Fatal Reaction (23 page)

CHAPTER 60

Julian turned down Oakland Street and glanced at Elsa, sitting in the passenger seat.

Her deadpan stare had him worried.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Before Sydney’s murder, Elsa hadn’t seen anything worse than a traffic accident. Julian, a decade older and with a new daughter of his own, had become instinctively overprotective.

“There’s no guaranteeing she’s even there,” Elsa said, talking about Colby Monroe.

Julian nodded, but after hearing the grim details of what had happened to Marco Prusak, he expected the worst. “And if she is?”

Elsa shrugged. “I can handle it.”

Julian parked in front of Dorian Carmichael’s office and surveyed the surrounding houses. The two on either side were for sale and unoccupied, making the probability of witnesses slim. He exited his patrol car, produced the warrant, and climbed the porch steps.

A single set of tire tracks, belonging to a hideous, yellow 1970 AMC Gremlin, was the only sign of anyone having gone in or out, and it blocked the narrow drive that led around back. A sign on the door marked the office as “Closed,” though when Julian turned the knob, it was open.

An unattractive young woman wearing a turtleneck, an oversized sweater, and a floor-length skirt worked an industrial-sized shredder.

Julian had no doubt the Gremlin was hers.

“Can I help you?” she asked, feeding a large stack through the machine.

Julian produced the warrant. “We’re here to search the premises. Is anyone else here?”

The girl shook her head. “Just me.”

“And your name is?” Elsa pulled out a pen and paper.

“Kristin Newman.”

Julian surveyed the cluttered reception desk, littered with empty manila folders, and the overfull bags of ribbon-thin paper. “May I ask what you’re doing there?”

Law stipulated that medical records less than eight years old couldn’t be destroyed; longer, if they belonged to children. The year stickers on the folders’ tabs said these were current.

Kristin chewed the inside of her cheek. “I’m purging deceased patients’ records to clear out file space.”

“Did Dr. Carmichael tell you to do that?”

“No,” she said. “Noreen did, when she called in this morning.”

Julian and Elsa exchanged confused glances.

Elsa moved in for a closer look at what was being destroyed. “Are you familiar with a woman named Colby Monroe?”

“The nurse at County?”

“Former nurse, but yes. Have you ever met her?” Julian pushed open the door of an empty unisex bathroom.

“Not that I remember, but she used to call a lot.”

“Has she called lately?”

“Not in months,” Kristin said.

Julian did a sweep of the first-floor exam rooms and, finding nothing, waved for Elsa to join him.

“I’m sorry,” Kristin said, “but what are you looking for?”

“Could you please show us to Dr. Carmichael’s office?” Elsa said, ignoring the question.

Kristin let the conversation drop. “Follow me.” She lifted the hem of her skirt and led Julian and Elsa to the largest of several offices on the second floor.

Julian thanked and dismissed her, waiting for her footfalls to disappear before saying anything else.

The office was neat; the spines of the charts on Dorian’s desk were flush with one another.

“Look at this.” Elsa held up a schedule from days earlier and read a handwritten note aloud.
“Meeting with Mitchell
.
”

“County’s CEO is named Mitchell Altman,” Julian said, opening the two closet doors on the far end of the room. There were banker’s boxes and reams of reports printed on continuous-feed paper, but nothing recent. “Add him to the list of people to talk to.”

Elsa went through the files and found an old message tucked between the pages of a medical journal. “There’s a message here from Sydney dated a week before her murder.”

Julian took it from her. It was marked
urgent
, but it said little else. “Anything from Colby?”

“Nothing. I don’t think she’s here,” Elsa said.

Julian paced the length of the room, wondering what he was missing. The blinds covering the window, which overlooked the abandoned garage, were half-lifted. “Elsa, look.” He pulled them up the rest of the way.

A shovel sat propped against the side of the building, and the windows had been papered over. Snow-filled depressions surrounded the garage, but the Gremlin was parked at least twenty-five feet away, and there were no visible prints leading to the car.

Someone other than Kristin had been in there recently.

“Come on, she has to be down there.” Julian hurried down the stairs and slapped his palm against Kristin’s desk. “Are there keys to the garage?”

Kristin was on the phone, rescheduling an appointment. “I’m sorry. Can you please hold? Thank you.” Kristin held the handset away from her ear. “Keys to what?”

“The garage out back.”

“Not that I know of. No one uses it. It’s supposed to come down in the spring.”

Elsa pulled her Beretta from its holster.

Julian had already drawn his.

“Stay behind me,” Julian said, his adrenaline rushing as he hurried down the snowy driveway and tried to lift the wooden roll-up door. His arm jerked under the resistance of the locked handle. “Dammit. Locked.” He holstered his gun, squatted, and tried to force the door up. It gave slightly, then crashed back down. “There’s got to be a way in here.” He peered through the narrow gap around the edge of the paper, but was unable to see anything through the filthy window.

Elsa ran around the side and turned the side-entrance doorknob. “Julian, over here. There’s a bunch of garbage blocking the door, but it’s unlocked.”

Julian plowed into the door with his shoulder, moving the clutter with the harsh sound of metal on concrete. To the left of the door, two IV bags, one of saline and one of insulin, hung from a nail in the shelf; on the floor was a woman’s lifeless body. “Call for backup,” he shouted, “and get an ambulance here,
now
.”

CHAPTER 61

Julian forced his weight into the door and cleared a path just large enough for Elsa to squeeze through. Even at a hundred and ten pounds, she had to take off her belt to fit.

She took careful steps, each meeting with the collapsing of something else as she scaled the pile.

“Is she breathing?” Julian said.

“I don’t know.” Panic crept into Elsa’s voice.

“Open the other door. Hurry.”

“It’s stuck.” Elsa fidgeted with the lock and pounded the door with her fist.

“Hit it with something. It’s probably jammed.”

Elsa picked up a rusty pair of pruning shears and beat the knob of the lock until it gave. She lifted the door, and Julian rushed in.

Colby Monroe lay on the floor next to a brown stain that appeared to have come from a tipped soda can.

Julian pulled on a pair of latex gloves and pressed two fingers to the side of Colby’s neck, feeling for a pulse. “She’s alive. Elsa, grab the blanket in the trunk.” He snapped several quick pictures to preserve the scene.

Colby was soaked through with sweat, her shirt clinging to her like a second skin. A faintly sweet urine smell emanated from her, and there was a rip in her jeans where blood seeped from a nasty wound that certainly needed stitching. Her left sleeve had been rolled up, and the remains of an IV line, clogged with blood, jutted from the crease of her elbow. The edge of the tubing was frayed, no,
chewed
,
through, and her pale skin had a dusky hue that mimicked the concrete.

She wasn’t dead, but she was close.

Julian tried to rouse her, but she wouldn’t be wakened. She didn’t make a single sound, no matter what he did. He patted her hand, her face, and lifted her eyelids, all the while calling her name.

The sirens grew louder as the ambulance drew near, and Elsa had barely come back with the blanket when Jim and Ethan arrived.

Jim emerged from the driver’s seat. His sandy blond hair stuck out around the edges of his knit cap, and he pulled it down over his ears as he called out his orders.

Ethan wheeled the gurney behind him.

“What do we have?” Jim asked Julian.

“Colby Monroe, missing more than twenty-four hours, abducted from her home, and this.” Julian held out the empty bags of saline and insulin.

There was a spark of recognition in both medics when Julian said her name.

“She’s Jared Monroe’s wife,” Ethan said to Jim. “Hand me the glucose meter.” He placed the meter to her finger and drew a single drop of blood. “She’s hypoglycemic. We need to get her sugar up.”

“Colby, can you hear me?” Jim shone a penlight at her eyes.

Ethan noted her elevated heart rate. “And tachycardic.”

Julian called in to the station to let Mike know that they’d found her.

Jim pushed the blanket aside and lifted Colby’s left sleeve. He examined the line taped in place and sighed. “Someone knew what they were doing. We have to start a new IV in the other arm. Let’s get her inside and warm her up.”

“I want to go with her,” Elsa said. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

“She isn’t alone.” Julian gestured at Jim and Ethan.

Elsa had a big heart, and Julian knew it would eventually burn her out.

“What if something happens, and there’s only a small window to take her statement? Someone should be there to find out what happened.”

Though the excuse served Elsa’s intentions, it made sense.

Jim and Ethan had Colby in the back of the ambulance by the time Julian and Elsa reached their agreement.

Ethan had called in for orders and was prepping a new IV and a bag of glucose as instructed. Colby remained unresponsive as he rolled up her right sleeve and expertly started the new line.

“We have to go,” Jim said.

Elsa climbed up and sat on the bench seat, out of Ethan’s way. “Julian, I’ll meet you at County.”

Jim slammed the back doors, climbed into the driver’s seat, and resumed the lights and sirens.

Julian watched the ambulance speed off toward County only four blocks away.

CHAPTER 62

Wilson leaned against the counter, snacking on a bag of popcorn, and looked down at Jared, who was sitting in a chair behind the desk. “Let me get this straight. You spent
two
nights with her and nothing happened? Man, you’re out of practice.”

“It’s not like that with Ana. It’s different.”

Neither mentioned a word about Colby in an attempt at leaving morality off the table.

“So, what’s next?” Wilson wiped his mouth on his lab coat sleeve, which sat an inch above his wrist.

“I guess we wait and see.”

The overhead page announced an urgent call en route.

Jared grabbed his stethoscope off the desk and buttoned his lab coat on the way to the sliding glass doors.

Cecelia waddled after him, holding her swollen belly with both hands and shouting. “Dr. Monroe, please wait.”

“Not now, Cecelia. We have an emergency.”

“But—”

“Whatever it is, it’s going to have to wait.”

She moved faster than a nine months pregnant woman, no matter how practiced, had a right to.

“Dr. Monroe, I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

“You definitely shouldn’t be running in your condition,” Wilson said.

Cecelia, out of breath, paused and leaned with one hand against the wall for support. The shouting had drawn the attention of everyone in the department, including the patients. “Dr. Monroe, this is Dr. Walker’s call. Let him handle this one.”

Just the mention of Simon Walker’s name had Jared’s hackles up. “He’s chief of medicine, not an ER physician, Cecelia.”

“But I triaged him this call. He already knows the case.”

The ambulance backed in.

Jim hurried to open the doors, and Jared saw Colby inside.

Jared ran toward her, pounding his hands against the glass when the automatic doors didn’t open fast enough.

A young, redheaded police woman jumped out of the back of the ambulance, her forehead beaded with sweat.

“Jim, what’s going on?” Jared said. “Why didn’t anyone call me?”

“Insulin-induced hypoglycemia. She’s unresponsive, tachycardic, and hypothermic. We have her on a glucose drip, but she hasn’t come to.”

“Colby, can you hear me?” Jared shook her hand. “Colby, it’s Jared. Wake up.”

A green wool blanket covered her up to her chin, and only her right arm stuck out of it. Jared placed her hand on her chest, grabbed the side rail, and wheeled her fast enough through the ER that Jim had to jog to keep up. “Put her in room one. Wilson, get me a warming blanket.”

“Doc, you should let me take this.” Wilson certainly had the skill set, but Jared refused to give up the lead role.

Simon Walker came rushing down the hall, the white tails of his open lab coat flapping behind him. “Jared, you are off this case.”

“I don’t have time for this, Simon.”

“Jared, I mean it. Get away from her.”

Jared narrowed his eyes. “Why, because she’s my wife? I can’t objectively take care of family? You slept with her, too.” He kept a determined pace, working to unfasten the buckles on the gurney.

Wilson exchanged an electric heating blanket for the wool one.

Jared’s first thought was that the zippered, men’s sweatshirt Colby was wearing didn’t belong to him. His second was that, at that moment, it didn’t matter. “Increase the drip on that IV. I need a glucose reading, now.”

“I’ll have you suspended for this.” Simon kept at Jared, and Wilson stepped between them, running interference.

“Honestly, Simon, I don’t care if you have me
fired
.” Jared pulled the privacy curtain and continued his assessment.

Colby’s left sleeve was caught on a chewed IV line that hinted at a fight for her life.

She’d always been strong
.

Wilson attached the EKG leads and vitals monitor, and went to work on the tape. “We’ve got to get this line out to clot the bleeding.”

“I need a picture, please,” Elsa said. “It’s evidence.”

Jared held up Colby’s arm, and Elsa snapped several shots.

“My name’s Elsa,” she said.

“Jared Monroe.” The introductions were brief and hurried.

Wilson hit “Print” on the EKG machine, handed Jared the tracing, and repeated the blood-glucose testing. “Glucose level is up, but she’s still low. Heart rate is stabilizing. Temperature is normal.”

Jared noted blood on Colby’s jeans. “Get me a surgical tray and a suture kit.” He pushed the blanket off her leg and cut away her jeans. The cut was deep and embedded with rust. “Grab me a tetanus shot, too.”

Wilson set a cleaning basin and suturing supplies on a cart and pushed it next to Jared.

Jared pulled up a stool at the bedside and lowered the railing. He flushed the blood and debris from the wound with an irrigation syringe of sterile water and scrubbed at the edges. The cut was jagged, hard to align. Blood, water, and dirt soaked the disposable pad under Colby’s leg in a tie-dye pattern.

Elsa shivered and went pale.

“Are you all right?” Jared asked.

“I’m fine,” Elsa said.

Wilson opened a folding chair and pressed down on Elsa’s shoulders for her to sit. “Just in case.”

Jared anesthetized the wound despite Colby’s unconsciousness and hooked the suturing needle carefully through her skin. If she were awake, she’d insist on a plastic surgeon’s skill to minimize the scar. Jared, knowing how vain she was, did the next best job. No matter what had happened between them, he was determined to pull her through. The cut took six stitches, and when he was finished, he snipped the line and peeled off his bloody gloves, wondering how, exactly, all of this had happened. He turned to face Elsa and asked the question he almost didn’t want the answer to.

“Where did you find her?”

“In the garage behind Dorian Carmichael’s office.”