Critical Condition (30 page)

LaRose tried to chuckle, but it sounded more like a death rattle.

 

 

“ I DON’T KNOW WHERE ANY VIDEOTAPE IS,”LYDIA said, edging herself closer to Trey, trying to get between him and Black’s gun. As she moved, she pulled the afghan with her, covering his right hand—the one that held her gun. “Maria never told me any of this. Those two pictures are the only things she left behind after you had her killed.”

Black frowned at her, obviously not believing. “No. Maria wouldn’t have left you without protection. She knew I’d never stop until I had that tape.”

He paused, scrutinizing Lydia, exploring her weaknesses. “Maybe
he’s
not enough to get you to talk.” He pushed his jacket aside with his free hand and pulled a small radio from his waistband. “How about an entire hospital full of people, Doctor? What are their lives worth to you?”

“What are you talking about?” She was afraid she already knew.

“My men control Angels of Mercy. They’re holding everyone there hostage. One word from me and they’ll kill them all.” He raised the radio to his lips.

Lydia jumped to her feet, took one step toward him—and away from Trey, freeing his line of fire to the second man, Smith. “No! Please, no. Don’t.”

He lowered the radio, his smile sliding across his face like a knife’s edge. “You have three seconds. Tell me where the video is.”

Lydia didn’t dare risk a glance at Trey. But somehow, despite the distance between them, she knew he was ready, knew he knew which way she would go. It was as if their bodies needed no words to guide them, just like when they made love. At least she hoped so, because she was risking more than only their two lives on her next move.

“I don’t need three seconds,” she said, sidling a little more to the right. “I’ll give it to you right now.”

Black relaxed the tiniest bit, seemed reassured to learn that Lydia had been lying to him, that she had what he wanted all along. As if in his world, a lie was more certain than the truth. Lydia was glad she’d never grown up in that world—for all her faults, everything Maria had done, even sacrificing her life, had been for the love of her daughter.

Lydia hoped she could one day be a tenth the mother Maria had been.

She reached toward the bookcase on the other side of the man, the one that held not only stacks of her books but also Trey’s shoot-’em-up videos and DVDs. Both men followed her motion, their guns tracking away from Trey for one critical moment.

As Trey stood, bringing his right arm up from under the afghan, Lydia feinted, drawing Black’s attention. He pivoted to face her, but she charged, pushing his gun arm—he was a lefty, like her—up as they crashed into the mantel.

A shot rang out, followed by another. Behind Lydia, Trey and Smith grappled, overturning the bookcase, and falling into the ground.

She wanted to turn to look to see if Trey was okay, but couldn’t. Lydia kneed Black in his groin, putting nearly thirty years’ worth of fury and fear into the blow. He doubled over, his gun falling to the floor.

She scrambled for his gun, retrieving it just as Trey separated himself from the second man and swung to aim at Black.

“Drop the gun!” Trey shouted, sounding just like a Hollywood cop before he saw that she’d already taken care of business.

“I got him, Trey.” She heaved in a breath, then backed up so she could cover both men. “Get the radios and check them for more weapons.”

Trey didn’t even look in Lydia’s direction but stayed focused as he retrieved the guns and radios, placing them out of reach on the end table. Smith was crumpled on the floor, blood streaming from a bullet wound in his leg, right around his kneecap. Another bullet had shattered a planter beside him.

“Nice shooting,” she told Trey.

“Said I didn’t like guns. Never said I couldn’t shoot them.” He went into the kitchen and returned with the first-aid kit, making quick work of binding the man’s wound.

“My climbing rope and knives are in the hall closet.” Lydia kept guard over the men while Trey went back out to the hall to retrieve them.

Once his pain subsided, her father sat up, staring at her. “You’re just like your mother,” he said. “An untrustworthy bitch.”

Laughter bubbled out of Lydia as the irony of the situation became too much to bear. “No. It seems I’m just like you.”

Black glared at her, even as Trey returned carrying the rope, knives, and two sturdy dining room chairs. He hauled the men into the chairs and quickly secured them.

“They’re not going anywhere.” Trey handed her Sandy’s gun, which she returned to her holster. Lydia took her knife—her favorite, a Ken Onion—and examined it in the firelight.

“Shouldn’t we get to Angels?” Trey asked, a hint of anxiety that only Lydia would be able to detect in his voice.

She ignored him. She held the blunt edge of the knife to her father’s jugular and pressed hard enough to collapse the vein. “Do you know that I killed a man?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “You need to know that. You need to understand that I want to kill you—that I could kill you.”

She slid the knife a centimeter away, allowing him room to swallow and breathe. His eyes had a new light in them, something she felt ashamed for inspiring. Fear. She
was
more like him than Maria. The knowledge scared her, but she didn’t relent. She couldn’t—he threatened everything she had fought for. “Do you understand that?”

Black nodded.

“Do you want me to kill you?”

He seemed surprised she was giving him a choice. He glared at her—just as stubborn as she was—for a long moment before his face revealed his surrender. Lydia felt no joy or triumph. Just disgust.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. Call your men off.”

He shook his head, a sly smile playing across his lips. “I can’t. No one can.”

Lydia and Trey exchanged glances. Trey jerked the chair violently, almost crashing it to the floor. “Call them off now!”

“After my first man failed, I called in a more motivated crew. Highly skilled and relentless. They all have felony convictions, all have current felony warrants. They know the price for failure is the death penalty. Now that they have control of the hospital, they’d rather burn it down and kill everyone in it to cover their tracks than leave potential witnesses behind. Especially Harris—he’s with me on the video of your grandfather’s murder. He has nothing to lose—if we don’t walk away clean, he’s a dead man.”

Lydia stared out the French doors at the black void in the skyline—the void where the lights of Angels normally shone. “We have to stop them.”

“You can’t.” Her father laughed, amused that they were just as helpless and powerless as he was. “Nobody can. Those people are as good as dead already. But you can save yourselves. Let us go. You keep my secret and I’ll never tell anyone that you let a hospital full of people die in order to save your own lives.”

 

 

THE GUARD KEPT PULLING THE TRIGGER ON HIS machine gun long after he ran out of bullets. Finally, he threw the gun to the ground in frustration.

“Everyone just calm down,” Nora yelled, trying to engage the guard’s attention.

Thank God his partner still slept, curled up with his own machine gun, oblivious. The wonders of a little Versed. She just wished this one had reacted the same way.

“Just stay calm.” She looked the guard in the eye, nodding her head slowly as if they shared a common goal. “That man is a doctor. He’s here to help. He won’t hurt you. I’m going to go help him. See if he’s hurt.”

As she spoke, her voice calm and level as if singing a lullaby to a colicky newborn, she backed down the aisle toward the stage, toward where Lucas lay, and where Mark Cohen and his stretcher still blocked the hole in the wall. The guard stayed where he was, a blank expression on his face. She was tempted to go back and take his partner’s weapons, but Lucas needed her.

She’d just reached the stage when the auditorium door burst open. Harris and the South African ran inside, guns drawn, scanning the almost-empty auditorium.

“What the hell?” Harris shouted, sounding like a petulant child whose toys had been taken from him. “Where is everyone?”

Nora ignored him, checking Lucas’s wound—it didn’t look serious—and ensuring that Mark was okay. The ER department head was still sleeping from the hefty dose of morphine Melissa had given him. Nice that someone wouldn’t have nightmares about this, at least. She chided herself immediately, remembering the anguish Mark had felt when he lost Jim.

She looked around the stage. Only one more patient remained on the floor behind the curtain, crutches beside him as he squirmed through the opening in the wall. Mr. Olsen from the zoo. The penguin man.

There were more people hidden in the seating area. If they were smart, they’d keep their heads down and stay quiet until Nora figured out a way to calm Harris down.

She caught sight of the expression on Harris’s face as he kicked the sleeping guard, unable to stir him, and wished Seth were here. No, not here, she didn’t want Seth anywhere near—she just wished she had a chance to talk to him one last time. About something more important than the Nittany Lions. Wished she’d told him what he meant to her.

Harris bent over and took the sleeping guard’s pistol. Then he shot him point-blank in the face. When the other guard, who was now waltzing with his machine gun, turned at the sound, Harris shot him as well.

“Want me to collect the evidence?” the South African asked, drawing his knife.

“No. Don’t bother.”

The South African looked puzzled. “But Mr. Black said—”

“Screw Mr. Black. Mr. Almighty Black isn’t answering his radio. Either Mr. Black has left town, leaving us to hold the bag, or he’s dead.”

“So, you want me to just kill them all now?” The South African made it sound as easy as deciding on cream or sugar for his coffee.

“Yes.”

The South African raised his machine gun.

Nora glanced up wearily. She was so damn tired of guns pointed at her that she almost didn’t care. She was tired of being a pawn to these men. Something of no value.

“You don’t want to do that,” she called out from her position on the stage.

She stood up, making herself a target but also towering above them, forcing the men to look up at her. Finally, for the first time since Tillman had tried to usurp her power earlier today, she felt like a charge nurse.

“Wait.” Harris gestured for the South African to lower his weapon. “Let’s hear what she has to say.”

 

 

AMANDA LED HER NOT-SO-MERRY BAND THROUGH the dark cafeteria and out into the blackened hallways leading to the ER. Jerry trailed at the rear of the group, pushing the stragglers to move faster and ensuring that no one got left behind. It would have been a good system if she had any idea where in hell she was going.

Her one thought was to get the others to someplace where they could wait safely and get back to Lucas. She kept seeing him fall, seeing the blood, over and over again and couldn’t turn the image off.

They turned down the rear hallway of the ER, headed toward the intersection with the corridor containing the locker rooms, OR 13, and the OB-GYN room. The tunnels, that was their best bet, she decided. All she could hope was that Harris didn’t know about them or have enough men to cover them and she could use them to get to the research tower and the others.

Then she could return for Lucas.

GINA PARKED LAROSE BESIDE THE EXAM TABLE, banging her hip on the stirrups. The one thing the OB-GYN room didn’t have was TPA. The ER’s stash would be locked up in the computerized drug dispenser or down in the auditorium with Nora, but Gina knew where there was one unsecured source: the transport team’s medical bags. She set her Maglite on the counter so LaRose wouldn’t be left alone in the dark.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. To her surprise, LaRose grabbed her arm with her good hand, tugging hard, bringing her daughter’s ear to her mouth.

“Careful.” Gina could barely make out the word, it was so slurred. “Love. You.”

Gina was glad for the darkness; it hid her furious blinking, fighting tears.

“It’s going to be all right,” she whispered back, hugging LaRose—the first time she could remember embracing her mother in decades. What an idiot she’d been, playing along with her parents’ power games and warped reality instead of just loving them the way she wanted to.

She slipped back out into the hall, down to the transport nurses’ office, and quickly retrieved the med bag. Her penlight finally died as she made her way back to LaRose, but she knew these halls well enough to navigate them in the darkness.

As she was passing the door to the men’s locker room, the door opened and a hand grabbed her, jerking her off balance.

Before she could scream, another hand clamped over her mouth and she was hauled inside.