The scene cuts back to the newsroom and to a different presenter, who starts talking about a car accident on the 33 which is causing ten-mile tailbacks.
Gene switches off the television and silence falls like snow. There it is, it’s done.
My phone rings almost instantly. It’s Nate. He must have seen the news. I don’t answer, just shove the phone in my bag.
‘Come on, let’s hurry,’ I say to Dr Warier, who has been patiently waiting this whole time.
With pursed lips Dr Warier fits a surgical cap on my head. I tuck my hair inside it, making sure all the blonde strands are out of sight.
‘OK, now the oxygen.’ He attaches a breathing mask over my mouth – helpfully obscuring half my face – and then presses a button on the ventilator machine. It starts to pump air. ‘Ready?’ he asks me.
I nod and he pushes the bed towards the door.
A hand grabs mine. It’s Gene. ‘Be careful,’ he says.
My instinct is to snatch my hand out of his, but then some reflex buried deep stirs to life, and before I can stop myself I roll my palm over, take his hand and squeeze it.
Dr Warier wheels me down the hallway towards the elevators. The only sound is the squeak of his shoes and the rapid beeping of my heart monitor.
I’m pushed into the elevator and after what feels like forever the doors shut and then open and we’re off again, bumping down a hallway. If anyone thinks it strange to see a doctor wheeling a patient through the hospital they don’t say anything, and I pray it stays that way.
‘Could you get the door?’ Dr Warier calls as we approach the ICU. I daren’t open my eyes. I just hope we don’t run into Nate or the administrator or a nurse who looks too closely. I wonder if Nate is on his way here – and how the hospital are responding to all the journalists calling up asking for news on June. They must all be so bewildered, but I only need the confusion to last for long enough to draw out the person who did this, the men who want June dead.
I know they’ll strike. I’m counting on it.
Dr Warier leans over me, obscuring my face, as he pushes the bed through the doors to the ICU and I hear a nurse offer to help but he waves them away, telling them it’s all under control. He pushes me into June’s room and I finally let out a breath and open my eyes.
‘OK,’ whispers Dr Warier as he hurriedly starts unplugging me from the machines, switching them off first so they don’t flatline and cause an army of medical staff to rush in. I pull off my oxygen mask and surgical cap and climb down from the bed and as I’m undoing my hospital gown Dr Warier’s beeper goes off. ‘They need me in the ER,’ he says, glancing at it.
He crosses to the door. ‘I’ll tell the nurses that the police have put the room on lockdown and that I’m the only person allowed in.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Thank you. I know this was a big ask.’
His hand is on the door. ‘I’ll check in on June as much as I can.’ And then he’s gone and I get dressed, sit back down on the bed, and reach for my bag.
Chapter 50
Fifteen minutes pass and I count each one down, my hands sweating so much I have to wipe my palms on my jeans. On the other side of the door I hear footsteps and I stare at the door handle.
There’s a voice. I crane to hear. It’s a woman. The hospital administrator, it sounds like. She’s arguing with the cop on the door.
‘Sorry ma’am, we’re under strict instructions,’ the cop says. ‘No one goes in.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ she says. ‘What about her doctors?’
‘Oh, they’re allowed in,’ he answers. ‘And family, but that’s it.’
She huffs loudly and then I hear her walking away. I relax back against the wall but then, after a few seconds, the footsteps return.
‘What are you—?’ the cop says, but he doesn’t get to finish his sentence. Instead there’s a loud thud.
I flinch backwards in horror. What was that? Oh my God. Even though I’d instigated this, I realize in this nanosecond as I watch the door handle turn that I didn’t really believe it would work.
The door starts to open. Because I’m behind it, all I can see is an outstretched arm and a hand holding a gun. My heart gallops into my throat, I freeze in abject terror – I hadn’t thought this far, hadn’t truly considered this eventuality, even though I’d hoped for it.
And then a man enters the room, takes two quick steps towards the bed and, without even pausing, holds up a gun with a silencer on the end, and shoots twice into the pillows that I’ve stuffed beneath a sheet in a pretty useless attempt at faking a body.
Before the second bullet has even hit he’s turning – realizing that the bed is empty. Somehow I’ve brought my arm up and somehow it doesn’t shake. I don’t pause. I pull the trigger before he can, my brain registering just as I shoot that it’s Jonathan.
The bullet smacks into his chest below his right shoulder. He lets out a cry and his gun goes flying out of his hand as he crashes to his knees. He lunges sideways for his weapon, but I dive for it at the same time and kick it out of his reach.
It skitters across the floor and smacks into the
