him up. Sliding off the wide back, he led his favorite mount to their shallow end. Willow trees and thick green undergrowth cast lacy patterns on the waters, sheltering the natural pool from the summer sun and the view of other ranch hands.

  The valley in which the ranch nestled lay twenty-four leagues east of El Pueblo, and as he let Black drink, Miguel glanced up at the surrounding mountains. They were golden now in the sunlight, soon to fade to purple. He let out a slow breath. Faced with this kind of beauty, he could forget, at least for a time, the pressures of running the huge operation of his ranch. Now he let the peace of the springs soak into his soul and refresh him, as it always did.

  Black was seventeen hands high, with hooves that could slash death in an instant. He was the fleetest horse on the ranch, with slender forelegs that hinted at such speed. Today a fine sheen of sweat mixed with dust dulled his coat, and when the twenty-five year old ranchero released him into the pond, the stallion made no protest. Black swam, creating ripples and currents around him, seeming to relish it.

  “So what do you think, my friend? For the other horses a bath is buckets of water poured over them while tied to the hitching post. But not my Black. No, Black swims.” He stretched the last words out, and smiled.

  When he knew the stallion had had enough, Miguel led him to the shore again. Making soft clucking sounds, he groomed him with strokes that were sure and steady.

  The horse allowed these ministrations, as much as he allowed anything. The only human being he trusted was this powerful and skilled horseman. Today he whinnied in pleasure as he was curried, dipping his head now and again against the strength of the left shoulder of the tall man born in Spain.

  Feeling the nudge, Miguel patted the horse’s neck and whispered in its ear, “Feels good to have your coat clean again, doesn’t it? It is too hot today. Too much moisture in the air. In a minute I will bathe, too, and you will wait for me as any good friend would.”

  Black Silk was too skittish and too valuable to leave with only the customary dragging halter as a tether, so Miguel tied him to a nearby tree.

  Freeing his own dark hair from its single braid, Miguel ran both hands through the long strands and rubbed his scalp to relax from the tensions of the day. Pulling off his sweat-stained shirt, he unbelted his chaps and dropped them, removed his boots, then stepped out of his work pants and under drawers. He stood naked in the softening sunlight for a moment, the dark hairs that arrowed down from his chest to his manhood glistening with sweat just as Black Silk’s coat had. Miguel stretched his tired arms and shoulders, unaware of how many men would have envied a body like his.

  He dove into the pool, gasping in shock at its coldness, then he swam underwater the way the Indians here had taught him when he was a child. Surfacing, he pushed his hair out of his eyes as he inhaled, then floated on his back to let his hair fan out and lose the last of its dust. Turning, he began a slow crawl, keeping his mind quiet and his body in motion until he felt the last of the day’s tensions subside. In the shallows, he scooped up sand and water to scrub his face and body before dipping one last time to rinse.

  Cool and relaxed, he mounted bareback again dressed only in a loincloth. He carried his work clothes and boots in a bundle in front of him. Shedding the clothing that reminded him of the burdensome decisions of running a ranch as vast as this one added to his sense of freedom.

  Whistling, he pulled Black up and waited while Stalking Elk, his ranch manager, who had been standing guard against any threat to Miguel’s safety, responded to his signal and rode out from where he’d remained hidden in the trees.

  It was the Indian custom to wear two braids when working, and Stalking Elk wore a rumpled hat over his. His skin was the color of dull copper, and his lined face rarely showed expression. It was impossible to tell his age, but Miguel couldn’t remember a time when this man had not been a hand on Navarro land.

  “I am not anxious to return to the house. Let’s take it at a walk,” he said.

  Stalking Elk nodded.

  Riding side by side, they traveled in silence for a time, and then the older man, who had worked for Miguel’s father, spoke, his voice tinged with disgust. “I caught Señorita Valdez trying to peek, Jefe. I sent her away.”

  Stalking Elk always called him Jefe—chief—rather than don.

  “Ah, Señorita Rosita Valdez,” Miguel replied.

  Shaking his head, he sighed at the thought of the hot, turbulent méjicano. Peeking was so like her. Inwardly he smiled, but it was a dry smile. Even when he was younger, and free, he hadn’t sampled what Rosita had hinted he could have. Although he admitted he’d come close once, in the days after his parents, aunt and uncle had been massacred in a raid by marauding Indians three years earlier. Led by a rogue Paiute warrior named Red Hawk, the group of outcast Indians and whites had swept down
through the mountain pass to the north, stealing cattle and horses, slaughtering men and women in their path.

  Miguel had been in El Pueblo, and the shock of returning to find his parents dead had cloaked his mind in a miasma of anger, pain, and helplessness. The burden of running the ranch had settled with sudden heaviness on his young shoulders, and he had almost, but not quite, yielded to Rosita’s charms.

  Now he thought that slight slip in his resolve to remain aloof was why she persisted, despite the fact that he hadn’t been free then and wasn’t free now.

  He acknowledged Stalking Elk’s decision. “That was wise. I doubt her father knew she had come from their ranch to ours.”

  “Humph. You think he can stop that one from doing as she wishes?”

  Miguel laughed aloud, but the laugh was tinged with a sharp edge.

  Having exhausted the subject of Rosita, the men walked the horses without speaking, comfortable in the silence. Then, after a time, Miguel spoke again. “Flying Arrow has proven to be untrustworthy. I told him today he couldn’t work here anymore. I hope he won’t go into the pass and join Red Hawk and his renegade band.”

  Troubled by what he felt he’d had to do, he looked out of the corner of his eye to see his manager’s response. It would tell him something about how Flying Arrow’s band would react.

  Stalking Elk nodded in approval. “It is as your father would have done.”

  Relief rolled through Miguel, but an ache springing up in his chest replaced it. Too often these days he longed to seek his late father’s guidance. Sometimes he felt like the ranch dogs; they swam with only their heads above water.

  Now he and his manager parted ways as the thick, white-washed adobe walls protecting the hacienda came into sight.

  Just before he turned to go home, Stalking Elk remarked with a hint of a smile, “I think Señorita Tia will not like the loincloth so much, Jefe.”

  Miguel laughed again, and this time it was full and from deep in his belly. He slapped his manager on the back. “Adios, amigo.”