Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
LUNA
I have blood on my patient gown. I have Gemma’s fingernail marks on my skin where she fought for her life, and I can hear an alarm blaring that tells me somebody has already found her body and the body of the police officer I killed just before her.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I can hear a doctor telling some patients that the hospital is in lockdown and nobody is allowed in or out at present.
That means I can’t escape here even if I had the chance to.
I’m stuck here along with everybody else in this hospital, and my fate seems as sealed as all the doors that have locked shut around us.
The only saving grace I might have is that after killing those two people, I was able to make it back to my ward and get into my bed, shutting the curtains around it, and nobody has come in here since.
That means nobody suspects me yet as being the killer on the loose, and while it might only be a matter of time until somebody does, I still have my freedom for the moment.
That means I have the opportunity to figure a way out of this.
As I lie in my bed, hoping that if anyone pulls back the curtain, I would look like any other patient, I think back on what just happened and, more specifically, whether I won’t get caught.
After killing Gemma and standing over two dead bodies, I knew I needed a way to make it look different than it did.
At that moment, standing there with some remnants of Gemma’s blood on the sleeve of my gown, it looked like I was the killer.
But what if I left the room? What would it look like then?
As I assessed the chaotic scene, one option made itself available to me.
What if it looked like only Gemma and the woman had fought and they had both succumbed to the injuries they inflicted upon one another?
What if nobody ever knew that there had been a third person in this room who had actually carried out the killing?
What if it looked like Gemma, a convicted criminal who had been here to visit an ailing patient, I presume, had tried to seize her opportunity to escape and attacked the escort, stabbing her with a needle?
What if she fought back? That story makes sense, right?
It’s at least plausible, surely. Gemma wouldn’t be the first or the last prisoner to try and make a break for freedom before being taken back to her cell.
But she never made it. She died along with her police escort.
At least that’s the version of events I want everybody to believe.
After deciding that was better than having the police scouring the hospital for a killer on the loose, I had to quickly make sure that I left behind no evidence of my presence.
I grabbed a pair of surgical gloves from a container on the shelf and wiped down the needles to remove all fingerprints.
Then I placed one needle in the dead woman’s hand and the other in Gemma’s, applying their fingerprints to the murder weapons – but their fingerprints only.
I knew the needles would be the first things the forensic teams would look at, especially once they had established the injuries to the two bodies, so it was imperative that my DNA was nowhere near them.
Once that was done, I looked around the storeroom to see if there was anything else that could connect me to the scene.
But other than somebody seeing me in here, I felt I could slip away at that moment and nobody would ever know I had been in there.
Doing my best to conceal the small amount of Gemma’s blood that had spilt on my sleeve, I opened the storeroom door and peeped out.
No sooner had I done that than I saw a nurse, so I hid until they passed.
Then, when the corridor was clear, I stepped out of the storeroom and closed the door, concealing the two bodies that lay behind it.
From there, I walked fast to get back to my bed, feeling bad that some poor soul who was probably on their way to pick up a few medical supplies would be the one to walk in and find a couple of corpses lying on the storeroom floor.
Whatever trauma they might suffer had to be secondary to fighting to maintain my freedom, my family and, most of all, my bond with my baby, which will only grow if I get to spend more time with him, not less.
It was a daunting walk back, but I told myself that only I knew I was guilty, so anyone who saw me along the way had no reason to suspect me of anything.
Especially if I kept the bloodstain on my sleeve concealed, which I think I did.
I kept on the lookout for a spare patient gown that I could grab and change into but didn’t see one on my travels, so I’m still stuck in the incriminating gown at the moment.
At least I’m back in my bed and I plan to stay here for as long as possible.
As my heart rate returns to something resembling that of a normal human being, I think about how I acted fast but did what was necessary.
I hadn’t expected to see Gemma here, but when I did, I had to seize my chance to remove her from the picture.
Taking her life means there is one less person in the world who suspects me, and that just leaves Sadie.
If only she had died too, then I could be free of them both, but I’ll take the current situation for now.
Sadie doesn’t remember that she and Gemma had figured me out, and now Gemma is dead, Sadie might never remember at all.
Following Gemma through the hospital had led me to where I saw her visiting a frail female patient, possibly her mother, though I don’t know for sure.
I think about that poor patient now and how she has miraculously ended up outliving Gemma even though the odds seemed against such a thing only a short time ago.
That patient will be horrified to learn of Gemma’s fate, as will everyone else who knew her.
That includes Reid.
How will he deal with the news of that woman’s demise?
Will he buy the story that I hope will be the accepted one, in which Gemma tried to escape captivity and died trying?
Will it make him feel bad for ever being involved with a woman capable of murder?
Or will he think there must be more to the story than meets the eye?
I have no idea, but assuming I make it out of here and home to him, I will soon get a front row seat to the range of emotions he will go through.
But a lot has to happen before I can go home.
The police have to decide if they think the danger is over or if there is still somebody at large who needs to be stopped.
As the alarm continues to sound and I hear frenetic voices from all the doctors and nurses in this section of the hospital, I force myself to stay where I am.
It’s human nature to try and get a peek when something dramatic is happening, like motorists driving past the scene of an accident on the motorway.
But I am not going to try and peep through the curtains because I don’t want to draw any attention to myself.
I’ll have enough attention if something in that storeroom links me to the bodies.
But will it?
Or will I be able to leave this hospital and go home to my family?
If it’s the latter, I’ll have surely used the last of whatever good luck I have in my lifetime. But that will be okay because I might not need any more. All I need after this is Sadie’s memory to remain damaged, the gaping black holes in it helping preserve my freedom.
She’s only just woken up from her coma and there is already more drama surrounding that woman.
I wonder how Sadie is feeling now?
I bet that, like me, all she wants to do at this point is go home and forget that this place exists.
Along with everything else she has forgotten.