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Descending to the first floor in case Susan was watching the floor indicator, Jazz followed the twisting corridors past the closed day clinics and walked into the Goldblatt lobby. She could have gotten off on the fourth or pediatric floor and headed into the Goldblatt Wing from there, but she was worried that Susan was getting too suspicious about her meanderings.

Even on the first floor, the Goldblatt Wing was different in all regards from the rest of the hospital. The walls were paneled in mahogany, and the corridors were carpeted. Oil paintings hung beneath their picture lamps. The visitors who were disembarking from the elevators and leaving were dressed nattily, and the women sparkled with diamonds.

Outside were limousines and valet attendants.

Despite an elaborate security setup at the front entrance, no one questioned Jazz's arrival from the hospital proper. She stood at the elevators, waiting for a car, with a few other nurses coming on duty. She noticed they were dressed like Susan Chapman, in old-fashioned nurses' outfits. Several even wore hats.

Jazz was the only person to get off on the fourth floor. Like the lobby downstairs, it was carpeted and paneled and decorated with fine art. A number of departing visitors waited for a down elevator. Several smiled at Jazz, and she smiled back.

It hardly seemed like a hospital. Her cross-trainers hardly made a sound on the carpet. Glancing into the patient rooms, she could see that they were decorated in an equally refined manner, with upholstered furniture and draperies. Visiting hours were ending and people were saying their good-byes. As she came abreast of room 424, she slowed. About fifty feet ahead was the central nurses' station, a beacon of bright light compared to the subdued illumination of the hall.

The door to room 424 was ajar. Jazz glanced up and down the corridor to make sure she went unnoticed. Stepping into the room's doorway, she had a full view of the interior. As she expected, there was no private-duty nurse. There were also no visitors.

The patient was a muscular African-American man stripped to the waist. A large bandage swathed his right shoulder, and an IV ran into his left arm. He was sitting in the hospital bed with the back cranked up, watching a TV suspended from the ceiling over the bed's foot. Jazz could not see the screen, but from the sound, she could tell it was a sporting event.

Stephen's eyes pulled away from the TV and looked over at Jazz. "Can I help you?" he called.

"Just checking to make sure everything is okay," Jazz said, which was true. She was pleased. It was going to be a walk in the park.

"Things would be better if the Knicks would get their game together," Stephen said.

Jazz nodded, waved to the patient, then retreated back to the elevator.

With her reconnoitering accomplished, Jazz returned to the first floor and went into the coffee shop. She was pleased.

The first half of the night shift went as expected. Jazz had been assigned as nurse manager for eleven patients, which was one more than the other nurses, but she didn't complain. She was teamed up with the best nurse's aide, so things evened out.

Unfortunately, she had not been assigned to Rowena Sobczyk, and as busy as Jazz was, there was no chance to do anything for Mr. Bob until her lunch break, which had just started.

Jazz descended in the elevator with the two other nurses and two nurse's aides who were sharing the lunch slot, but she made sure she lost all of them in the cafeteria. She didn't want to get caught up with their chitchat and have trouble getting away. Instead, she wolfed down a sandwich and polished off a pint of skim milk without sitting down.

She had only thirty minutes, and she had a lot to do.

During the course of the shift, Jazz had added a couple of syringes to the potassium ampoules in her jacket pockets. Leaving the cafeteria, she ducked into the ladies' room.

A quick check beneath the stalls convinced her that she was alone. For added privacy, she went into one of the stalls and closed the door. Taking out the ampoules one at a time, she snapped off their tops and carefully filled both syringes. With their needle caps back on, the syringes were returned to the depths of her jacket pockets.

Back out in the main part of the lavatory, Jazz quickly rolled the empty ampoules up in a number of paper towels. Still, no one had come in. Placing the roll on the tile floor, she crushed it with the heel of her shoe. The glass made a faint popping sound. She then tossed the flattened wad of paper and glass into the waste container.

Jazz looked at herself in the mirror. She ran her fingers through her fringed hair, straightened her jacket, and adjusted the stethoscope that was draped around her neck.

Satisfied, she started for the door, now armed and ready for action. It had been as simple as that. She was beginning to appreciate the efficiency of doing two cases in the same night. It was like an assembly line.

She took the main elevators up to the fourth floor, avoiding the Goldblatt lobby, lest she arouse the curiosity of the security people. The fourth floor was all pediatrics, and as she descended the long hallway en route to the Goldblatt Wing, the thought of sick infants in the various rooms brought back an unpleasant memory of little Janos. Jazz had been the one who'd found him that fateful morning. The poor kid was as stiff as a board and slightly blue, lying face-down in his rumpled blanket. Being a child herself, Jazz had panicked, and desperate for help, she'd dashed in to where her parents were sleeping to try to wake them. But no matter what she did, she couldn't raise them from their drunken slumber. Jazz ended up calling 911 herself and later letting the EMTs in through the front door.

A heavy fire door separated the Goldblatt Wing from the hospital proper. It was as if it was rarely opened, and after an unsuccessful tug, Jazz had to put one foot up against the jamb and use her leg muscles to get it to budge. Stepping over the threshold, she was again reminded of how different the Goldblatt decor was. What particularly caught Jazz's attention was the lighting. Instead of the usual institutional fluorescents, there were incandescent sconces and picture lights, which had been dimmed since Jazz's earlier visit.

She put her shoulder against the fire door just to be a hundred percent sure it would reopen for her retreat. It moved with significantly less effort than it had the first time.

Jazz set off down the corridor at a deliberate pace. She'd learned from experience not to be hesitant, since such behavior invited attention. She knew where she was going, and she acted like it. Despite a long vista down the hallway, she saw no one, not even at the distant nurses' station. As she passed patient rooms, she heard the occasional beep of a monitor and even caught a glimpse of a nurse bending over a patient.

As Jazz neared her objective, she began to feel the same excitement she'd experienced in combat in Kuwait in 1991. It was a sensation that only soldiers who'd been in war could understand. Sometimes there was a flicker of it when she was playing Call of Duty, but not with the intensity of the real thing. For her, it was a little like speed, but better and without the hangover. Jazz smiled inwardly. Getting paid for what she was doing made it even more of a pleasure. She came to room 424 and didn't hesitate. She walked right in.

Stephen was still propped up in bed but fast asleep. The TV was off. The room was relatively dark, with the only illumination coming from a combination of a dim nightlight and a vanity light in the bathroom. The bathroom door was open just a crack, causing a stripe of light to fall across the foot of the bed and along the floor like a narrow line of fluorescent paint. The IV was still in place.

Jazz checked her watch. It was three-fourteen. Quickly but silently, she moved over to the bedside and opened up the IV. Within the Millipore chamber, the drops became a steady stream. She bent over and looked at the IV site where the needle went into Stephen's arm. There was no swelling. The IV was running just fine.

Back at the door to the hall, Jazz leaned out and looked up and down the corridor for one last check. Still, no one was in sight. All was calm. Returning to the bedside, she pushed the sleeves of her jacket up above her elbows to get them out of the way. She then pulled out one of her full syringes and took the needle cap off with her teeth while holding the IV port in her left hand. Despite her excitement, she steadied herself before inserting the needle. Straightening up, she listened. She heard nothing.

With a strong, steady push, Jazz emptied the syringe into the IV port. As she did so, she saw the level of fluid in the Millipore chamber rise, which she expected. The potassium chloride solution was backing up the IV fluid. What she didn't expect was a rather loud groan from Stephen, followed by his eyes popping open to their fullest extent. Even more unexpected was Stephen's right hand lunging across his chest and grabbing Jazz's forearm with shocking strength. A muffled cry of pain escaped from Jazz's mouth as sharp nails dug into her skin.

Dropping the syringe onto the side of the bed, Jazz desperately tried to break the hold Stephen had on her arm, but she couldn't. At the same time, Stephen's groan melded into a shriek. Abandoning her attempt to release his grip on her arm, Jazz slapped her free hand over Stephen's mouth and leaned her torso into him in a desperate attempt to quiet him. It worked, although he bucked to try to worm himself free.

There was a continued brief struggle, but Stephen's strength quickly ebbed. As his grip on Jazz's arm weakened, his fingernails were drawn down her forearm, scratching her and causing her to cry out again.

As quickly as the scuffle started, it ended. Stephen's eyes rolled up inside his head, and his body went limp, his head flopping onto his chest.

Jazz detached herself. She was furious. "You bastard!" she murmured through clenched teeth. She checked her arm. Several of the scratches were bleeding. She felt like punching the guy, but she held herself in check since she knew the guy was already dead. She snatched up the syringe and then got down on her hands and knees to find the damn needle cap that she'd been holding in her teeth and had dropped when she'd cried out. She quickly gave up. Instead, she merely bent the needle around 180° before putting the empty syringe back in her jacket pocket. She couldn't believe what had happened. Since she had started dispatching patients, this was the first one to pull off such a stunt.

After slowing the IV back to where it was when she'd first come in and replacing her stethoscope around her neck, Jazz quickly went to the door. She glanced up and down the corridor. Thankfully, apparently no one had heard Stephen's cry, since the corridor remained as quiet as a morgue. She gingerly straightened the sleeve of her jacket over the scratches on her forearm, glanced back once more at Stephen to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything, then stepped out into the hallway.

Wasting no time, she retraced her steps back to the fire door. Once on the other side she leaned her back up against the door. She was a bit unnerved by the unexpected complication, but she quickly collected herself. She reasoned that she had to expect problems once in a while, despite her planning. She then examined her forearm in the better light. She had three gouges on the volar surface of her forearm from Stephen's nails, with trailing linear scratches about three inches long extending down toward her wrist. Two of them were oozing blood. She shook her head, thinking that Stephen certainly had it coming to him.

Jazz warily replaced her sleeve and checked her watch. It was three-twenty, and she had one more sanction to accomplish. She knew it was an opportune time, because the nurse assigned to Rowena was on break with her and wouldn't be back for another ten minutes. But she couldn't dillydally. Walking rapidly, Jazz returned to the main elevators and went back up to her floor.

There was only one person at the nurses' station. It was Charlotte Baker, a pixieish nurse's aide. She was busy writing nurse's notes. Jazz glanced in the utility room and the drug room, the Dutch door of which was open on the top. Both were empty.

"Where's our fearless leader?" Jazz questioned. She looked down the corridor in both directions. She didn't see anyone.

"I believe Ms. Chapman is down in room 602, helping with a catheterization,"

Charlotte said without looking up. "But I'm not entirely sure. I've been holding down the fort here for fifteen minutes or so."

Jazz nodded and looked down toward 602. That room was situated in the opposite direction from Rowena's room. Sensing that the time would not get any better, she pushed away from the counter that overlooked the nurses' station, made sure Charlotte was not paying her any attention, and headed toward 617. Once again, her pulse quickened as she anticipated action, only this time the thrill was tinged with anxiety after her experience with Stephen Lewis. A mild ache from the scratches on her forearm was a reminder that she couldn't control all the variables.

A patient caught a glimpse of Jazz as she hurried past his door, and he called out to her, but she ignored it. Checking her watch, she figured she had six minutes before anyone was scheduled to return from their lunch break, including the nurse assigned to Rowena, but since no one was ever early, she had a bit of a buffer. Six minutes was plenty of time.

The stage was similar to what she'd found in Stephen's room, but without the carpet, fancy drapes, upholstered furniture, and fine art, and the only light was a nightlight. The bathroom door was ajar, but the lights were off. Rowena Sobczyk was asleep in the bed with both feet bandaged from a bilateral hallux valgus repair. She was on her back and snoring slightly. Jazz looked down at the woman. Although she was twenty-six, she appeared much younger, with tiny features and a mop of dark, unruly hair splayed out against the white pillow.

Jazz opened the IV to run freely, then bent over to check for any swelling. There was none, so all was set. She pulled out the full syringe and, holding it in her right hand, lifted the IV port with her left. Just as she'd done in Stephen's room, she used her teeth to remove the needle cap. Immediately, she inserted the needle into the port and then repositioned her hand with her thumb over the syringe's plunger. After taking a breath and holding it, she smoothly depressed the plunger.