Savage Things (Chaos & Ruin Book 2) (6 page)

I’ve been so distracted by Millie’s chart that I’ve forgotten to check on the patient in the bed. She stirs, the small bump under the covers shifting and then turning into a little girl as her head emerges from the blankets. Her hair is fine, soft strands of silk floating up around her head, charged with static. Huge blue eyes filled with panic fix on me and begin to fill with tears. Her tiny bottom lip wobbles. “Where’s Mason?” she asks.
 

I clip her chart to the end of her bed again and go and sit beside her on the edge of the mattress. She’s so small, even for her age. Her fingers clasp at the blankets that cover her, clutching them to her fragile frame. She looks like a doll. It breaks my heart that such a delicate, innocent child has to suffer through such pain and worry. “Mason’s coming soon, sweetheart,” I tell her. “He had to go to work, but he promised he would come as soon as he was finished. He should be here in about an hour or so.”

Tears fall from both of her eyes at the same time, racing each other down her cheeks. “He doesn’t normally leave me,” she whispers. “I don’t like hospitals.”

“Ahh, sweetie. You want me to let you in on a little secret?” I lean a little closer to her, smiling a little. I never wanted to work with kids.
 
The peds rotation in med school was challenging to say the least; I could handle most heartbreak you encounter in hospitals, but terminally ill children were just too much for me. As I look at Millie now, I can see the same shadow hanging over her that hung over those little babies, and it feels as though my throat is swelling shut. Millie nods, gripping her blankets tighter.
 

“I hate hospitals, too,” I whisper.
 

Her eyes grow even rounder. “But you’re a doctor. You can’t hate hospitals.”

I shrug, looking up at the ceiling. “I like helping people. That’s why I became a doctor. But I don’t like hospitals. You know, my daddy is a doctor just like me. And when I was little, I never saw him. He was always working, always coming home so late, when I was already tucked up and asleep in bed, and I used to get so angry with him for spending all of his time at the hospital. I used to get mad at all the sick people that wanted him to spend all of his time with them instead of me. It took me a long time to realize that he was doing a very important job and that they needed him more than I did. I realized he still loved me, no matter what, and I would always be his little girl. That never changed how I felt about hospitals, though. I always hated them.”

Millie’s eyebrows climb upward. “Do you hate being here now?”

“No. Not now. I like being here, talking to you.”

With a little wriggle and a grunt, Millie sits up, resting against the mountain of pillows her brother insisted she needed on her bed. “You helped me when I came here earlier, didn’t you? I remember this.” She reaches up and touches me lightly on the arm, pointing at my watch. “It’s very shiny,” she whispers. “I think Mason used to have a watch like that one.”

My watch, an inexpensive copy of a Rolex, is one of my most valuable possessions. It was given to me by one of my very first patients—a woman I treated with ovarian cancer. I’d been an intern at the time, so she wasn’t even my patient, but I’d been the one to diagnose her. The doctor presiding over her case, Dr. Withers, had insisted she had celiac’s disease but back then I’d had the same nagging, uncomfortable sensation that something wasn’t quite right, and I’d investigated further. The tiny mass on her left ovary would have been easy to miss if I hadn’t been looking so hard for it. The woman, Casey, had been so grateful that I’d caught the malignant tumor that she’d come back and brought me the watch a couple of weeks after she’d finished her chemo treatments. She’d looked tired, with large shadows underneath her eyes, but she’d been given the all clear. She was cancer free, and she said she had me to thank for that.

Casey and I kept in touch for a long time. She’d send me pictures of her daughter, telling me about all of the milestones she’d been able to witness in her child’s life. After a while the letters stopped, though. A couple of years into my residency, I learned that Casey had died from a secondary bout of ovarian cancer that had snuck back in and taken root. By the time they started treating her, it was already too late.

“You like it?” I show Millie the reflective glass face, marked with years of use and abuse in St. Peter’s of Mercy Hospital. She nods. Quickly, I unclip the strap and slide the watch onto her rail-thin arm, fastening it as tightly as I can. “Do you think you could look after it for me while you’re here? I keep banging it on things.”

Millie studies the watch for a second, her tiny index finger tracing over the scratches and scuffs on the glass, and then she nods again. “I’ll look after it for you,” she says. “I’ll give it back when Mason takes me home.”

“Thank you, Millie. I’d like that.”

******

Dr. Bochowitz isn’t exactly a rule breaker, but the old guy knows when not to ask questions. He doesn’t seem to find it out of the ordinary at all that I might want to house a six-year-old patient in the morgue. Millie doesn’t seem to be bothered by the lack of natural lighting or the strange chemical smell that permeates the room, either. In fact, she seems quite comfortable in her new surroundings, away from the hustle and bustle of nurses running through the corridors and people coding around her twenty-four seven. Bochowitz makes sure all of the bodies he was working on are securely locked away before she can lay eyes on them, and then he brings her some dinner and sits with her as she eats, telling her stories about his granddaughter, who is apparently the same age as Millie.
 

I wait for Mason to arrive upstairs on the trauma floor, hoping a horrific car accident is brought in so I don’t have to explain to the guy that his little sister is now safe and sound downstairs in the morgue. The poor kid’s probably going to have nightmares for years.
 

No natural disaster strikes the city, though, and the roads are free of ten car pile-ups. Mason finds me twenty minutes behind schedule, covered in grease and dirt, looking beyond stressed as he turns his car keys over and over in his hands. “Where is she?” he demands. “I went by her room and the bed was fucking empty. I thought something terrible had happened.”

Mason stares at me, wearing a blank expression as I explain what I’ve done. I can’t tell if he’s happy I’ve found a work-around of sorts, or if he’s really mad that Millie is now the only living resident in the St. Peter’s morgue. He blinks once, and then blinks again. “Can you take me to her?” he asks.
 

I do. People sometimes do take the elevator down into the morgue, primarily so they can view the bodies of their dead loved ones and relatives, to say goodbye, but it’s not the norm. Mason doesn’t seem anywhere near sad enough to be in mourning as we ride down into the sub-level and exit, but the young nurse standing beside him gives him a sad, reassuring smile all the same.
 

Millie’s sitting up and talking to Bochowitz when we enter the room. Her eyes light up when she sees her brother, and Mason’s voice catches in his throat as he says hello. “I see you’re creating mischief as per usual, little Millie Mouse.”

She feigns annoyance, folding her arms across her body. “Am not. Mister Richard was telling me ghost stories. I wasn’t even scared, Mase. I listened the whole way through!”

Bochowitz looks a little sheepish as he stands from his seat by Millie’s bed. “Ahh, yes, well I may have gotten a little carried away with my stories as it goes. But I couldn’t help myself. Young Miss Reeves here is quite the little lady. Very brave indeed. Seemed like a shame to leave out the exciting parts.”

Mason offers out his hand to Dr. Bochowitz, who shakes his in return. “Thanks for watching over her,” he says. “And thanks for keeping her entertained. If she has nightmares, I’ll be sending her over to your place for you to deal with, though.”

“I won’t have nightmares,” Millie says. “I’m too old for nightmares.”

“Everyone has bad dreams sometimes, baby. Even grown ups.”

Millie looks stunned by this information. She wriggles down into her pillows and tilts her head to one side. “That’s not very fair,” she says. “Grown ups shouldn’t have to be afraid when they’re big.”

Mason lets out a shaky laugh, rocking his head from side to side. “Grown ups get scared all the time, I’m sure. All of us. We can just handle it better than little kids, Mill.”

The sweet little girl in the bed flares her nostrils as she pulls a giant lungful of air into her body. She looks from Dr. Bochowitz to her brother, and then to me, at which point she shakes her head. “You don’t get scared, Mason. You’re the bravest brother ever. You’re never,
never
afraid of anything.”

I can see her wanting to believe this so badly. If Mason never gets scared, then Millie knows her protector is brave and capable of taking care of her. Mason must be all too aware of this, too. He chucks her under the chin, grinning. “Fair enough. You caught me. I don’t scare easy, that’s for sure.”

I know the truth, though. Mason, like anyone in charge of another person’s wellbeing, especially a child, is scared all the time. If he’s like any of the other parents who walk the hallways of St. Peter’s, he’s paralyzed by fear. He does a good job of hiding it in front of Millie, though.
 

“When can we go home?” Millie tries to throw back her covers, as though she’s ready this instant. She’s thwarted by the tightly tucked in sheets, so she doesn’t make it far.
 

“Soon, baby. We just need to—” He stops short as his phone starts ringing loudly in his pocket. “Shit. I’m sorry. I know I’m supposed to switch that off.” He fishes his cell phone out of his pocket, and his expression darkens as he looks at the screen.

Bochowitz waves off his apology. “That’s okay, Mr. Reeves. As you can see normal rules don’t apply down here. Feel free to answer that if you need to. You can step out into the hallway.”

Mason shoots him a rueful smile, nodding his head. “Thanks. Unfortunately I do have to take this call.” Getting to his feet, his eyes meet mine as he moves past me to exit through the door; I couldn’t work it out before, how he felt about me moving Millie down here, out of sight, but now I can see the gratitude in his eyes. Thank fuck for that. He could easily report me to the Chief, and that would be me finished. Bochowitz starts talking to Millie again, distracting her while her brother is indisposed. I’m turning, about to join them, when I hear Mason answer his phone. The door is closing quickly behind him, but I still have time to register the first words that come out of his mouth, and I’m chilled to the bone by what I overhear.
 

“Detective Lowell,” he says. “I haven’t been able to check in on Mayfair today.”

Chapter Six

MASON

Lowell’s pissed. She doesn’t seem to understand that if I’m at the hospital with my baby sister, I’m not going to be able to do her dirty work for her. She is prickly as fuck as she dresses me down over the phone. “You realize, Mason, that we’re working with a time limit here. If I don’t find any evidence relating to this murder soon, I won’t be able to pursue Mayfair as a person of interest. That’s bad for me. Very, very bad, which means it’s very, very bad for you, too. And your little sister. I mean, all it would take is one phone call to child services…”

“Fuck. Can you—can you just give me another day or two? I’m doing the best I can, okay? Zeth’s a hard man to get a read on. He keeps his cards close to his chest. It’s not as if he’s spilling his guts about the dead bodies he’s buried in the mountains every time we spar. He’s not that stupid. He barely knows me.”

“You sound like you respect him,” Lowell says. “You sound like I’m making you unfairly spy on an innocent man. Remember this, Mason. Men like Zeth are charismatic. They’re charming. They lull you into a false sense of security.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you’ve had dealings with in the past, but Zeth’s not charming or charismatic in the slightest. He’s an unfriendly, prickly motherfucker, and I am scared
shitless
of him. I have no sense of security at all, false or otherwise.”

Lowell just grunts. “Whatever. You know what the stakes are here, Mason. Get him talking.”

“I don’t know how to do that! I’m not a fucking interrogator. I’ve got no experience with this kind of shit.”

“Jesus. Just get him drunk. All men love to boast about the shit they’ve done when they’ve got a gallon of Jack Daniels inside them.”

This woman has no idea what she’s asking of me. If she does, then she obviously doesn’t give a shit about my personal wellbeing. In the brief time I’ve known Denise Lowell, she doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to allow other people’s safety to get in the way of what she wants, though.
 

“I’ll do my best,” I tell her. “That’s all I can do.”

“Bullshit like that is for five-year-olds and losers, Mr. Reeves. Do better than your best. Do
my
best. Do whatever it takes.” The line goes dead, and I’m left standing in the hallway with my cell phone still pressed against my ear, wondering how the fuck I got myself dragged into this mess.
 

I head back into the room and find Millie counting off her best friends on what looks like both her hands and both her feet. The old guy doctor is good with her, I have to admit that. He puts up a good front, showing interest in who Octavia, Rosie and Samantha are. Dr. Romera, on the other hand, is wearing a sharp, hostile look on her face that I recognize all too well. I was wearing it earlier when she was trying to convince me to keep Millie at St. Peter’s. If looks could kill, I’d be hanged, drawn and quartered and already buried six feet under.
 

“Is everything okay, Dr. Romera?”

She jumps, as if we haven’t been staring at each other since I walked back into the room and she’s only just noticed me now. “Yes. Yeah. Everything is fine,” she says. Her voice is flat, though. Cold. It’s as if she’s a different person, all of a sudden gone is the warm, caring, friendly doctor I was dealing with a moment ago, and in her place stands…I don’t even know who she is now. “Everything is perfect,” she says, unfolding her arms from across her chest and placing her hands slowly into the pockets of her white lab coat. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me for a moment, guys. It’s my turn to make an important phone call.” She gives me another frosty, appraising look, and then flashes a perfunctory smile at her colleague. “You won’t mind if I step away for a moment?”