makes sense, except for one thing: I got the pain again when Callie killed Tara Siegel. And Tara was not one of Victor’s lethal experiments.
I’m no psychiatrist, but I think Tara fit the pattern of a person who didn’t deserve to die. Tara was certainly no innocent, and there were several circumstances under which I’d have killed her. But she was good for the country, in that she was working for the government, killing terrorists. Also, she and I had a history, and in this particular situation I hadn’t intended her to die. When Callie shot her, I felt responsible for the death of an innocent person, a former friend—even though my “friend” tried to kill me moments earlier.
Looking around the hospital room, hooked up to various monitoring devices, I made the life changing decision to never again accept a contract from Victor. I wasn’t worried about my ability to kill guilty people, or those who deserved to die. After all, I’d recently done it, with no repercussions.
Ned Denhollen had probably been a decent man, but I suffered no remorse for killing him. Was it because he’d been supplying those kids with date rape drugs? No. It was because I feared my daughter Kimberly was about to be dragged into it. So Ned had to die. The kid I shot the night they tried to rape Callie didn’t affect me because he was already dying and I’d done nothing more than put him out of his misery. As for Wolf Williams, he deserved to die for a number of reasons, including his threat to kill my new employee, Alison.
The door burst open so suddenly it startled me. The nurse flew into the room, dragging a doctor behind her.
“Calling Doctor Howard,” I said, “Doctor Howard, Doctor Howard—The Three Stooges, remember?”
Dr. Howard managed to repress a grin. “That wasn’t funny the last time you were here, and it isn’t funny now. Good to see you back with us, Mr. Creed.”
Dr. Howard treated me years ago for a particularly nasty bullet I took from a Ukrainian enforcer. If the good doctor was treating me, that meant I was back at Sensory Resources, in the medical center. My offi ce was a mere hundred feet from this very room. When we buy our new house, Kathleen, Addie and I will be living about twelve miles from here, in Bedford.
“Mr. Creed, I’m Carol,” said the nurse.
I lifted my arm and gave her a small wave. “Nice to meet you, Nurse Carol.”
Dr. Howard assaulted me with questions and annoyed my eyes with his pen light. Ignoring him for the moment, I turned to Nurse Carol.
“I need my cell phone,” I said.
She opened the drawer by my bed, moved some items around, then she tried the closet, where she searched through the clothes someone had hung there.
She handed it to me. I pressed the power button.
Nothing.
I looked at her. “The battery’s dead? How’s that possible?”
Dr. Howard said, “Mr. Creed, there’ll be plenty of time for questions later on. In the meantime I really must insist you cooperate with me.”
“That would be easy to do if my life weren’t at stake.” To Carol I said, “Can you call Lou Kelly for me?” Lou was my right-hand man. His office was on the other end of the building.
“Why don’t you go get him in person, Carol,” Dr. Howard said. “It’s probably a good idea you leave us alone a few minutes.”
She hooked the door to the wall so it would stay open, and headed down the corridor to fetch Lou.
Dr. Howard tried to beat McCauley Culkin’s question record in the movie
I had to know something. “Doc, what kind of machines have you got me hooked up to? I know I came in with a chest pain, but that’s psychosomatic. You can call my shrink on that, you don’t believe me.”
“Mr. Creed,” he said. “You’re hooked up to these machines because you’ve been in a coma for the past three years.”
Chapter 40
In a coma? Three years?
I was, as the British say, gobsmacked.
Gobsmacked is much stronger than being surprised. It’s a term used to describe something that stuns you speechless and stops you dead in your tracks.
