Maddy's Floor (36 page)

"I don't understand; what 
are
 you doing? Well, I obviously know the what, just not the how. Like, what was the point of the black energy under John's bed? Why would you even need that there?"

"You don't understand anything. John and Doris have been playing one-upmanship forever. Why do you think he's been sick for so long? Doris has had her hooks into John for years. It's only since we managed to get the right drugs into her and she realized how much time she'd lost that she wanted to make up for the lost years and make John pay. The hooks were already in place. The dark energy was her way of feeding off him. But it's made her crazier, too. She's getting worse. I've had to increase her medication again. Rather gross, actually."

He shrugged. "If she remains drugged, then the energy will only stay if I choose to continue to feed it. If I don't, then it will wither away. I know enough to continue my training on my own. I never thought anyone would catch her." He stared at her curiously. "She's gotten away with it for so long."

"So you really can kill someone doing this?" Shock and pain twisted her insides tightly. Furious, and hurt by the terrible betrayal, her brain was stuck on the fact that the man who was supposed to be making a success of Maddy's floor had been using it as a feeding ground for his evil purposes.

"Well, I can't kill anyone that way yet, but I can make them really sick while I take their energy and use it for myself."

"So was it you or Doris who killed Jansen?" Maddy couldn't believe what she was hearing. Or reconcile the woman downstairs with the killer who'd taken Jansen's life – and who knew how many others?

"That was the demonstration that went a little too far. Man, she's smooth like that. Years of practice, she said. That's how she saved her son from sure death when he was just a kid. Once he'd healed, she had to do it every few months or more, almost like a junkie needing a fix, except that engaging in that process changed her. Her mental state deteriorated. Eventually, she had trouble remembering what to do and how to do it.

"That's where I came in. I finally stabilized her medications, and when I explained to her that her old doctor was to blame, she killed him out of revenge."

He laughed, a macabre sound that made Maddy cringe inside. If Cunningham got away with the knowledge he had…well there'd be no stopping him. "She's something. She also knew things about energy that most of us would never imagine. The combination was deadly."

Maddy couldn't stay silent any longer. "Except for one slight problem. She's a mental case from hell due to that knowledge…that's all." Her sarcasm was lost on him. The things these two people had done made her want to vomit.

He shrugged. "She was on the delicate side to begin with."

"Do you know who she might have killed years ago to save her son?"

"Ask that detective friend of yours. He'd be able to look it up. She picked on children back then because they were so innocent and open. That made it easier for her. Besides, children's energy is healthier and stronger than adult energy. She wasted much of it because she didn't really know what she was doing.

"She believed that children's energy was better to heal a child. Something about being a better match, like blood types. Once her mental state started to slide, she wasn't capable of doing that anymore. She said it had something to do with a healthy person's energy being able to block hers. The healthy energy would see her energy as abnormal – parasitic. For those here on Maddy's floor, their energy systems are compromised already, making them easier targets." He laughed. "Thanks for giving us this wonderful opportunity."

So it wasn't a feeding ground, at least not for him. Instead, her floor had been his training field. He walked around Maddy, keeping the gun trained on her and John, who'd stayed still.

He slipped his hand in his pocket. He pulled a small blue book out of his pocket and waved it around. "Talk about coincidence. I had an old guy come into the ER. He'd gotten into an argument with another old fart about this dairy. Seems his kid was murdered years ago and this is the diary his wife kept at the time. She listed all the people and places the kid had been in contact with – to help the police find his killer. All these years, the diary had been lost in the house.

“I grabbed it out of curiosity, thinking to accidentally 'find' it and return it later. Only it actually lists Doris in here several times, so I couldn't hand it over." His face twisted with satisfaction. "After all these years, she was finally going to be caught. I wasn't going to hang around to wait for that. Who knows what she'd end up saying."

Like a crazy man who'd pulled off something everyone else said couldn't be done, he was proud of himself. His work.

Maddy stood in shocked disbelief.

"Doris might still say something." Maddy didn't want to put Doris in any danger, yet she needed to keep Dr. Cunningham talking.

"No, she won't. I've changed her medication. She'll be a blathering idiot by now."

Nice. Use her mental illness to make her a non-suspect. Maddy tossed her head. "So much for being a doctor and caring about your patients."

"I've been a great doctor. When have I ever done a patient wrong? And no, Doris doesn't come into this. She's a bloody murderer. You should be thanking me for taking care of the problem. She won't be able to kill any more people now. Too bad you didn't realize she was hurting and killing people right under your nose." His voice changed to mimic a woman's high voice, his hand wafting in front of him. "Oh no, not Dr. Maddy – she's so perfect."

Maddy winced. That sounded horrible coming from him. "I've never professed to be perfect."

"Maybe not, but you've been blind to her murderous tricks. She's killed at least two men that I know of, one young and one old, and that's just in the last two weeks. She told me about them. She'd known the one since forever and the young one since he was a kid. Said she couldn't resist. Even then, her grasp on reality wasn't very good. The more she did, the worse she got. She hadn't gone after those two with the intent to kill, but hadn't been able to stop herself. She's losing control. I had to stop her. I couldn't trust her anymore." Something about the look on his face – it had turned analytical – gave Maddy the impression he wanted to experience the same sensations Doris had.

Maddy shuddered. Two? Eric and Jansen? One young and one old. And maybe more that she didn't know about. They'd have to go back to the date of Doris's arrival and check. She'd heard a whisper in her mind during her mad flight to Eric's bed that day. Could that have been Doris?

Paul continued to talk. "Adam told me how much he needed to see you, to tell you the truth. I had no idea what he'd planned to tell you, although the odds were good that it wasn't in my favor. He'd overheard me on the phone one day when I thought he'd been sleeping. I'd been confirming my travel plans to the Canary Islands. I didn't dare let him tell anyone.

"I panicked actually. With Doris done and out of the picture, I'd planned to leave this weekend anyway." He snorted. "But how the hell you got the message I don't know. No one was supposed to find him that fast. Had to have been that nurse. Because there you were…again." He glared at her. "Made me move my schedule up."

Maddy's jaw dropped. "You stabbed Adam just because he 
might
 have overheard a phone call of yours? A call that in no way connected you to any murders or attacks…yet you stabbed him for that?" The more she studied his face and his aura, the more she realized how unstable 
he
 was. "You've been practicing the techniques Doris has shown you, haven't you?"

"Of course." He glared at her. "I'm over sixty, Maddy. I have no intention of waiting until I'm dying before I start availing myself of all that glorious energy. That would be stupid."

"Stupid or not, you've made the same mistake she did. You've been collecting bits and pieces of other people around you. See Doris, the way she is? That's your future."

He rolled his eyes. "Nonsense. I've perfected her technique. She's the nutcase. I'm careful. I have a beautiful future ahead of me. No one is going to mess that up." His head cocked to one side. A calculating look came over his face.

"Don't make a sound," he whispered, his gaze sweeping over John huddled under his covers and the rest of the empty room.

Maddy had been harboring a snake in her own space and hadn't known it. Dr. Cunningham had to be damn skilled to hide his actions all these years. His energy work, although rudimentary at the beginning, had improved. He'd used her and her project. Unforgivable. She thought he'd been such a stalwart supporter, a hard worker and a good friend. Instead, that shell harbored a hardened, callous animal.

An odd sound could be heard. Dr. Cunningham motioned to something behind Maddy. "Welcome to the party. But throw your gun to the ground."

Maddy spun around.

Drew and Gerard walked into the open.

Drew glared, steely eyed at Dr. Cunningham, the gun steady in his hand.

"Do it. Or Maddy gets the first bullet."

The gun dropped from Drew's hand. Drew kicked it off to the side. A muscle in his jaw pulsed, but he never dropped his gaze from Dr. Cunningham.

Crap. The right man was here to help her – the wrong man was holding the gun.

Drew's face bolstered her courage. Pissed, his eyes held a cold, hard edge. Damn, the man looked good. And damn, she had it bad, if she could stand here in this situation with a crazed killer and think how wonderful Drew looked.

"Maddy, are you okay?" Drew's eyes were still trained on the gun.

"Why don't you ask me how I'm doing?" John's querulous voice quavered from the direction of the bed. He was hard to see. John had' shriveled into a small, shrunken frame under the blankets. "I'm fine, thank you. Almost dead because of him and his damn mother. I could hardly believe all he was saying." He pointed at Drew. "Now, what the hell are you going to do about this mess?"

Dr. Cunningham snorted. "As if he's in a position to do anything."

"He's my nephew and he's a cop, so he'd damn well better do something."

Maddy winced. Just what she needed – a fight between a patient and a killer. "Everything is going to be fine, John."

"Sorry, Maddy, you're not going to be able to fix everything this time," Dr. Cunningham said, moving the gun between the four of them. "So who wants to go first?"

Without warning, Drew jumped him. The gun went off as Drew kicked it out of Dr. Cunningham's hands. The two men went down in a flurry of arms and legs. Gerard rushed in to help. Maddy snagged up the gun as it skidded across the floor, then waded into the fight to hold the gun to her colleague's head.

"Stop right there, or I'll shoot."

The men froze, their chests heaving. Dr. Cunningham laughed and snatched at the gun. In the fight to keep it, somehow the gun was fired again. She couldn't see if it did any damage as Dr. Cunningham wrenched it from her hands. "You won't kill me. You're too damn soft."

A third gunshot sounded.

Maddy jumped back. The first gun dropped to the floor as Dr. Cunningham fell, groaning. Everyone turned to John, who held himself up on one elbow, shaky but defiant, a small revolver in his hand.

"Like I'm going to let some asshole like him kill me."

Gerard walked over and plucked that gun from his uncle's hand. "You don't need that anymore."

Maddy dropped to the floor, her instincts taking over. John had shot true. Dr. Cunningham was dead.

With his cell phone Gerard called for security and emergency assistance.

Maddy looked at Drew. "I can't believe it was him. He was actually using my project to hurt people." The whole concept bewildered her. "He stabbed Adam. I passed him in the hallway on my way to Adam's room. I didn't think anything of it at the time." She shivered. "He had such an odd look on his face."

"Maddy, where are the staff?"

The color drained from her face. "Oh my God, I forgot about them. They're locked in my office."

"I'll go get them." Gerard ran down the hallway as security opened the locked doors. Police flooded the area. She was so going to need Stefan's help to rid the floor of these negative energies, to restore the healing balance here – but not tonight.

Maddy stepped back, turning to look at Drew and gasped in shock. "Damn it, Drew, why didn't you tell me you'd been hurt?" Maddy reached his side, her hand slapping down on his chest.

He tried to brush her hands away. "No, I'm fine."

Only he wasn't. Maddy gaped at her hand. Fresh blood dripped from her fingers. As Maddy watched, the color drained from his face and he leaned on her slightly before collapsing. She slid her arms around him and tried to support his weight as two officers raced over to help.

Maddy dropped to her knees by his side. "Oh, God." She slid her hand underneath. There was no exit hole. "Call emergency, he's been shot in the chest." A nurse ran toward her. Maddy snapped, "Get a stretcher. We have to get him downstairs. Now!"

Organized chaos ensued when Maddy's training and the training of those around her kicked in.

***

Maddy had trouble remembering the sequence of events or the people involved after that. The next thing she knew, she was staring at the closed surgery doors. She'd been stopped from entering with him as Drew was rushed inside.