to stay with him until you get back.”
“Thanks,” Constance replied. “I know it’s just a formality at this point, but remember, nobody comes through that door without a badge or a hospital ID, okay?”
“Got it.”
“Good. I shouldn’t be long.”
Once they’d exited and the door was shut, Detective Shen came over to the side of the bed and looked down at me.
“Rough day, huh?” she asked.
“That’s one way to put it,” I replied.
“Well, I’ll try to make this as painless as possible,” she told me.
She turned and wandered over to the window wall and watched Ben and Constance as they disappeared around the corner. Then she purposely drew the curtain shut.
The phantom tickle brushed my neck once again then ran along my spine and spread out to my arms as well. The thud inside my head seemed to grow a little angrier too.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked.
She turned and came back to the bedside then smiled down at me. “I always prefer a little privacy when I do this sort of thing.”
CHAPTER 35
“Then she told me that I was to blame for all of them,” I said.
Detective Shen stopped writing for a second and glanced at me. “All of them?”
“Yes,” I told her. “All of the victims. She was fixated on my wife for some reason. And, since I was keeping her from getting to Felicity… That’s my wife… Anyway, since I was an obstacle to her, she wanted me to know I was to blame for everyone she had killed.”
“I see,” she replied. “Is that your conclusion, or is it what she actually said?”
“I’m paraphrasing a bit,” I admitted.
“We really need to stick to the actual events,” she instructed. “Sort of a just-the-facts kind of thing, okay?”
I gave her a slight nod. My head was still pounding, and the tickle along my spine was trying hard to turn into a full-blown tingle. The edge having been chemically honed off my senses wasn’t making me happy at the moment. I could tell something wasn’t quite right, but I had no idea what it was.
I cast a furtive glance toward the door. Ben and Constance had only been gone for a few minutes, but it was starting to seem like hours. A small knot was working its way into my intestines, and I found myself trying to will Constance to walk back through the door right now.
Apparently, my glance wasn’t anywhere near as surreptitious as I wanted to believe. I suppose the fact that it had turned into a somewhat prolonged stare was to blame.
“I’m sorry if I make you uncomfortable for some reason, Mister Gant,” Detective Shen told me. “I’m sure Special Agent Mandalay will be back soon enough.”
I broke my stare away from the door and looked at her. I swallowed hard then gave my head a shake. “I’m sorry… It’s just…”
“I understand,” she replied. “Just relax. It’s been a rough day for all of us. But you don’t have to worry. You’re safe now.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“Okay,” she nudged. “You were telling me that Lisa Carlson had said you were responsible for ‘all of them.’”
“Yeah… Okay… Right… Just the facts,” I replied, nodding as I spoke. “So, as I recall she said something like, ‘You only have yourself to blame,’ then when I asked her for what, she said, ‘All of them.’ Then I said pretty much the same thing you just did, and she said, ‘Everyone who had to die because you kept me from her.’”
I didn’t really have any trouble remembering the conversation. It was still painfully clear in my mind. The biggest issue I faced was the on-the-fly sanitizing I had to do. As usual, I just automatically deleted references to ethereal visions and spirit possession wherever necessary. Fortunately, that didn’t Swiss cheese my recounting of this particular conversation as bad as it had some of the statements I had given in the past.
“Okay,” Shen nodded as she scribbled. “What happened next?”
A sharp lance of pain shot through my head, originating at the base of my skull and ricocheting off the inside of my forehead before clawing its way through the rest of my grey matter. At almost that same instant, a frantic knock sounded at the door. It immediately swung inward without pause, and a nurse barreled through the opening as if on a mission.
Upon hearing the initial sound, Shen had already turned away from me. Apparently, she was taking Mandalay’s instructions to heart because a split second after the door began to swing she was in motion. Shifting quickly, she took a pair of steps toward the nurse, effectively blocking any further ingress and placing herself between any potential threat and me.
“Excuse me, officer?” the nurse said, her voice filled with dire urgency.
“Detective,” Shen replied.
“Sorry, Detective,” the nurse shot back quickly, rushing past the apology and continuing with, “The woman from the FBI. Agent Mann, or something like that. She needs your help out in the lounge area right away.”
“Did she say why?” Shen asked.
The nurse shook her head while pointing out the doorway, a wave of what sounded like intense fear rippling through her voice. “No, but there is someone…” she stuttered. “And the tall policeman… He… Please… Something bad is happening out there, and she needs your help!”
“Dammit,” Detective Shen muttered then barked. “Let me see your ID.”
The nurse looked momentarily both impatient and nonplussed but then fingered a plastic card that was hanging around her neck on the end of an imprinted lanyard and held it up. The detective quickly peered at the hospital credentials then at the nurse’s face. Satisfied, she stepped around her while thrusting a finger back toward me and barking the order, “Stay with him. Don’t let anyone in.”
Shen bolted from the room, and the nurse pushed the door shut behind her. Walking quickly back toward me, she was panting as if the excitement had pushed her beyond her limits. I couldn’t blame her. More than enough had happened here today already, so I knew exactly how she felt.
The tickle along my spine had completely bypassed the tingle stage and become a raging fire, spreading outward to consume me. Every hair on my body now stood at attention, and I could feel the gooseflesh literally undulating in tremor-like waves. Whatever was happening out there wasn’t good, and even the drugs coursing through my system couldn’t keep the cold fear from gripping my chest.
“What’s happening?” I asked, with more than just a healthy dose of urgency in my tone. “You said something about Detective Storm. Is he hurt?”
She didn’t answer me. Instead, she reached down over the railing and snatched up the call pendant then flipped it off to the side.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. It was a stupid question, but it was the first thing that popped out of my mouth. Then, as if arriving late to a party, it dawned on me that I had not seen this nurse before, but her voice sounded oddly familiar. Moreover, it carried with it a more than slight Southern affectation as well.
Still silent, she stamped over to the foot of the bed, released the brake and began pulling. She let out a heavy grunt then yanked hard on the end, shoving her body to the side as she whipped me around. The pulsox sensor snapped off the end of my finger, instantly sending the monitor into a fit. She continued pulling, and a second later I felt a tug then a sharp pain. I grabbed for the IV tubing to keep it from ripping out of the back of my hand, and both the stand and the morphine pump toppled over and clattered across the floor. As we continued to move, the tension increased, and I was forced to pull the IV catheter out before it tore away of its own accord.
She managed to wheel the bed the short distance across the room and bring it lengthwise in front of the door just as someone outside was attempting to push their way in. The wooden slab butted hard against the side of the
