by Jan Coffey
There’d been another shooting. This one in Orlando, Florida. Eight wounded and five fatalities. The shooter was one of the dead. The media was doubling the numbers. Another star student. Varsity basketball player. Good home life, from first reports. A totally unlikely suspect. Hank and Bryan had been on a conference call with Geary about the incident when Lexi Bradley had come back up here. As a result, he hadn’t learned what was going on up here until the fur was flying.
“She kept saying something about a phone call. She was really spooked. Something about someone leaving a message for her that her son wasn’t safe.”
“Why don’t you go and check on her while I see what I can find out from the doctor attending the boy,” Hank suggested.
Bryan put a hand on his partner’s arm. “You’d better come and give her an update as soon as you know something.”
Hank nodded. They both understood what she was going through.
Seven shootings and Juan Bradley was the only assailant who’d survived. And now his mother thought her son’s life was in danger. Everything was possible.
Bryan knocked and started to go in. She materialized before him, blocking his way. She looked past him toward her son’s door. Her expression showed her agitation.
“Agent Atwood,” she said quickly. “Did they find anything? Is Juan okay?”
“The doctor and nurses are looking after him now. No one has mentioned any problem with him, yet.”
Lexi’s gaze never wavered from the open door across the hall. A nurse appeared, wheeling out some equipment. The nurse appeared calm. She even said something to the officers and they chuckled.
“Do you know if they’ve done a blood glucose test or any liver function tests? Whatever was given to him might be reversible if they act fast enough.”
She took a step in that direction as if she were going to find the answers to the questions herself.
Bryan moved into her path and blocked her. “Let them do their jobs.”
“No. I can’t wait for them to do their jobs. They’re not doing shit for my son,” she exploded. “They stop me, but they let a perfect stranger in his room. If I hadn’t gone in there, Juan could be dead. And I don’t know how he’s doing now. No one has the decency to come and tell me anything. For Gods sake, I’m his mother.”
“He’s stable,” a small voice said from behind Bryan.
He looked over his shoulder. The nurse who had just left Juan’s room was standing in the hallway. She was speaking to Lexi.
“The doctor is running a number of tests, but your son is doing fine.”
Lexi sagged against the door. The lines of worry were still pronounced in her face, but the little bit of information had helped.
“You really believe someone tampered with his IV medication?” Bryan asked when the nurse moved off toward her station.
Her blue eyes were red-rimmed when they looked up at him. “It wasn’t my imagination. I didn’t make the whole thing up so I could rush in there and get a glimpse of him.”
“You did more than that. You disconnected his medication.”
“I’m a doctor,” she said sharply, temper raising color in her cheeks again. “What I did for Juan I would have done for any other patient. There were witnesses—those police officers—who told me someone, most likely someone unconnected with the hospital, was in Juan’s room. I didn’t disconnect a life support system…only an IV.”
Bryan was still standing in the doorway. He looked down at her hands curled around the edge of the open door.
“No, you didn’t disconnect a life support system,” he said calmly. She was falling apart without his help. He didn’t need to push her over the edge. “May I come in?”
Lexi paused. Her blue eyes studied him for a couple of seconds before she turned and walked back into the middle of the room.
Bryan stepped in and closed the door behind him. He watched her hands rub her arms. Her gaze was restless. She started pacing a six-foot stretch of tiles.
“Don’t try to lecture me on what I should and shouldn’t do,” she started. “As a mother and a medical professional, I had reason enough to disconnect the IV.”
“I have no intention of lecturing you. You know your business. I know mine.”
“Okay then.” She rubbed her neck, let out a frustrated breath. She was all frayed nerves. “The nurse…or whatever she was…put something in his system. I know whatever tests they run will confirm it. I know my own kid.”
He was sure she did. Bryan had read enough about her to understand that Lexi Bradley was pretty grounded and sensible in her everyday life. She was also extremely intelligent and very cautious of public displays. And on top of it all, she had an excellent reputation as a doctor.
“What was this phone call that you mentioned to the officers? Or was it a message?”
She’s ceased her pacing. “It was a message left at my home answering machine. Would you like to listen to it?”
“Of course.”
She pulled her cell phone from her pants pocket, punched in some numbers, and put her ear to the phone. Bryan noticed that her hand was trembling. He figured it was either from fatigue or raw nerves.
“Here it is,” she said. “The first time around I didn’t really get it. I had to listen to it a couple of times.”
Bryan listened to the message. She was right. The first time around all he could hear were a few words here and there. Twice more through, though, and he had a good handle on what the caller was saying. But this didn’t mean the caller wasn’t just some crank.
“And you said this was left on your home number?” he asked after listening to the message another time.
She nodded.
“If you want us to, I can get the number the person called from.”
“Yes, I want you to pursue this if it will help keep Juan safe. You said you know your business. Do whatever else that needs to be done.”
Bryan used his own cell phone and dialed the number in Washington. It took only a few moments to start the ball on tracing the incoming calls that had been made to Lexi’s home number.
“This is a man’s voice,” she said as he hung up. “Both of those officers out there told me that a woman who presented herself as a nurse, but who doesn’t appear to have any connection with the nursing staff on this floor, was in Juan’s room. That’s two people. How do we know that there aren’t more? I don’t know if Juan is safe here at this hospital.”
“We’re still not sure if anything was done to your son or if the phone call and that nurse are connected. He might be just fine and there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for that nurse’s visit.”
She sank onto the edge of a chair. “As much as my instincts tell me you’re wrong, I really hope you’re right. I just want my son to be safe.”
He believed her. And he hoped he was right about the boy being okay. The sooner Juan Bradley was awake and could talk to them, the sooner Bryan hoped they might understand how these shootings were connected. That is, if they were connected.
Lexi ran a tissue under each eye. He could see she was trying to gather her strength, control her emotions. Bryan watched her for a couple of moments in silence until she finally looked up.
“I never had a chance to talk to the doctor downstairs. Did you?” she asked.
“No.”
“Will you please let me know if you find something?” she asked in a much calmer tone. “You’re the only one who seems to have an understanding of what I’m going through.”
He felt the muscles in his face grow taut. What he understood was his business, and he didn’t like having her notice it. “I don’t know why you say that. We all want to understand what is happening. There are a lot of unanswered questions about these shootings.”
“It’s not that.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, but there’s something right beneath the surface with you, Agent Atwood. There’s a look that I can’t describe. And you’re here. Talking to me. You didn’t have to be. You coul
d have sent one of your people to question the crazy mother. But you didn’t.”
Her eyes looked like crystals when they filled with tears. She was paler now than before. He searched for the right words to deny her words. He didn’t need feelings causing conflict in investigating this case.
She stabbed at a tear on her cheek and waved both hands in the air. “Please don’t change, Agent Atwood. I need someone who will deal with me the way I deal with them. Honesty both ways. That’s all I’m asking. And I promise not to create a problem…with you doing your job.”
Again she knew what he was thinking.
She pushed to her feet. “Unless you have other questions for me right now, I’d like to go downstairs and get my bag. I think I left it in the conference room where we were waiting.”
Bryan nodded, realizing he was still holding on to her cell phone. He handed it to her.
“They’ll find who made the call,” he said.
She went ahead of him out of the room. In the hallway she paused, looking at the Juan’s door. It was closed. With the exception of the same two officers, no one else was in sight. She looked over her shoulder at him.
“I’ll need to know what they found out.”
“Why don’t you go downstairs and get your stuff. Agent Gardner was trying to get some answers. I’ll make sure he talks to you when you get back.”
“Thank you, Agent Atwood,” she whispered under her breath. “You’re a good man.”
Bryan watched her walk to the elevator.
“Shit,” he murmured under his breath. Lexi Bradley had the wrong affect on him. He found her attractive. She made him care. He rubbed his neck. That meant vulnerability. He had to stop. When the elevator door closed behind her, he turned to the two policemen on duty. “Are the doctor and nurses still in there?”
“Only one of the nurses is left. The doctor was with Agent Gardner before he left the floor.”
“And where’s Gardner?” Bryan asked.
“He’s in that room,” one of them motioned to two doors down the hall. “He asked if you could stop to talk to him.”
Bryan was glad Hank had a chance to talk to the doctor. He wondered if they’d recovered Juan’s missing files. Inside the room, he found his partner on the phone. The psychologist’s tone was outwardly calm, but Bryan knew him well enough to know that Hank was definitely pissed off.
“I will explain it to Agent Atwood, but I believe he’s going to share my sentiments. I don’t understand your reasoning.” Hank motioned to Bryan to close the door.
Whatever was said on the other end only received a noncommittal grunt from Gardner in response. “I’m sure Atwood will contact you himself.”
Bryan’s curiosity was definitely piqued.
“What was that about?” he asked as soon as the other man ended the call.
“The nurse visiting Juan’s hospital room has vanished,” Hank explained. “No one knows who she was. So far, no one in any department is taking responsibility for sending her up here.”
“What does hospital security say?”
“They’re bringing someone in to set it up for the cops in the hall to look at personnel photos. Nothing beyond that. But I don’t expect them to find her on the list of employees.”
“Why?”
“Because it appears that she might have done something to Juan, possibly injected some toxin into the IV bag.”
Lexi’s instincts had been right. “What do you mean, something?”
“I mean, the mother knew what she was doing. So far, the tests they’ve run haven’t shown what it was that phony nurse gave him, but the kid is showing symptoms of foul play.”
“What’s going on with him?” Bryan asked.
“Hypoglycemia, rapid heart rate, sweating. My guess is that if he were conscious, there’d be other symptoms…like headache, fainting, slurred speech. Symptoms of seriously low sugar.”
“Low sugar? You mean, as in diabetic stuff?”
“So you were listening during biology class.”
Bryan wasn’t feeling amused. “Did Juan have any record of diabetes or any problems like this before?”
Hank shook his head. “His blood test from this morning was fine. What they just took out of him shows a major drop in blood sugar. We can’t prove it yet, but the doctor’s guess is that he might have been injected with couple hundred units of Humulin N, a long-acting variety of insulin. They’re trying to stabilize the blood sugar right now, but Juan would have been dead by morning if his mother hadn’t rushed in there. The IV bag is in the lab right now. We’ll know pretty quick if it was juiced up with insulin.”
This wasn’t coincidental stuff, nor was it a simple attempt at revenge. An average person wouldn’t go this far for retaliation.
Bryan wondered if the information the nurse had given Lexi in the hall had been a lie to calm her down. “How is Juan doing now?”
“He didn’t slide into respiratory arrest. So that’s good. I told you that they’re working on the blood sugar. There’s a nurse staying with him, monitoring that. The doctor needed to make two more patient visits, but he should be back to check on him in a few minutes. With any luck, the kid shouldn’t be any worse than he was.”
“Have the uniformed officers at the door been briefed about who to let in that room? This might not be a one-time thing.”
“They’ve been given specific orders. And I’ve asked the FBI and the local police force to immediately increase the security in the hospital.”
The numbers ran through Bryan’s head again. Seven shootings and Juan Bradley was the only survivor. What happened if all of the violence was connected? If these shootings were somehow being orchestrated, then someone might want Juan dead. Especially if they were planning more killings. But what wackos would be doing this? He remembered the phone call on Lexi’s answering machine.
“Someone did leave a warning message on Dr. Bradley’s home number. I listened to it myself.”
“So?”
“Our people are putting a trace on it,” Bryan said. “What was going on with the phone call when I came in?”
Hank sat down on the edge of the hospital bed. “I think you’ll want to sit down for this.”
“What?”
“I was on the phone with Geary,” Hank told him. “I called him.”
“To tell him about the attempt on Juan’s life?”
“That and the fact that I learned from that doctor downstairs that our right hand doesn’t exactly know what our left hand is doing,” Hank told him.
“What exactly is going on?” Bryan asked.
“Juan Bradley’s records.”
“They were missing.”
“Twice,” Hank added. “His test results from Monday have vanished into thin air. But the ones from this morning were sent to Geary’s people without you and me ever being told.”
Bryan was really getting annoyed. He sat down on the edge of the closest chair. “We were told a couple of hours ago that those records were missing.”
“The hospital records are the ones that are missing. But, apparently, they’ve been sending duplicate records of everything to Geary as soon as they’ve become available. He’s had all of them, right along.”
Bryan felt his temperature rising. “We were on the phone with him less than an hour ago. We told him about the missing files. He never bothered to tell us he already had them.”
“That would be correct,” Hank responded, biting off each word. “When I asked him about it, he said he didn’t think that was relevant, so he didn’t mention it. But that’s not all of it.”
In the past decade, there had been major shakeups of the federal agencies in terms of personnel and significant transformations in policy and duties, but one thing that hadn’t changed was the fact that every branch still looked after its own interests first. In most working situations, as much as they pretended, there was still a very proprietary attitude about information. Cooperation and information sharing was still a joke. This wa
s yet another perfect example.
“What else is the sonovabitch hiding from us?” Bryan asked.
“It’s not what he’s hiding, but what his department plans to do,” Hank told him. “The decision has been made by Geary or someone above him that Juan Bradley should be transferred to a certain VA hospital for observation and for his own safety. The troubling part for me is that his mother will not be allowed to accompany him there. Also, she is not to be told about the specifics of the attempt on his life tonight.”
“She was the one who pulled the IV,” Bryan protested. “She already knows there’s something wrong. She’s an MD, for God’s sake.”
“I pointed that out.”
“I can see them wanting to move him if we can’t protect him here, but why keep the parent away. She’s done everything we’ve asked her, been cooperative every step of the way.” Lexi Bradley was upset now, but she’d be destroyed if they moved her son somewhere where she had no access to him.
“I told Geary that as a psychologist and as the ranking medical member of the team, I wasn’t supporting his actions regarding keeping Dr. Bradley away. Oh, I assured him you won’t be happy with this, either.”
“And what was his response to that?”
“He thinks we should fly to Florida tonight and put our focus on interviewing some of the witnesses of the most recent shooting.”
“That’s bullshit,” Bryan said, pushing up to his feet. “We aren’t done here. We haven’t even spoken to Juan yet. They called the wrong agents if they wanted people whose chain they could yank so easily. I think it’s my turn to call Special Agent in Charge Geary.”
~~~~
Chapter 14
Hank Gardner left the room just as the phone conversation between Bryan and Geary started getting colorful. The psychologist had no doubt that his partner would have his way, at least for the short term, anyway. After putting Geary on the defensive about withholding information on the medical tests, Bryan was moving on to the legal, ethical, and public relations issues involved in keeping Lexi Bradley from her son. Earning a law degree before joining the U.S. Secret Service had always served Bryan well. Having personal connections with certain presidential cabinet members and high-ranking administrators in the Justice Department didn’t hurt his clout, either.