"So can I get out of here?" Richard asked.
"Yeah, I guess. But first I want you to tell me what you think of that handiwork upstairs."
"Whoever did it knows how to wield a bone saw. I also figure the heart was cut out by someone who knew his or her way around a chest cavity. All the major vessels were severed like in an anatomy dissection—"
"You mean you think it was done by a surgeon?" For the second time that evening Richard refrained from telling the detective about the odd trio he'd seen arguing with Hamlin and Lockman last week. If they were "the others," the same reasoning he'd had about getting to Lockman before the cops applied to them. Instead he answered, "Or a pathologist. Maybe even somebody taught by one—"
A man's scream came from upstairs.
Richard was on McKnight's heels as the two raced to see what had happened.
They burst into the bedroom to find a crowd of officers clustered around an ashen-faced policeman seated on one of the chairs. He was cradling his bleeding right hand in his left, and a pair of bloodstained examining gloves, one of them torn, lay at his feet.
"What happened?" Richard asked as he stepped forward to look at the wound.
"There was a fucking rat hiding in the chest cavity," he answered, his face growing even more drained of color.
Oh, shit, thought Richard. In all the excitement when the cops had descended on him, guns drawn, patting him down, cuffing him, he'd forgotten to warn them about the rats. "Here, lie down before you faint," he ordered the bitten man, figuring there was no point in confessing yet another wrong, everyone already being mad enough at him.
"Hey, I don't faint," the cop said just before his eyes rolled up and he pitched face forward onto the rug.
"Jesus," Richard muttered, checking the man's airway to make sure he hadn't swallowed his tongue. "Somebody get his legs up."
A man and a woman at his feet complied, each raising one of his lower limbs and holding it there. Almost immediately he started to come around.
"Does anybody have a first-aid kit?" Richard examined the injured hand. It was a small puncture, but probably dirty as hell, considering where the rat had been. "He'll also need an injection of antibiotics, and a tetanus shot, so after I dress the wound, take him to the nearest ER."
"Hey, Detective McKnight, look at this," said one of the plainclothes detectives who was peering into Lockman's open chest with a flashlight.
"Is that rat still in there?" McKnight asked.
"No, it escaped out the window."
"You're sure there's not another one hiding inside somewhere?"
"It's safe, I promise."
McKnight nevertheless approached the corpse very warily.
Someone handed Richard a small white box filled with basic bandages and plasters. As he wrapped the hand, he watched what was going on in the shower stall.
Mc Knight took a peek in the gaping cavity, and his eyebrows shot skyward, his forehead folding up like an accordion. "What the hell?" He reached over to where someone had left a box of fresh latex gloves and pulled on a pair. As his colleague held the light, he gingerly reached inside the opening and retrieved what from a distance looked like a blood-covered twig from a tree or hedge.
The detective grabbed a zip-lock bag from a nearby case and placed what he'd found inside it. He looked up and saw Richard watching. He hesitated, then brought the bag over to where Richard was finishing bandaging his now fully awake patient.
Up close Richard saw it was indeed some kind of branch.
"What do you think this might mean?" Mc Knight asked.
"Mean?"
"Yeah."
"Probably that our little furry friends planned to set up house inside Lockman and were building a nest. I mean, give me a break."
McKnight didn't smile.
"You don't seriously think the killer would put it there, like some kind of message, do you?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Why?"
"How do I know? Maybe whoever did this is after doctors who are cruel to plants and shrubs."
"I meant why do you think its being there has anything to do with the killer at all?"
"Because at the New York City Public Library we found a branch just like it on a windowsill. Right where we figure the shooter knelt to take out Hamlin. "He was nearly at her cubicle, no one paying him any notice. He'd even made it a point to clean around the beds of the other patients so as to not attract attention when he would make a similar approach to her. He shouldn't have any trouble. As far as he could see, the nurses pretty well left her alone.
He pushed his cart to the foot of her bed and proceeded to run the mop under it. After a few strokes for show, he moved up to where the IV bottle hung suspended on a pole dangling from the ceiling, continuing to wipe slowly. All the while he kept an eye out for a moment when no one had a line of sight into the cubicle. But too many people were about. Better to wait.
As he worked, he stole a glance at the woman he would soon dispatch to God's justice. Given her complete stillness and absolutely expressionless face, he wasn't prepared for the alert, steady gaze that studied him in return. He gave a small start back, feeling uneasy for an instant, then recovered enough to offer her a big smile.
Her only response was to blink at him a few times, then open and close her right hand.
"And hello to you, too," he said, continuing to grin at her. "No one to visit you tonight?" She blinked once.
"Does that mean no?"
She blinked twice.
"And two is yes?"
Two more blinks.
"Well, aren't you clever."
He hated women like her. Independent. Not married. Defiant of the Lord and His plan. Her work in genetics in particular was the work of Satan. It pleased him no end to see her laid so low, struck down by the mighty Jehovah for her sins. And no way must she, or anyone else, be allowed to survive His wrath by benefiting by measures that compounded those sins and defiled His works.
He put aside the mop and, keeping his back to the rest of her room, retrieved the syringe from his pocket. He waited a few more seconds, watching her eyes shoot wide open at the sight of it, enjoying her dawning realization that it was all wrong, that cleaners didn't give needles, that he shouldn't be taking the cap off a syringe. He also watched her for any movements other than of her hands and eyes, wanting to be sure that she was as helpless as his information had led him to believe. He'd have to inject her in a split second to avoid being seen, and couldn't afford having her struggle. His smile widened. Apart from her starting to furiously bat her eyelids and make clawing motions with her fingers, the rest of her never budged.
He turned his head and scanned behind him.
A pair of residents were bent over a chart at the central console where all the monitors were located. The unit supervisor stood beside them, and all three had their heads down in an earnest discussion. But if any one of them so much as glanced up, he'd be seen. Better hold off some more.
He recapped the syringe, pocketed it again, and resumed his mopping, keeping an eye on the trio, ready to act the second he was in the clear.
She was at his mercy.
Who the hell was he? What was in the syringe? And why the hell didn't anyone notice he was hanging around her so long? Stop him, someone! Don't you see him? Doesn't anyone spot the needle? For God's sake. Stop him, please, before he injects me with it!But her mute pleas were, of course, fruitless.
No one seemed to realize that he was even there.
Oh, God, she wailed in her prison of silence, the panic growing.
Was he associated with Hamlin? Did Lockman set him on her? Did the person who killed Hamlin also want to silence her? Her mind was too scrambled by fear to sort it out. All she could think now was how she could stop him.
She knew enough as a scientist to guess at what might be in the syringe.
Insulin? It could send her into hypoglycemic shock, knock off her brain, and leave her convulsing to death.
Cyanide
, to destroy the oxygen transport system in her blood?
Potassium maybe, to stop her heart?
Or would he infest her with something to give her a more lingering death?
Such as AIDS perhaps? What difference did it make how he intended to kill her?
She had to stop him.
The nurses had pinned the cord of a call button near her hand, but the device itself had gotten away from her and slid under the covers.
Increasingly terrified, she tried to move her fingers, thinking she might drag her hand toward it.
At first she couldn't get any traction, the tips of her nails slipping on the surface of the bedsheet, and she was unable to budge the weight of her arm. She dug her nails in and tried again. Her right hand crept forward— but she needed to back it under the covers to reach the call button. This time she pressed their tips into the bed and shoved, extending her fingers.
Her hand slid backward slightly.
The man continued to eye the rest of the room.
Probably waiting until no one was in sight, she thought, quickly repeating the process. Her fingers suddenly lost their grip and splayed out flat, making a tiny brushing sound. It was barely audible above the hiss of the respirator. The man's eyes darted toward her.
He heard her! She held her hand perfectly still.
After a few seconds he went back to watching outside the cubicle.
She tried again.
Her fingers once more flew out straight, their quiet sweeping noise again attracting his attention.
Damn! she thought, waiting for him to look away. But he continued to watch her, a puzzled expression on his face. It seemed forever, but he finally went back to scrutinizing the room.
She had to go for a smaller distance at a time, she told herself, and flexed her fingers only halfway closed. When she extended them, her hand moved a half inch backward.
She did it again.
A quarter inch. On her third effort she lost traction and gained nothing.
The man fired her an angry look. "What are you doing?" he asked in a very low voice as he took a step closer.
Surely he wouldn't notice such a minuscule change in the position of her arm, she tried to reassure herself while fixing her gaze on the sheets, unable to bear the rage she saw in his eyes as he towered over her. Please, why didn't someone see him and come to help? But in her isolation she heard only the pounding of her heart. It was racing so she figured the monitor's alarms must be shut off, or they surely would have rung by now.
All at once she heard him move and went cold with fear. Was he taking out the syringe?
She snapped her eyes upward, only to see him working the mop at the end of the cubicle looking to the right and left as if he were about to cross a street. Or making a final check that no one could observe him.
She dug in her nails and extended her fingers, over and over, no longer caring how quiet she was. Ever so slowly her hand slipped increasingly under the covers.
He took one more quick look in both directions and propped the mop against the bed.
The son of a bitch was going to do it, she squeaked, flicking her fingers open so roughly that her hand jerked completely from view with a series of little leaps, like spiders jumping. She felt her forearm brush against the call button as she pushed by it, then her wrist. In just a few more moves she'd have her palm over it.
He reached into his pocket, and brought out the syringe, shielding it from view with his back.
Oh, my God, she whimpered, trying to aim her movements. The button fell off to one side, against the fleshy part of her thumb. She pushed with her pinkie, attempting to bring her palm more in line. She ended up sliding the device to the side. Wo/She tried furiously to get her fingers wrapped around it. The activity made the overlying sheet squirm.
He leaned over her, removed the cap, and brought the needle up to a side portal in the IV tubing.
Knowing she was out of time, with one big effort she managed to plop the center of her palm over the device, and with another push, grip it between her index finger and thumb. Desperately she felt for the button.
"What the hell?" he muttered, looking at the motion under the covers. He quickly lifted the corner of them and snatched the call button from her hand before she could press it. "Well, aren't you the crafty little bitch," he whispered, laying it back near her pillow, well out of her reach.
This was it, she thought. The only choice left now was how to die. Stare down her executioner, or retreat behind closed eyes for want of a blindfold as he killed her.
No. That would make it too easy for him. Better defy the bastard. Stare him down. Let her face haunt him until the end of his days.
He reached again for the side portal.
Thoughts of Lisa, of Chet, of Richard raced through her head. Take care of them for me, my love, she said to Richard, knowing it was a silent prayer.
"Is everything all right in there?" called the familiar, imperious voice of her spike-haired nurse with the ring in her nose from somewhere over near the central console with all the monitors.
The sound of that irritating woman usually set Kathleen's teeth on edge, but at this moment it sounded as sweet as a bugle call heralding the arrival of the cavalry charging to the rescue. The man, his back still turned to the room, immediately slipped the cap back on the needle and shielded it from view as he pocketed it. "Yes, ma'am. Just finishing up," he said over his shoulder. "The patient's call button had slipped away from her, and I was getting it is all."
The nurse glided up to Kathleen's side. "Awake, are you?" she said. "The monitors showed your pulse and pressure going sky high again."
Kathleen made frantic grasping movements with her fingers and blinked so rapidly she created a strobe for herself.
"Now calm down, Dr. Sullivan, or I'll have to sedate you."
No!
"I told you, get hold of yourself."
He was going to kill me.
"You've been doing so well lately, with almost no panic attacks since the night of your surgery. It would be a shame to go back on midazolam now."
Then don't give it to me, you dimwitted, pill-pushing, needle-happy cow, and payattention to the man behind you.
"I'm sorry, you'll have to leave your cleaning for now," she said, as if on cue. "I want her to rest."
He simply leaned on his mop. "Perhaps I should come back later after you've sedated her?"
"Yes, that would be fine," she answered, without so much as a flick of her eyes in his direction. "But make it a couple of hours from now, will you? Just before change of shift, when most of the visitors are gone. That's when the whole place really needs a sweep up, given all the dust they track in. It's twice as bad since they extended the times for having families underfoot in here."
He stood stock-still, staring at the woman's back, then at Kathleen, his pupils dilating with fury at being sent away. His eyes looked so big she imagined peeking into his head, looking around inside, and getting a firsthand glimpse of a madman's brain.
"Whatever you want," he said after a few seconds, turning and walking over to his cart.
"And don't wake her or anyone else when you do return," she called after him. "It's hard enough getting them bedded down without you lot banging about."
"I'll be quiet as a ghost," he answered over his shoulder, still gazing directly at Kathleen. "The last thing you've got to worry about is anyone waking up when I'm around."
"Then how come you guys always bang down the wastebaskets?" she muttered, reaching for one of the medication trays and taking out the familiar brown vial. In seconds she broke it open, stuck in a syringe, and loaded a few milliliters of the clear fluid into the barrel.
Please, don't, Kathleen begged.
Without hesitation, the nurse plunged the needle into a side port on the IV, and slowly pushed in the plunger.
Kathleen felt the familiar icy headache creep across the inside of her skull, followed by a smothering cap of darkness pulling itself down over
her eyes like a black hood.
Richard hunched forward, straining to see through cataracts of rain sheeting down his windshield, knuckles as luminescent and white as a dashboard ornament. The deluge had accompanied him for most of the drive back to Manhattan from Long Island.
Damn wipers! he thought. Might as well try and part the Red Sea with them.
He glanced at his watch. Even after having broken about every speed limit on the way back, it was still well past ten-thirty. Would Kathleen be asleep? As anxious as he was to get at the records of Hamlin's patients, he wanted even more to tell her about Lockman.
He was driving north on the elevated FDR Expressway that skirted Manhattan's east side. On his right the East River was little more than a black smudge. On his left the core of the city seemed to be nothing but soaring lattices of flickering lights in a watery gloom.
The carnage that he'd seen at Lockman's house kept seeping into his head. He tried to block it out, but found himself wondering, What was the motive? Why carve him up so brutally? A bullet to the back of the head to silence a threat, yes, but to dissect a man while he was still alive? That went way beyond just keeping him quiet. And what the hell was the business with the twigs?
Spotting his exit, he headed down, unable to slip the sensation he was at the controls of a submersible.
"Christ!" he muttered, gripping the wheel harder still as the vehicle plowed through a deep puddle at the foot of the ramp and lurched to one side. Its wheels planing over the water, it sent arches of spray cascading onto each side of the street. After a short zig and a zag, he turned on Thirty-third and pulled into the hospital parking lot.
He took the steps up to ICU a pair at a time, hit the metal disc, opening the doors with a hydraulic whoosh, and crossed the distance to Kathleen's bed in half a dozen strides.
She lay on her side, much as he'd left her over four hours ago. He felt a slow burn in the pit of his stomach, angry that the nurses obviously hadn't turned her since. Nonhealing skin ulcers the size of drink coasters would be the result if they didn't get with it and regularly change her position to relieve the pressure points on her shoulders and hips. He knelt beside her and ran his hand through her hair.
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