10
ANSON
“Security personnel, code yellow,” the robotic voice said. “Code yellow, level one.”
Vincent got behind my wheelchair and quickly spun me around. “Get the door,” he told Paul.
“Where are we going?”
“You heard her—level one.”
They will get you killed, Father muttered again from his corner of my head.
The atmosphere in the hallway had changed.
All the cops standing around outside room 412 no longer appeared lost or morose, but instead, they’d come alive with purpose.
Several members of hospital security had appeared; they were talking to the gray-haired men, who were barking orders to the detectives and uniforms. The door to 412 had been closed, two uniformed cops standing guard.
As we pushed through the crowd, I picked up snippets.
“Possibly armed.”
“Agitated state.”
“Dangerous.”
“Three known dead.”
“Four known dead.”
“No, two dead.”
“I heard five.”
They were attempting some coordinated search. They’d start on the third and fourth floors and work their way down while hospital security started at ground level and worked up. Catch—
“Her.”
“Him.”
“Them.”
—in the middle.
I only caught snippets, but it was enough.
The gun felt hot now.
Excited.
The elevator doors were open. It was crowded with cops and hospital personnel, but Vincent pushed us in anyway.
“Go to two,” I told him.
I wanted to add, she won’t be on one anymore, but the look in his eye told me he already knew that because he knew her. I only knew that I wouldn’t be on the first floor anymore, and I was following my gut.
When the elevator doors opened on three, all the cops got out, leaving us with two male nurses, a woman whose name tag said “Sabrina, Financial Services,” and a janitor with a wheeled laundry bin.
One of the nurses reached by me and pressed the button for the first floor several times.
Someone else said, “What the fuck is going on?”
Sabrina from Financial Services quickly told them, “An addict down in the ER got ahold of a scalpel, stabbed the attending, and injured the officers who brought her in before running off. Last I heard, she was spotted near pediatrics, but she could be anywhere.”
The nurse who had pushed the elevator button didn’t seem shocked by this at all. “Just another day in paradise. I need to hit the bank, and now I’m stuck here.”
The other nurse asked, “Who was attending?”
“Dr. Applebaum.”
“Is she . . . ?”
“Superficial. She’ll be fine. She did a number on the cops, though. I heard one was on his way to surgery.”
“Twill,” Vincent said in a low voice.
The woman looked over at him. “Excuse me?”
Vincent just shook his head.
When the doors opened on two, he quickly wheeled my chair out.
As they closed behind us, Paul held up a security swipe card on a retractable belt clip, a sheepish grin on his face. “Lifted it from Chatty Kathy. Figured we might need one.”
Vincent did his best to look unimpressed.
I quickly took in our surroundings. We were in a large lobby facing a rounded nurses’ station with various hallways branching off from the center, like spokes on a large wheel.
Many of the doors were closed. Hospital personnel and security bustled about quickly.
Aside from a few hurried glances, nobody paid us much mind.
Vincent leaned down. “Okay, hotshot. You said two. Now what? Where is she?”
I had no idea.
Paul looked around nervously. “This is wrong. I think she’d head for the roof.”
“She’d be cornered on the roof.”
“Basement, then.”
I shook my head. “She’d want people. But somewhere she could blend.”
Vincent let out a soft laugh. “Twill wouldn’t know how to blend.”
“Then maybe disappear and wait them out. They can’t keep the doors locked forever. Not in a place like this. Find someplace quiet. Sit tight. Make them think you’d already gotten out. That’s what I would do.”
Atta, boy, Champ, Father beamed. Puzzle it—
“Shut up,” I grunted.
Vincent gave me an odd look but said nothing. Instead, he wheeled me a few feet deeper into the lobby, found a directory on the wall, and studied the layout. “Okay, so wait them out where?”
She’d get off the first floor as fast as possible.
Had to take the stairs. Too easy to get caught in an elevator.
Wouldn’t want to stay on the stairs too long; that was dangerous too, so second floor.
This floor. Crowded, though; she wouldn’t risk this lobby.
Too many people. She’d find someplace close to the stairs.
Someplace she could get to without running into any—
Then I saw it.
I pointed at the top left corner of the directory, directly across from the far stairwell. “The morgue.”
“Oh, hell no,” Paul breathed.
They’d be watching the exits, not someplace like that. “That’s where I’d go.”
Vincent was nodding his head. “That’s totally a Twill move, too.”
“How about the cafeteria?” Paul suggested. “That’s where I’d go. Food. Drink. Comfortable chairs. That seems like a perfectly sensible place to wait this out. I vote we check there.”
Vincent snatched the swipe card from his hand. “Nope. Morgue.”
Before Paul could object again, he spun my chair around, circled the large desk until he found the correct hallway, then wheeled me off at a quick pace.
Hospital personnel buzzed around, all on edge, but lost in their own jobs—so much so that nobody seemed to notice the three of us.
That didn’t keep my heart from drumming against my ribcage.
Nor did it prevent Paul’s head from swiveling around like a broken bobble.
Vincent kept wiping the sweat from his palms on the legs of his stolen scrubs.
We were on borrowed time. Every second we spent in this hospital.
When we reached a double security door marked “Authorized Personnel Only,” Vincent ran our stolen card through the machine. Nothing happened.
“Fuck.”
He swiped again.
Still nothing.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Paul pointed out. “Flip it around.”
The magnetic strip was on the other side.
Swearing softly, Vincent ran it again.
A green light flashed, soft buzz, and the double doors swung open automatically.
A rush of cold air came out, followed by the thick scent of industrial cleaners.
Paul swallowed. “Guys, I’m not so sure about this.”
“You were bound to end up here eventually,” Vincent told him. “Why not today?”
As we stepped in, the doors closed behind us.
Sealed us in.
Vincent thumbed the deadbolt, locking the door from our side.
Overhead lights on motion sensors buzzed to life.
That told me we were either alone, or if someone was in the room, they hadn’t moved in a while. I didn’t see anyone. No coffee cups or phones lying around to indicate someone was working in the space and would return.
There were six stainless steel tables in the center of the room, flanked by rolling tables with instruments carefully laid out and organized in prep for the next procedure.
None of us were under any illusion as to what that procedure would be.
I couldn’t help but look at the drains under each of those tables.
The channels in the tables that ran to those drains.
Clean and tidy. Then I thought of the basement of my house in Simpsonville.
I thought of the bloodstain on the concrete left by Mr. Carter, nowhere near our basement drain.
Some would see that as a design flaw. I certainly did.
Three of the morgue walls were white tile, same as the floor, scrubbed spotless.
There were counters, cabinets, and several doors; most likely storage closets.
The fourth wall was lined with stainless steel lockers.
Six across, three high. Each about two feet tall, and maybe two and a half feet wide.
Stickers on each read, “Please don’t open Morgue Drawers.
” Under seven of those stickers were labels with names and numbers written in neat black Sharpie.
Vincent thrust his hand out. “Give me the gun.”
I rose from the wheelchair and handed it to him.
Both of us took a step closer to those lockers.
Paul cleared his throat. “Maybe I should just keep an eye on the door.”
“Chickenshit,” Vincent muttered.
“I’m willing to admit that.”
“The door’s locked.” I pointed at the closets and storage cabinets on the opposite wall. “How about you check those?”
He quickly nodded, went to the cabinets, and began systematically running through each.
Vincent closed the distance to the drawers. “Twill, you in there? It’s me, Vincent!”
He didn’t quite shout this, but it was loud enough to echo off the harsh surfaces in the otherwise silent space. When he drew in a breath and looked like he’d do it again, I pointed at all the stainless steel. “Those drawers are airtight. If that’s where she is, she can’t hear you.”
The dead had never scared me, only the living, but somehow knowing there were bodies on the other side of some of those doors got my heart pounding again.
So did the items I found on the trays near the autopsy tables.
There was a wide assortment of saws, blades, scalpels, drills, retractors, and something that looked like a small battery-powered pump with a tube attached to the end.
I imagined that was for removing fluids from the body cavity, but I couldn’t be sure.
I picked up one of the scalpels and studied it in the light.
If it were possible for a piece of steel to look sharp, it certainly did.
Far sharper than my Ranger buck knife. Far sharper than anything Mother or Father owned or used.
I would have preferred something with a little more weight, some heft to it, but it would do.
Scalpel in hand, I went back to the wall of drawers and gave Vincent a soft nod.
Vincent reached for the handle of the first drawer, quietly counted down from three, and pulled it open, revealing a pair of hairy feet sticking out from under a sheet. There was a tag on the toe, and the skin was this bluish-gray color. He quickly shut the door. “That is certainly not her.”
The next three were empty.
The fourth held an elderly woman.
Two more empty.
The body in the next drawer was—
Vincent gasped. “Holy shit.”
The body was covered in a sheet similar to the others, but the sheet was riddled with fresh red stains, at least a dozen of them.
Bright red blooms in the cloth. Most were around the chest area, but at least one was at the neck, and two smaller stains dotted the legs.
There was another on the right arm. Unlike the other bodies, the feet weren’t exposed, nor was the head.
The sheet covered all. When Vincent didn’t reach for it, I did. I slowly tugged it down.
A man.
Forties.
He was fully dressed.
The name tag pinned to his white lab coat read, “Steve Philmore, M.D.”
I was reading it when his eyes snapped open and he let out a gurgled cough.