Shadow of the Storm
Page 27
After a few minutes, Margie sighed. “I need to get back. You need anything, you come find me, you hear?”
“Sure.” The word scratched through his throat.
Margie’s shoes squeaked across the floor, the sound fading as she moved away.
He stood there, alone, in what felt like a crypt.
If only there was something he could do. Anything.
Mike would pray. So would his sister Lana.
But he wasn’t one to talk to someone who wasn’t there.
The doors swished open. A green-clad doctor, who he recognized but couldn’t immediately name, glanced around before approaching. Blood stained the front of the doctor’s scrubs and his mouth was fixed in a grim line.
No. It must be a mistake. Mike was fine. “How is he?”
But he knew, didn’t he? The doctor’s expression said it all.
The doctor shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry. We lost him.”
That was wrong.
They couldn’t have lost him. Not Mike.
It must be someone else. “No, Mike Conrad. How is he?”
The doctor placed a heavy hand on Dimitrios’ shoulder. “He didn’t make it. The bullet…”
Bullet.
The word penetrated Dimitrios’ mind as intensely as the projectile had penetrated Mike’s flesh.
Who would want Mike dead? And why?
It seemed so impossible. Gangbangers got shot. Cops and FBI and US Marshals like his sister.
But not EMTs.
EMTs saw violence and helped people live through it. But they didn’t fall victim to it themselves.
The doctor kept talking, something about blood loss and internal damage, but the words jumbled together in a nonsensical fashion.
Sudden silence penetrated the fog in his mind. He blinked.
The doctor’s eyes rested on him.
“You’re sure?” Stupid question.
The man was a trauma doc. He knew a dead body when he saw one. Of course he was sure.
The doctor didn’t point out any of that, but simply nodded. “There was nothing we could do.”
Snow filled his chest. A block of ice wedged in his throat. The chill seeped through his body and froze his tongue.
Not that there was anything left to say.
Mike was dead.