“What’s that guy’s deal?” he asked.
A number of the patients in this wing were murderers, rapists, or both; several had gotten some buzz in the media. The name Theodore McKay didn’t ring any bells.
“Can we at least take him to his room?” asked McManus, visibly upset. It was the first time she had spoken. Roger, who kept his grip on the wheelchair, shot her a disapproving glance.
“He’s one of Dr. Hill’s patients,” Roger explained.
“That’s going to have to stay out there,” the officer said, pointing at the horseshoe that Ted clutched in both hands.
“We’ll see.”
25
Marcus Grant was the director of C wing, fifty years old and a likely candidate for rising someday to the position of general director of the hospital. That was his motivation to work hard, day after day. He was a bachelor, childless, and showed no signs of planning to have children in the future. Making it to the top rung at Lavender Memorial had, sadly, become his only realistic aspiration. He hadn’t completely given up on the possibility of meeting a woman worth marrying, but it was a dream he saw slipping farther and farther away with the passage of time.
He’d had lasting relationships with the wrong women. Take his current relationship, with Carmen, for example. A woman one year younger than him, divorced, with two sons in their twenties off at college, Carmen was bright and cheerful, a free spirit. Middle age, the empty nest, a house with the mortgage paid off, an undemanding job as a hairstylist—all that and maybe more had made her ready, willing, and able to enjoy every moment, to “try new things.”
But Marcus had no genuine interest in her, beyond sex and random moments of relaxation. Carmen was superficial, had no ambitions, and, worst of all, couldn’t understand why work held such an important spot in Marcus’s life.
“You work too hard, honey! You should do what I did at the beauty shop: I got organized, and now I even have time on my hands.”
A relationship with no future.
“May I come in?” Laura Hill asked, poking her head through the doorway to Marcus’s office.
Marcus was yanked from his troubles, and his face lit up.
“What a pleasant surprise! Come on in.”
Marcus stood up and walked around his desk. He meant to greet Laura with a kiss on the cheek, but she placed herself in such a way that all he could do was pull out a chair for her to sit on. It wasn’t an uncomfortable moment—Marcus was always a gentleman—but it was a clear signal on her part.
“Have you already had lunch?” Laura asked.
Marcus was about to sit down again.
“Not yet,” he said, hopes raised. “You want to go get something?”
“No. I’m going to skip lunch. It’s that…what I have to tell you can’t wait.”
Marcus nodded, dejected, and sat down. That’s how it always went with Laura. She dangled the carrot and then quickly withdrew it. She could do this to him a hundred times, and each time Marcus would take the bait. Or maybe it was him. Maybe he was just imagining carrots the whole time.
Lately the tension between them had been building somewhat. Marcus’s interest in Laura was unmistakable, even though he’d never talked to her directly about it. She didn’t seem to have the same feelings for him.
When his romance with Carmen went on the rocks, Marcus subtly began trying to get closer to Dr. Hill, dropping comments on how things were going badly with his girlfriend, things like that, and one fine day Laura started giving him hints (carrots): a smile, a swish of the hips, a hand on his back that lingered a beat longer than usual. He tried to take things a little bit further a couple of times, suggesting that they go out for dinner or meet after working hours, but she came up with one excuse after another, without ever categorically turning him down. Marcus had come to think that Laura acted like this only because she was trying to forget her ex-husband.
But there was another angle on it, one that Marcus chose not to see, which was that Laura had been cashing in on her good relationship with him. She had moved up the ranks at the hospital and had gotten Marcus to intercede on her behalf more than once with Dr. McMills, the general director of the hospital.
Laura looked him right in the eye.
“I need a tremendous favor from you, Marcus.”
She’d asked him for favors before, but never a tremendous favor.
“If there’s anything I can do.”
“I need to get a patient admitted to C wing,” she said, going straight to the point.
Marcus relaxed.
“That won’t be a problem. We have five rooms available. I’ll send Sarah the paperwork right now so that she can—”
“I need it done now.”
Laura turned her Medusa glare on him.
“What do you mean by ‘now’?”
The process of admitting a new patient normally took several days. Marcus could do his part in record time, but even so…
“My head nurse is in the wing right now, with the patient. I need you to authorize his admission.”
Don’t slip up, Marcus. Don’t give her the wrong answer.
Or she’ll turn you into stone…
“Laura, are you out of your mind? What do you mean they’re in the wing now?”
“In the admissions room. Your security people won’t let them in, even though my people told them they were there on my behalf.”
“Of course they didn’t let them in!” Marcus stood up. “I can’t believe it. The fact that they are there at all puts me in a bad light. Please get them off my wing immediately.”
Marcus strode over to the sole window in his second-floor office and gazed down at the hospital courtyard, empty now but for an orderly raking the fallen leaves. He massaged his temples. He didn’t want to turn around, because he knew that if he looked at her he’d give in. What she was asking of him was insane, a potential career ender. He heard Laura stand up and smelled the sweet fragrance of her perfume, and then heard her voice whispering into his ear.
“Look at me, Marcus. Let me explain.”
He turned around.
There it was again, that deep gaze, the soft touch of her fingers on the back of his hand, the thumb circling in a barely perceptible caress.
“I know how much I’m asking of you,” Laura said, her voice very low. “I wouldn’t have turned to you if I didn’t think you were my only hope.”
“Laura, please,” he said, scuttling to the other side of the room to put his desk between them. She followed him with her eyes but didn’t move any closer, remaining by the window with a forlorn expression that almost forced Marcus to return and comfort her. She’d gone from seductive flirt to helpless maiden in the blink of an eye.
“I’m sorry you don’t trust me.”
“Trust you! At least tell me who the patient is. Why do you need to get him admitted on such short notice?”
“He’s a special patient.”
“I don’t understand. Someone you know?”
“No.” Laura sat back down. “I can’t tell you the whole case, at least not yet. It would take too long, and as I said, Roger is with him now in C wing. It is very important for his treatment that he be admitted immediately. He might have a breakdown otherwise.”
“My God, Laura.” Marcus also sat. With his elbows on the desk, he closed his eyes, clutched his head, and shook it back and forth.
When he looked up, he caught sight of a smile on Laura’s lips that quickly disappeared.
“What’s so funny, Laura?”
“The gesture you just made—never mind. It’s personal.”
“Like your patient.”
“Exactly.”
Marcus’s resolve was growing stronger.
“If this patient of yours can’t stay in the general wing—and I have no reason to doubt your professional opinion—then I’m sure Sarah will understand. Let’s go talk to her now and explain the situation. I’ll give you my full support, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”
“Sarah will never authorize an admission to C wing until it has been evaluated by the medical board. You know that perfectly well.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. My hands are tied.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” she said gravely. “Give me the admission form with your signature. I’ll fill it out and bring it to C wing in person. If anyone complains, I’ll tell them I lifted it from your office.”
Marcus was flabbergasted.
“Why would you do something like that?”
“You know how I feel about my practice, Marcus. I don’t give a damn about bureaucratic bullshit or getting ahead in this crappy hospital. All I care about are my patients. This one in particular. If I don’t get him into C wing today, I might as well flush all the progress we’ve made down the drain, and I’m determined not to do that.”
“If he’s going to be on my wing, I’ll need you to tell me about him.”
“I will. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll tell you all you want.”
“When will you speak to Sarah?”
“As soon as I can. Where are the admission forms?”
They left the office together. Marcus’s secretary was on her lunch break, luckily for them.
“Here you go,” he said, handing her a form he had pulled from one of the filing cabinets. “You saw where I got it from.”
She nodded. She set it on the desk.
“I need you to sign it, Marcus.”
“What? You just said you were going to forge my signature!”
“No, that’s what I’ll tell them later, when I have to make excuses for the form. Right now I have to be sure nobody down there gets suspicious. I couldn’t even try to fake your signature. Make your mark. That’ll be good enough.”
Marcus had fallen for it once more.
“A handwriting expert could—”
“Marcus, I told you: I’ll say I forged it! It’s my ass on the line here. I’ll give you all the details later, if you want them so badly, and I’ll say I stole the form. You’re so worried about not screwing up your job, you’ve turned into a little bureaucrat.”
Ouch.
“I’ll sign.” Marcus grabbed a pen off his secretary’s desk.
He handed her the form, now with his signature on it.
“I knew I could count on you,” Laura said with another hint of a smile. She moved closer, until her face was less than a foot from his. Was she going to give him a kiss? Her pupils moved feverishly, exploring his face.
She did not kiss him.
26
Laura Hill handed the form to the guard in an obvious rush. He started to tell her she needed to take it to the administrative offices first; before he finished his sentence, she had already told him she’d do it later, but for now the main thing was to get her patient to his room. The guard said no more.
Laura, Roger, and Nurse McManus set off for the patients’ rooms. To get there they had to pass through two more security checks and the common room, where several patients watched them with interest. There they met Robert Scott, head nurse of C wing, who was friendly with Roger. He greeted them formally and informed them without delay that the room was ready; he was aware of the situation and would ask no questions. As far as he was concerned, if Dr. Hill and Director Grant had agreed between themselves to break a few rules, he had no reason to get involved.
These were modern rooms. One wall of each was entirely made of glass. The doors could be opened remotely or by punching in a code. Scott slid his ID card into the slot and entered the combination. The door yielded with a soft suction sound. Laura rolled the wheelchair inside; Roger and McManus grabbed Ted under his arms and laid him on the bed. The horseshoe slipped from his lap and clattered across the tile floor. Laura bent down, picked it up, and, after thinking it over for a second, put it back in Ted’s hands. The effects of the sedative were wearing off, and he was able to close his fingers around one end of the iron object.
“Leave me alone with him for a moment.”
Roger and McManus looked at each other uneasily. At last they consented. Ted was manacled hand and foot and could barely lift a finger.
The pair rejoined Scott in the corridor. Scott was staring intently through the glass wall of the patient’s room. If anything happened to the doctor, it would be his responsibility, and the fact was, he knew nothing about this guy, who might be pretending and might try strangling the doctor at his first chance. There were patients on the wing who would do that and worse if you let down your guard just a little.
On the other side of the glass wall, Laura moved close to Ted.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” she said. “Try to rest. You’ll be perfectly fine here.”
Ted’s eyes were still half closed and unfocused. When Laura turned to leave, he shifted his gaze slightly to watch her walk out of the room.
McManus returned later and, with another nurse’s help, dressed Ted in a new set of grays. At some point Ted flipped onto his side. The bed was relatively comfortable.
He awoke several times during the night, confused. From the bed he could see the darkened corridor and across it to the room opposite his. In it, a man of about fifty stood, staring back at him, his face twisted into a grimace of hatred.
27
“Hey, anybody! I need you here, right fucking now!”
Ted banged on the glass again with the palms of his hands. He remembered Lynch knocking on his own door almost as vehemently.
He turned around. The horseshoe lay on the bed; he had fallen asleep holding it, like a kid with his favorite teddy bear. He knew he couldn’t use it to break the glass, which must have been bulletproof, but he could make more noise with it than by slapping the glass or screaming. He went to get it and was just about to start banging it against the glass when the man in the room across the hall, who had been sitting on his bed the whole time with his face buried in a book, looked up a little and spoke.
“Not a good idea,” he said calmly. His voice was dampened by the two glass walls between them.
“So now you can talk,” Ted said. The first thing he’d tried to do before he started in with all this bullshit was get his neighbor’s attention, but the man had chosen to ignore him.
“They’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” the man replied in the same distant-sounding voice.
The vision of the man—standing behind the glass with that expression of utter hatred—that Ted had had the night before assailed him like a ghastly reminder of a bad dream. The contrast with his serenity now and with the incipient smile on his face was extreme. He was handsome, tanned, with close-cropped hair that was beginning to gray, as was his neatly trimmed beard. He seemed like the most harmless and trustworthy guy in the world.
“Fifteen minutes, huh? How do you know?”
The man held the book in one hand and stretched out his free arm. The sleeve of his gray shirt drew back to reveal a watch.
“I can tell time.”
“Very funny.”
“Seven is wash time. I was hoping to finish this chapter before they come, but I wasn’t counting on your effusive morning conversation.” He set the book aside. “My name is Mike Dawson.”
“Wash time’s at seven? I have to pee! There isn’t even a toilet in this fucking bedroom.”
Mike laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You call it a bedroom, like them. The real rooms are on the other side of the building. They bring us here when we misbehave.”
A silence fell. A short, bald man watched Ted timidly from another of the glassed-in cells. When Ted noticed him, the man withdrew.
“I’m Ted.”
“Welcome to Lavender, Ted. And don’t worry. I didn’t misbehave. It’s just that I tend to get agitated at night.”
“Weren’t you here when they brought me?”
“No. When I got here, you were already in bed.”
“Do you know Dr. Hill?”
; Dawson thought it over before he answered.
“Yes, but she doesn’t come around here much. She spends most of her time in the main building.”
“She’ll have to come today, I assure you.”
“If you say so.”
Ted considered the horseshoe and, after a second’s hesitation, tossed it back on the bed.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. A souvenir.”
“Those can come in handy around here. But I’ll give you a piece of advice: don’t show it off too much. As soon as the guys on the other side figure out it’s important to you, it’ll be important to them, too. That’s how things work around here. If you lose it, you’ll never get it back, because, believe me, if there’s anything those guys know, it’s how to find hiding places.”
Mike Dawson pointed a finger at his temple and twirled it in a circle.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Not that it matters. I don’t plan on getting to know the guys on the other side. I’ll get out of here today.”
Mike stood up. He stretched by his bed, arms and legs wide, spine arching back. He yawned and stepped over to the glass. The bulb threw more light on his face, and now he looked more like the man Ted remembered seeing in his dreams that night.
“Nobody decides when he’s going to leave here, Ted,” he said, quite serious.
28
Two nurses showed up at seven on the dot. The doors opened and the patients left with them in silence, to the astonishment of Ted, who banged on the glass and demanded an explanation that never came. His fellow inmates watched him with interest, including the little bald man, who was the only one wearing shackles on his hands and feet. Dawson nodded good-bye to Ted.
Kill the Next One Page 12