Critical Condition (14 page)

“Slow down. What did you say?!”

“Harris. He’s taking over the damn hospital. Herding everyone into the auditorium while he and his men search for Lydia. They said they’d burn the hospital down, kill everyone in it to cover their tracks.”

“Oh my God. What do they want with Lydia?”

“They said something about some evidence they think she’s hidden.”

“And they’ve got guns?”

“Lots of guns, big guns, machine guns like you see in the movies. I tried calling the police, but I couldn’t get through.” Panic edged her words.

Gina could almost hear Amanda blink in the short pause that followed. But having grown up an only daughter with three older brothers, her roommate was nothing if not resilient and fast on her toes. Her mind never slowed down for anything. “Okay. What are we going to do?”

“I’m not sure that there is anything we can do. Except hide. You need to take Jerry and hide him, keep him safe until help arrives.”

“What about—” The phone went dead.

Gina glanced at the screen. No signal. Harris had said something about blocking cell phones. Damn. She tried calling out again on the landline from the trauma room but couldn’t even get a dial tone. She stood there, the dark punctuated only by the red exit sign above the door, and hugged herself against the cold.

Her fingers brushed against the pack of cigarettes as she returned the useless phone to her pocket. Every cell in her body craved nicotine, sung with a need that transcended chemical dependency, a need translated into the primal fight-or-flight instinct . . . but Gina’s mind and body hopscotched over the idea of fight and screamed for flight.

Her lips tingled as she hyperventilated, and she held her hands over her mouth and nose for a moment, slowing her breathing, stilling her panic. Her fingers tangled in the chain around her neck. She pulled Jerry’s ring free, clutching it so tight the diamond threatened to break skin. What would Jerry do?

Send her to take cover and arm himself so that he could protect her.

Sounded good in theory, if you were a trained law enforcement officer who’d logged time on the SWAT team. But Jerry wasn’t here and neither was the SWAT team—she had to take care of herself. And LaRose. At least until help arrived.

Abandoning the relative safe haven of the trauma room, Gina walked down to the security office. It was empty. The guards’ bodies had been shoved under the counter and stripped of their uniform shirts. There wasn’t as much blood as she expected, just almost-neat bullet holes at the base of each of their skulls.

She searched for any weapons. Everything was locked away—or Harris’s men had taken them, she couldn’t be sure. The only thing she found was a Maglite about six inches long but heavy. Better than nothing, so she grabbed it and headed toward radiology.

First, LaRose. Then she’d save Jerry.

 

 

AMANDA TRIED CALLING GINA BACK. NO SIGNAL. She grabbed the landline phone from the therapist’s desk. “The phones are dead.”

The men had obviously overheard enough of her conversation to be worried: Jerry was holding his Beretta, looking anxious, and Lucas now stood beside her, one arm wrapped around her waist protectively.

“Where’s Lydia?” Jerry asked—shouted in fact. “She’s not safe.”

“Lydia’s fine,” Amanda said, using her most soothing voice. “She’s not here. She’s safe, Jerry. But we’re not.” She quickly told them what little Gina had told her.

“Gina’s okay?” Jerry wanted to know, surprising her by not asking questions about the armed men or other tactical details. Usually he’d be three steps ahead of everyone else, making a plan.

“She sounded fine. She’s safe in the ER.”

“Good,” he said, blowing his breath out in a sigh of frustration.

“Why are there armed men looking for Lydia?” Lucas asked. “Storming the hospital? Are they nuts? They can’t kill us all. They’ll be caught for sure.”

“On a normal day, maybe. But today? In this?” Amanda gestured out the window at the storm—except it didn’t look like a window anymore. The darkness beyond felt heavy, unnatural, and had turned the window into a mirror. All she saw were the three of them: a man in a wheelchair cradling a gun, a silly girl in a silly ball gown, and Lucas, whose distorted reflection appeared scrawny, his white lab coat making him look more nutty professor than dashing hero.

The three of them made for the most unlikely team of rescuers anyone could imagine.

“If they’re searching the hospital, first thing we need to do is to arm ourselves and escape,” Amanda said.

“Where to?” Lucas asked.

Amanda thought. “Across the skyway to the research tower. They won’t go over there.”

“They won’t need to. They can just lock the doors.”

“Still, it’s our best place to hide, buy some time until we figure out what to do.”

Jerry nodded in approval. “We’re going to get Gina?”

Teaming up with Gina sounded good—in theory. But without communications, what were the chances of their meeting up?

“We need weapons,” she responded instead.

“This is crazy,” Lucas said. “We can’t go up against armed men. It’s suicide.”

His words stunned her—Lucas had many faults, but she’d never thought being a coward was one of them. “Lucas, we can’t abandon them! Those are our friends, our patients. We have to do something.”

He shocked her by grabbing her by her arms and stepping in, so close that she had to look up at him. He lowered his forehead to touch hers, his voice low and urgent. “I can’t risk you, Amanda. If anything happened to you—” His Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed hard. “And Jerry is in no shape. We need to find someplace safe, where I can protect you both.”

He wasn’t a coward.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. He resisted at first, but she persisted, until his lips opened beneath hers and he surrendered. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her so tightly against him it was like he wanted her inside him, a part of him forever. At least that was how she felt, what she wanted.

Finally they parted—it seemed like a kiss that broke records for the world’s longest, but the clock across from them said it only lasted a few seconds. Maybe time had stopped, Amanda thought with a smile.

“Okay,” Lucas said, defeated. “We’ll do it your way.”

“Weapons.” They split up and scoured the therapy area.

“Hot paraffin, no good, it’ll cool without its heat source,” Lucas said as he cataloged everything. Thinking out loud was a nervous habit of his, so Amanda let him talk while she did her own inventory. Jerry immediately threw his aluminum three-legged cane down and wheeled over to the wall to grab a hefty wooden cane in exchange.

“You won’t be able to balance as well on that one,” Amanda told him.

“No. But it hits better.” Jerry clutched the cane across his lap along with his gun, looking fierce. She didn’t argue. Instead she grabbed a roll of packing tape from the receptionist’s desk, along with a box cutter and a pair of shears. She pulled the cord from the back of the phone—could be used as a garrote or a restraint. She looped her prizes into the sash of her dress.

“Did you find anything, Lucas?”

“Casting supplies, medicine balls, splints. Useless. But what about these?” He held up a set of Velcro wrist weights. “Wrapped around your fist they’d be like brass knuckles, or you could use them as a sap and knock someone out.”

“Do you know how to do that?” Amanda couldn’t imagine Lucas hitting anything—least of all a person.

“I’m a neurologist. I’ve seen enough head injuries. I can do it.” His voice was stronger, as if he had some sliver of hope that they wouldn’t all be gunned down before they had the chance to do anything.

Jerry rolled past Amanda toward the doors just as the lights began to flicker.

“Hurry,” Lucas said. “We need to get to the skywalk doors while the power’s off.”

They rushed across the hall to the doors. The lights came back on.

“Damn,” Lucas muttered, rattling the locked doors.

“Can’t we just break the glass, open the door?” Amanda asked.

“The locks are electronic. But when the power goes out they all open so that no one gets trapped inside.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m on the safety committee. We talk about things like that. And bed rails—lots of talk about bed rails.”

“I never knew life as an attending was so exciting.”

“Hurry,” Jerry said. “Gina needs us.”

Then the lights went out again. A metallic click sounded as the locks disengaged. They pushed through the doors and entered the skywalk.

The floor rocked beneath their feet as the gale-force winds blasted the skywalk. The storm was merciless, whipping around the glass-and-metal structure in a frenzy, hitting the windows, sending the floor bucking in every direction. Not just the floor; the walls vibrated as well, emitting an unnerving hum that made Amanda’s skin pucker with goose bumps. With the doors at both ends shut, it was like being in an echo chamber, every rattle of glass, every shriek of metal amplified until it drilled into their bones.

Jerry didn’t even have to push the wheels; his chair glided forward under its own volition. Then it stopped in the center. Amanda and Lucas rushed after him, but the farther they traveled across the skywalk, the more the floor shook.

“I think it might come apart,” Lucas shouted over the howl of the wind.

“We need to get out of here,” Amanda called back—even though they were holding hands, she could barely hear him. She’d been on her father’s boat in the middle of squalls that had been less noisy than this. “Hurry!”

LYDIA SLIP-SLIDED HER WAY TO THE OVERTURNED van. The slushy-icy-half-packed snow wore a dingy gray topcoat thanks to a mix of salt and ashes. Whenever her feet broke through an area not packed down by earlier traffic, snow spilled over her boot tops, so she tried to stay in the tracks left behind by car tires. But from the amount of snow filling the tracks, the green van and Trey’s Bessie were the only vehicles that had come this way in quite some time.

The van lay on its side, back doors sprung open. Trey was already inside, checking on the driver. Lydia goose-stepped her way between tire tracks to join him. It was dark inside except for Trey’s flashlight and the murky half-light that filtered in through the open doors and the windshield.

“He’s fine,” Trey called back to her as she entered the van. Using its side panel as a floor made for treacherous footing. The metal pinged and bounced beneath her feet, threatening to tumble her, so she finally sidled along with her back against the wall—well, actually the ceiling—and her good hand braced above her head against the other wall. “Just stuck. The seat slid forward and jammed.”

The cargo van stank of fish and something musty that tickled her nose. Wet feathers? A few brown cardboard boxes resembling the ones Giant Eagle used for their take-out chicken had slid out the doors.

Trey knelt behind the sideways-facing driver’s seat, trying to ratchet it back to free the driver, but gravity and the driver’s weight worked against him. All Lydia could see of the man were his legs trapped beneath the dash and his belly squeezed up against the steering wheel.

“Forget me,” the driver protested, his voice muffled, since his head was lying to the side. “I’m fine.”

Trey ignored him and spoke to Lydia. “Can you call it in so the utility guys can check this light pole and the wreckers can add it to their list?”

“Sure.” She positioned her flashlight to help Trey see better and reached for her phone. It wasn’t there—wasn’t in any of her pockets. Must have dropped it when Trey carried her out of her SUV. “Damn. I lost my phone.”

“Mine’s in Bessie, on the charger. That’s okay, cell coverage has been spotty. I’ll radio it in. I need to get some tools anyway. Keep him calm, will you?” He crawled past her and out the van door.

Lydia took Trey’s spot, kneeling between the seats, angling her body through the narrow space. Now she could make out the driver’s features. He looked to be in his mid-forties, his face flushed with exertion and the effects of gravity—it had to be uncomfortable, hanging halfway upside down, squeezed in place by the steering wheel and his shoulder harness.

“I’m Lydia,” she said. “I’m a doctor. Are you sure nothing hurts?”

He raised his head with an effort. “I’m Zimmerman. I’m fine. But you need to find them. They’ll die in the cold.” His head slumped back against the door frame. “Damn Olsen. I wasn’t even supposed to be here—all I do is muck out the habitats.”

Lydia wondered if the man had a head injury. He seemed confused and agitated. “Mr. Zimmerman, was there someone else in here with you?”

“It’s just Zimmerman. No
Mister
. And there were twelve of them.”

She looked around. There were only the two front seats in the cargo van and the passenger seat was empty, the only signs of life a overturned coffee mug and a clipboard with papers that had gotten wedged between the seats. She grabbed the clipboard. On top was a receipt from a cargo transportation company. “What is
Spheniscus
?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Trey returned and crawled under the seat with his tools. “How are you guys doing?”

“I keep telling you, I’m fine.” The driver yelped as Trey rocked the seat abruptly. “But I need you to rescue my
Spheniscus
. The penguins.”

Trey stopped at that and exchanged a glance with Lydia. “Penguins?”

“I’m not joking. I wasn’t even supposed to be the one transporting them—Olsen is going to kill me if anything happens to them. They’re very rare, an endangered species.”

“But”—Lydia gestured to the snow all around them—“they’re penguins. They’ll be okay. We can call animal control to come collect them.”

Zimmerman shook his head so hard the seat belt dug into his flesh. “No, you don’t understand. They’re Galapagos penguins.”