by CJ Lyons
Juan cleared his throat. “The rest of the guys say hi. They would’ve come but they’re real strict about visitors around here.”
“Yeah, I know. Almost didn’t let Carter in yesterday while I was still in intensive. Any leads on the shooter?”
They both looked away. Juan changed the subject. “So how are you feeling?”
“They’ll probably let me out in a few days, once I don’t need the oxygen anymore. I won’t be able to use my left arm much for a while, but everyone says I’m pretty lucky.”
“Yeah. Art came down here the first night, and they told him that you were dead, then someone came out, said that you’d made it.”
“Cut it,” Conrad said to the other officer. “She doesn’t need to hear that.” He took the bushel of flowers from Juan. “Everyone pitched in for these. If you need anything else, holler.”
Kate nodded, and he placed the flowers on the windowsill.
“Well, we got to get back on the job.” Conrad cleared his throat and tugged at his tie. Kate knew he was dying to get out of the stiff dress blues.
“Thanks for coming Sarge, and you too, Juan. I really appreciate it. And the flowers-” she stopped, suddenly overcome by fear.
Conrad was facing her, coming toward her, as two gunshots tore through the air. His body jerked as one ripped through his chest. The second demolished his face.
Kate opened her mouth to scream but no sound came. She felt Conrad’s hand on her shoulder. He looked down on her with a concerned expression.
Blood dripped from his uniform but none landed on the bed.
“Are you all right, Kate?” he asked, and she knew that to him everything was normal.
To her eyes, where his face should be there was a burnt and bloody cavity.
The smell of scorched flesh filled her nostrils. She bit her lip, trying hard not to vomit. Sweat soaked her thin patient gown, coating her in fear. She tried to speak but couldn’t. Forcing herself to look up at Conrad’s face, she told herself it was all an illusion, a dream, her imagination.
One of his eyeballs slid free of its socket, slipping in the blood and tissue until it lodged in the fragments of his shattered cheekbone.
“Kate? Should we call a nurse or something?”
“No, I’m fine,” her voice came out in a cracked whisper.
“You sure now?”
The two men stared at her and she fought to sound normal. “Thank everyone for the flowers, will you?”
“Sure thing,” Juan said, fidgeting with his hat. They turned to leave.
“Hey, Sarge,” she called out. “Don’t go into work tonight, okay?”
He turned back, puzzled. “You know I never work nights—besides Robbie’s wake is tonight.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go,” she said. The heat clanked on, churning out hot air, but she couldn’t stop shivering.
Both men turned to stare at her and she found herself unable to meet Conrad’s eyes. She fumbled for a reason, anything to keep Conrad out of dark alleys tonight. “Maybe you could visit Jenn instead? I can’t, and calling her doesn’t seem the same.”
Conrad smiled. It was the smile of someone trying to placate, not really listening. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she knows you’re thinking about her. See ya, Kate.”
“Thanks. Well, take care. Okay, Sarge?” Damnit, what else could she say—you’re about to get your face blown off?
“Don’t we always. Now you just work on getting better. I’ll try to stop in tomorrow.” They waved goodbye and were gone.
Short of handcuffing him to her bed, or worse, trying to explain her visions, there was nothing she could do to save him.
By morning, Kate knew Conrad would be dead.
CHAPTER 11
Blake waited outside O’Hern’s door. He wore his security guard uniform which made him virtually invisible as long as he kept out of the way of the hectic hospital routine. Yesterday he’d befriended one of the ICU nurses who had filled him in on O’Hern’s condition, even pointed out Lightner. It was obvious the nurse was smitten with the surgeon, but Blake was far more interested in practical matters—the doctor’s schedule, what kind of car he drove, where he parked.
Good reconnaissance was the key to any successful operation. He’d almost panicked when he arrived this morning to find O’Hern gone from the ICU. Was ready to spin a tale to the volunteer at the visitor’s desk when the cops waltzed in, led him right to her.
From their conversation, the two cops must have been pretty good friends with O’Hern. Especially the old fart, the sergeant.
The door opened and Blake immediately turned away, heading towards the elevator. He walked slowly, gauging the distance. Within seconds the other two men caught up to him.
“Christ, she looks so pale,” the younger one was saying.
“She’s lucky to be alive. And she’s upset about Rob,” the sergeant replied, nodding to Blake as he pressed the elevator call button for them.
“Excuse me, were you visiting Officer O’Hern?” Blake asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, I just wanted to say how terrible it was—I mean you guys put your lives on the line everyday. You don’t need any crazy taking pot shots at you. Are you close to catching the guy?”
The cops exchanged glances. “I wish,” the young one said as the elevator arrived.
“I met Officer Hansen a few times down in the ER,” Blake continued, “he was a great guy.”
“The best,” the sergeant said.
“Is there someplace we could send a contribution to? I know he had a wife and kids. The guys here would pitch in and I could bring it by after my shift—”
“There’s a fund started at the station house, you could bring it by there,” Conrad told him.
“My shift’s not over until seven tonight, would that be too late?”
“We’ll all be over at Riley’s, but you can leave it with the desk sergeant,” the young one said. Blake still couldn’t make out the name on his badge, the damn black ribbon was in the way. The elevator came to a halt on the ground floor.
“Thanks, I’ll do that. Have a good one—and good luck catching the creep.” Blake smiled as he watched them leave through the revolving door in the main lobby. He was whistling as he helped a volunteer with a cart full of flowers onto the elevator before turning to leave himself.
Riley’s Pub tonight. He could hardly wait.
Kate almost called Tony Martini to ask him to do some research at the newspaper on after-death experiences and precognition. Almost. Couldn’t bring herself to admit her crazy theory, not even to Tony, her oldest friend.
With ever-increasing trepidation, she watched the day grow dark. Where was Lightner, the man with all the answers? Or his friend, the Italian Santa Claus? All these brilliant doctors around and no one could tell her what the hell was going on.
It was no wonder Lightner and Bianchi hadn’t believed her. This entire place was an altar to the gods of cause and effect. Her visions—whatever they were—had no place here.
She would rather have paced as she thought, but she settled for the mindless activity of ripping the Velcro wraps sheathing her legs and thighs open and shut again. If her brain had been fried, somehow short-circuited to receive glimpses of the future, didn’t she have a responsibility to do something about that?
Or maybe Lightner was right, maybe she was just plain old fashioned crazy and trying to rationalize it to herself. Maybe she would start seeing lots of insane things. Questions piled on top of more questions until Kate thought her head would split open from the pressure.
She had done her best to warn Conrad. But she still kept seeing him die. The vision had interrupted her lunch, or what passed as lunch around here, salty broth and tepid tea. Not that she would have been able to force any of it down. Not with Conrad’s bloody face staring back at her, mocking, taunting.
Every time she tried to relax or distract herself, she saw Conrad die. Again and again until the sound of th
e shotgun blasts grew more real than the noises of the monitor above her, beeping out her heartbeat.
A rapping at the door made her jump upright, pulling at the wires connecting her to the dizzying array of medical equipment surrounding her. Her heart caught in her throat as the memory of the shooter, her blood dripping from his hands, colored her vision.
Murderers don’t knock, she told herself. The door opened and Tony Martini poked his head inside.
“You decent?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he entered, closing the door behind him and presenting her with a large bouquet of apricot colored roses. Her favorite. “Jeezit, Kate. You look like hell.”
Kate’s mood immediately lightened. Typical, honest-to-a-fault, shoot-from-the-hip, Tony. Finally someone who wasn’t treating her like a patient or a victim or an escapee from Western Psych. “Thanks. At least I’ve got a good excuse. Did you get the number of the bus that hit you?”
He blinked quickly, turned and busied himself with arranging the vase of roses in a prime spot on the windowsill. “Worrying about an old friend is all,” he mumbled. He pivoted back to her, perched on the bed beside her knees, his dark eyes boring into hers. “You are all right, aren’t you?”
“I’m fine, Tony. Or I will be as soon as I can break out of this joint.” She gestured to the various contraptions tying her to the bed. “Don’t suppose you brought a getaway car?”
“No shit, Kate. You’ve got to take it easy, listen to the docs and do what they say. I mean it—none of your usual short cuts.”
“C’mon, I was just joking—”
“This isn’t a joke,” he broke in, his voice sharp. “You weren’t—you couldn’t know—damn, it, for once in your life just promise me you’re gonna follow the rules, will you?”
His lips pressed together, a vertical crease gouged his forehead and she could swear tears sparkled his eyes. He really thought she might die. Then Kate realized what had scared him so much. “You were here that night, weren’t you?”
He looked away and nodded slowly, color seeping back into his lips. “Heard it on the scanner. I got here right as the medics arrived. Saw them pull you out of the ambulance, blood everywhere, one guy pumping on your chest—” He broke off and tilted his head toward the door. “You’re okay here, aren’t you? I mean, they don’t think this wacko is coming after you or anything, do they?”
Remnants of her visions of the shooter collided in her mind. “No, of course not. I’m fine, Tony,” she lied.
“Then why is there a security guard outside your door?”
Her face burned as she blushed. No way she could tell him the truth, that Lightner thought she was headed down a one-way street to the looney bin. “Routine precaution. Besides, if this guy has any brains, he’s half way to Mexico by now.”
“Yeah, I guess.” He looked at the door again, shifted his weight as if he wanted to join the guard. Good old Tony, always determined to protect the weak—he would never accept that she could fight her own battles.
Including the battle she was currently losing. The battle over her sanity.
Tony placed his hand on her plastic-swathed shin, his gaze roaming over the various medical implements, then moving to the bushel of flowers dwarfing his bouquet of roses. “Who’s my competition?”
“Hernandez brought them. And Phil Conrad.” Her voice cracked at the mention of Conrad’s name. A cascade of bloody images stampeded through her mind.
Kate sat up straighter in the bed, ignoring the pain lancing through her chest with the movement. She’d won out over death—no way in hell she was going to let a little thing like losing her mind make her back down from doing what needed to be done.
“Tony, can you move the phone over here where I can reach it?”
He looked at her suspiciously, then slid off the bed to pull the table with the telephone closer to her right hand. “You’re not calling a cab or something, are you? You weren’t serious about leaving.”
“No. I have to call Phil Conrad. There’s something I need to tell him.”
Before she could reach for the phone, the door opened again and Lightner entered. He wore street clothes, neatly pressed navy slacks and an off-white Oxford shirt with the top button undone. Despite his crisp appearance, his face looked drawn, his expression sorrowful as if he’d just lost a patient. He stopped inside the door when he saw Tony.
“What are you doing here?”
“Relax, doc. I’m an invited guest this time.” Tony lay a possessive hand on her good shoulder. Kate shrugged it off immediately.
“A guest who’s leaving,” she said.
“Right,” Lightner chimed in. “She needs her rest.”
Tony opened his mouth as if to protest but shut it again when Kate shot him a glare. She wanted to talk to Lightner in private. Tony took the hint, leaned over to give her a quick kiss on the cheek, then strolled out with a jaunty farewell wave.
Lightner’s lips pursed. He watched Tony leave, following him with his gaze as if he thought the reporter might sneak back in, then pushed the door shut behind him. “We have to talk,” he said, standing at the foot of her bed, towering over her.
His tone of command made Kate bristle. Tony was right, she never was any good at obeying rules. Lightner’s patronizing attitude was more than enough to bring out the rebel in her.
“Have a seat, doc.”
He hesitated, then took two steps to sit in the chair beside her bed. The low-slung vinyl chair placed him below her, forcing him to look up to meet her eyes.
“Delusions can take many forms,” he started.
“Is that what you believe? That I want these visions? That I’m making them up or something?” Her voice grew shrill, echoed through the small room. “Believe me, Lightner, right now I’d give anything for you to make them go away, find some reasonable explanation.”
“You might get your wish.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I can’t keep this out of your record any longer, not if I’m going to fully investigate what’s going on with your brain.”
Her stomach clenched. “Don’t bother worrying about me, doctor. I was just about to call Sergeant Conrad, tell him all about my visions, when you came in.”
“Really? Why? You know they won’t let you be back on the streets.”
“I know damn well what I’m doing. It will cost me my career, but I have to tell Conrad. I have to try and save him.”
“From what? Is this about another one of your spells?” He sounded skeptical, aloof as if it was preposterous that a man of science was even having this conversation with her.
“Philip Conrad is going to be outside in a parking lot at night, tonight I think because he was still wearing his dress blues, and he’s going to be ambushed by a man with a shotgun. He’ll be shot point blank in the face and the chest.” The words emerged from her in a dry, brittle tone that left her mouth tasting of ashes. She swallowed hard. “Don’t bother alerting your trauma team—he’ll be dead before he hits the ground. Unless I can warn him, stop it.”
He pushed up from his chair, taking a step back as if she was contaminated or contagious. “You really believe that? You think you can alter the future, change the world?”
“I don’t want to change the world. I just want to save a good man from dying needlessly. If the only way I can do that is to sacrifice my career, I’m willing to do that.”
His hand slid from the rail down to her wrist, his fingers closing on her pulse point. She felt her heart beat beneath his fingers, strong and steady and true.
“You really do believe in these things,” he said with wonder in his voice.
“I don’t have a choice.” The words came out sounding braver than she felt. A knot of fear twisted her gut. She tried to block out the other visions that had crowded her mind—the ones of the shooter killing her again.
His hand tightened on hers for a brief moment, then he pulled away. “I do. I’m calling in psych and neurology first thing tomorrow
morning.”
“You do what you have to and so will I.” Kate slumped back against the pillows. Lightner stood there, staring down at her, then pivoted on his heel and left her in darkness.
CHAPTER 12
Josh stopped outside Kate’s door, glancing up and down the empty hallway, tempted to retrace his steps. He hated leaving her alone like that, hated arguing with her, hated that she was ready to throw away her career because of these crazy delusions.
The memory of her face, so earnest and defiant as she spoke of her need to warn Conrad, filled his mind, and his resolve almost broke. She didn’t care what it cost her; she was determined to save the world, one person at a time.
It’d been hard enough to treat her like just another patient this morning. How long could he keep up this charade? He was certain everyone on his team saw right through him.
He fled to the parking deck where his Subaru WRX waited. The all wheel drive sports car had enough speed and power to be exciting, but could handle the Pittsburgh weather as well. He drove through the narrow streets leading from Three Rivers to his house in Point Breeze, Led Zeppelin blasting from the car stereo. His thoughts kept flashing back to Kate.
No, not Kate, he told himself, cranking the stereo higher. O’Hern. Officer O’Hern.
Better yet: Patient O’Hern, definitely off limits to her attending physician, Patient O’Hern.
His house wasn’t far; the advantages of living close to the hospital had been drilled into him early in his career. He changed clothes, then took Hershey, his chocolate lab, out for a run through Frick Park. Hershey was good company, he never talked back and always seemed intent on what Josh was telling him.
Tonight’s topic of conversation was O’Hern and her bizarre visions. Were they real or was she crazy, or both? Josh rather hoped that neither was true, couldn’t see how he could accept either possibility.
Could she really see into the future? Glimpses of it? It was like admitting that psychic surgery and Ouija boards really worked.