turn on his side. Not that it helped a great deal. He still felt uncomfortable, but at least the position of the aches changed.
He tried again to call out but managed only a whisper. He would just have to wait for them to come for him.
He fought his way onto his stomach to change the pressure points once more and felt the sheet slide sideways. Slowly, painfully, he managed to turn on his side again and pull the sheet back over him. Little protection from the cold as it was, it was better than lying bare-assed.
He did not sleep, but in spite of himself, he must have dozed because the sound of approaching feet startled him. He never heard the door open. Light blinded him as the sheet came off.
“What clown put this stiff on his side?” a voice demanded.
If he raised upright, would they faint, Garreth wondered. He wished he could find out, but gravity dragged at him, weighting him. He went without resistance as they rolled him on his back again and rearranged the sheet over him.
“Hurry,” another voice said. “This one’s a cop and Thurlow wants to get him posted as soon as possible.”
Garreth worked his hands to the edges of the gurney and clamped his fingers around the rubber bumper. Even if he could not move fast enough to attract their attention and they missed the faint motion of his chest, they could hardly overlook this.
The gurney halted stopped. An attendant pulled off the sheet. Hands took him by the shoulders and legs and pulled…but Garreth’s grip held him on the stretcher.
“What the hell is going on?” snapped the voice of the medical examiner.
“I don’t know, Dr. Thurlow. His hands weren’t like that when we put him on the gurney.”
Now that he had their attention, Garreth forced open his eyes. Half a dozen gasps sounded around him.
He focused on Dr. Edmund Thurlow. “Please.” The whisper rasped up his throat with a plea from his soul. “Get me out of here.”
2
Why were the doctors out at the intensive care unit desk talking so loud, Garreth wondered. Every patient in the unit could hear them.
“I tell you he was dead,” Thurlow said. “I detected no vital signs, no heartbeat or respiration, and his pupils were fixed and dilated.”
“It’s obvious he couldn’t have been dead,” a hospital doctor said. “However, that’s beside the point now. The question is, can we keep him alive? We’re pouring blood and ringers into him as fast as we can but his blood pressure is still almost nonexistent and he’s hypothermic and bradycardic. His breathing is so slow only the monitor tells me he’s breathing.”
Garreth looked up at the suspended plastic bags, one clear, one with contents the same dark red as Lane Barber’s hair. His eyes followed the tubing down to his arms. The blood made him feel better, but still not good. Exhaustion dragged at him. He desperately wanted to sleep, but could not find a comfortable position, no matter how he shifted and turned.
“What about the throat injury?” Thurlow said.
“A few skin sutures are all he’s needed,” came the reply. “The trauma isn’t nearly as severe as you described, Dr. Thurlow.”
“We have
“I’ve seen your photographs, so I believe you…yet twelve hours later the muscles, vessels, and trachea appear intact.”
They went on talking, but Garreth tried to ignore them. Careful not to move the arm with the needle in it, he shifted position again. The cardiac monitor above his bed registered the effort with an extra bleep. Moving proved pointless, however. Nothing made him comfortable. His bed stood near the window, and the glare of sunlight added to his discomfort.
Footsteps approached. If it was the nurse, he decided, he would beg for something to drug him to sleep.
Then he smiled weakly as Harry and Lieutenant Serruto appeared around the curtain across the door.
“Hi.” he whispered.
“Mik-san,” Harry replied in a husky voice. His hand closed hard over Garreth’s.
Serruto said, “They’re letting us ask you a few questions.”
“Yes. What the hell were you doing up there?” Harry demanded. “I’m your partner. Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing?”
“Easy, Harry,” Serruto said.
Garreth did not mind. He heard the frantic worry beneath the anger and knew how he would have felt in Harry’s place. “Sorry.”
“What happened?” Serruto asked.
Talking hurt. Garreth tried to find a short answer. Reaching up to the heavy collar of bandages around his throat, he managed to whisper, “Lane Barber bit me.”
They stared. “She bit you! That’s an understatement. How did it happen?”
How could he explain the loss of will that allowed her to stand him passively against a wall and tear his throat out? Damn, that light hurt. He shut his eyes. “Please. Close the curtains. Sun’s too bright.”
“There’s no sun,” Harry said in a tone of surprise. “We’ve been socked in with heavy fog since midnight.”
Garreth opened his eyes again in astonishment. Noises that sounded overly loud and light that hurt his eyes. Bleeding to death produced one hell of a hangover. But to his relief, Harry closed the curtains. It helped a little.
“Lane bit Mossman and Adair,” he said with an effort. “Drank their blood.”
“Christ!” Harry shuddered. “The barmaid thought Barber might be kinky, but she’s really bent.”
Barmaid? Garreth did not ask the question, but he raised his brows in query.
Serruto explained. “We went around to the Barbary Now. Harry thought that you might have been there. The barmaid told us what you two talked about.”
If that were so, Harry must have made the same connections he had. He looked questioningly at Harry.
Harry sighed, shaking his head, indicating to Garreth that they had not arrested Lane.
“She’s skipped,” Serruto said. “Caught a plane to be at her mother’s bedside, she told the manager.”
Harry said, “Something spooked her. When she came to work, she told the manager that she might have to leave suddenly. She’d even arranged for another singer to come in. After her walk with you, she sang a second set, then made a phone call — to her family, she told the manager — and said she had to leave.”
Garreth’s visit that afternoon spooked her. She saw him taking down the license number of the car. “Search her apartment?”
They nodded. “Nothing,” Serruto said. “No personal papers in the desk or trash. Some had been burned in the fireplace. The lab is seeing what they can recover from them. Refrigerator and cupboards bare. She left a closet full of clothes. The manager has no idea where her mother might live.”
A nurse came in. “Lieutenant, that’s enough for now.” When Serruto frowned, she slid between him and the bed and herded both the lieutenant and Harry away.
Harry called back, “Lien sends her love. She’ll visit as soon as it’s allowed.”
When they were gone, the nurse moved around the bed, tucking in sheets. “For someone so weak, you’re a restless sleeper.”
For the first time in his life. “Not comfortable. Sleeping pill?”
“Absolutely not. We can’t allow anything that depresses body functions.” She leaned across him, pulling up
