Janie was at his side, rubbing his back, somehow grasping the unexplainable, and, doubled over, he gripped her forearm. His mind spun, throwing out sense memories: his mother wasting away on that hospice bed in the dim air of the living room. The smell of decay on her breath. Abibas shading his eyes, staring back from the top of that dune. McGuire staring at his severed leg uncomprehendingly.
For a time Nate and Janie held each other and breathed together, taking in the sounds and smells of the bustling medical ward in motion. A waft of iodine. Wobbly wheels on a gurney. A yielding cough, muffled by a closed door.
A set of clogs tapped through Nate’s field of vision, a nurse calling out, “Good to see you again, girl. You been on vacation?”
“Sort of,” Janie said. “Good to see you, too, Renee.”
“Oh, I logged you in.”
Janie stiffened in Nate’s arms. “Wait. You what?”
“You forgot to sign in. Can’t get paid if you don’t-”
“When?
“Relax, girl. When I was coming back from my coffee run, I saw you in here with Dr. Suspenders. What’s that-forty minutes ago?”
At the end of the crowded corridor, the elevator dinged. A flush of heat rolled through Nate’s face, the premonition of something dire to come. He straightened up, lifting his head to see the lit circle announcing the car’s arrival, flicking in and out of view between patients and doctors.
The doors peeled open, and Misha stepped out.
Chapter 49
The security guard overflowing the folding chair next to the elevator glanced up from the
“I am looking for Nurse Jane Overbay.”
“I’m sorry, she’s not working today.”
Misha walked past the nurses’ station, heading down the crowded hall. Still he didn’t spot Janie and Nate, frozen in the bustling corridor.
“Sir, where’s your visitor pass? I’m sorry, you can’t go in here without a visitor pass.
Without breaking stride Misha drew a handgun from inside his jacket, aiming over the counter as he passed, and shot the nurse through the hip point-blank. The force blew her straight off the chair onto the floor, where she began convulsing. Behind him the security guard could barely wobble to his feet before Misha pulled a second gun with his free hand and fired twice, streaking the wall behind the man. A newspaper section fluttered down atop his body, soaking up blood.
A beat of stunned silence.
And then the medical ward erupted. Patients shouting, wheelchairs overturning, bodies stampeding for the stairs. As Misha powered down the hall, kicking aside gurneys and toppling IV poles, Janie shoved Nate through the doorway into his room. He scrambled across the bed and grabbed his jacket, flipping it around, looking for the pocket, willing his weak hands to work faster.
Footsteps. Screams. Another gunshot, followed by a primal howl.
“He’s just
Nate had the gun out finally, in his trembling grasp. He pushed Janie behind the dividing curtain and tugged it. In the ceiling track, the nylon wheels gave a screech, the sound lost beneath the crash of a cart overturning in the hall and more shouts of panic.
The boom of a door being kicked in up the hall. A startled shriek. Then a matching screech of a curtain being raked back.
Seconds later another boom. Another screech.
Janie’s panicked breaths against Nate’s ear. “He’s going room to room.”
They waited, the scrubs-green sheet rippling before their faces. With an unsteady thumb, Nate pushed the safety off his Beretta.
Heavy footsteps-probably boots. The complaint of a desiccated voice, a crash, then a faint moan. Boom. Screech.
Dr. Griffin’s voice, right outside in the corridor. “Don’t, just
Gunshot.
Janie gave out a faint cry, pressed both hands across her mouth. They could hear Dr. Griffin’s wet, labored breaths.
Now right next door. Boom. Screech.
Janie’s whisper came again, a rush of hot air. “We should run.”
Nate firmed his hands around the stock and mouthed,
The door to Nate’s room was open; they’d get no benefit of a warning. But the footsteps neared.
Pause.
Somehow, even through the opaque curtain, Nate sensed a change in the quality of the air. A presence. Misha was in the doorway. One brisk pace into the room. Another.
Nate willed his forearms still. He took a silent step back and raised the gun. The barrel wavered ever so slightly in his weak grip.
Janie leaned against the wall, her face tense with anticipation. Nate aimed at the curtain, chest high, ready for the burst of movement.
A scream came from down the hall, then feminine footsteps skittering toward the stairs.
Misha stopped.
He must have been debating whether to continue on toward the curtain or go after the footsteps in the hall. Was he pondering whether the fleeing woman was Janie? They could hear him drawing breath. Calm and steady. The guy’s heart rate probably hadn’t ticked north of sixty.
Nate sighted on the rubbery partition curtain, knowing that Misha was a few feet beyond but unsure where. A missed shot would be answered with a barrage.
The woman’s footsteps in the hall grew louder.
Misha set down his boot again, the faintest scuff against the tile. Nate shifted the gun toward the noise and felt it slip soundlessly through his weakened fingers.
With all his focus, he willed his hands to clamp, but the muscles wouldn’t obey. The gun spun in slow-motion rotation, the checkering on the handle grazing his fingertips. And then it was free, in the air, tumbling toward the hard tile.
He tried to suck in a breath but found his lungs already full. Bending, he lunged for the gun, missing, but then Janie’s hand shot into sight and caught it two inches off the floor. She had made not a noise.
Crouching, they stared at each other, wide-eyed, neither daring to breathe. A squeak of Misha’s boot on the tile, just beyond the curtain.
In the stillness they heard the woman’s footsteps veer up an adjoining corridor, the sound starting to fade. And then another noise chimed in, that of distant sirens.
Misha retreated now, sprinting off, presumably after her.
Nate and Janie exhaled together, an explosion of relief. Moans reached them from the hall-Dr. Griffin, in agony.
Janie inched the curtain aside, and they peered through the still-open door. Dr. Griffin lay in the corridor, hands across his thigh, blood spurting through his fingers at heartbeat intervals and painting thin lines on the floor.
