Species (22 page)

“T
his is an emergency,” John Carey told the cellular operator as he swung his ’66 Mustang to the curb. “I’m at Santa Monica and Wilshire. A woman just got hit by a truck. I think she’ll need an ambulance. And you can tell the cops that the guy driving the truck ran off and left it in the street, so it’s probably stolen.” He hit the power button on the phone and shoved it under the driver’s seat as he shut the engine off and yanked the parking brake into place. Besides the boy on the skateboard, he was the first to reach the woman’s side. The way she was sprawled on the glass at the side of the road made her look like one of those crash-test dummies the car manufacturers were big on using to show the public the perils of not using seat belts. Heart pounding, he fumbled at her wrist until he found a pulse, strong and steady despite the blood that soaked her skin and nylon jacket from neck to belly. One of her shoulders looked terribly twisted beneath the fabric and she had cuts everywhere from the broken glass. He didn’t know what to do next—try to stop the bleeding? Most of it seemed to have already stopped. He wasn’t a paramedic, but he remembered that she shouldn’t be moved, and none of the people gawking around him and the woman could offer any advice.

In the end, they simply stood by the unconscious woman and waited for the ambulance.

“T
he patient’s name?”

Standing at the admitting station of Santa Monica Hospital and Medical Center, John Carey gave the emergency admissions nurse a blank look. He wanted to ask her if she understood English or was just plain crazy. Instead, he repeated himself—for the third time. “I have no idea. She’s a hit-and-run victim. I just happened to see it.”

The white-uniformed woman glanced at him sharply, as if she didn’t believe him. Pinned to her top pocket was a name tag that said
M. MADBAR.
She was dark-skinned and exotic looking, like a Persian dancer out of
Arabian Nights;
she was also very cranky. “I can’t admit her without some sort of insurance information,” she snapped. “If you can’t assist me in completing these forms, she’ll be treated in the ER and then transported to County-USC Medical Center as an indigent.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” John said with an exasperated glare at the young nurse, “how many times do I have to tell you I don’t know? Here—just put it on my credit card. I’ll straighten it out with her when she’s in shape to fill out your stupid forms herself.”

“Fine.” Nurse Madbar snatched John’s Visa card from his fingers so sharply that she pinched him. “If you’d have given me this to begin with, we’d be finished by now.”

John started to remind her that the patient was a total stranger, then gave up. Sitting there and pointedly ignoring him as she hammered at her computer keyboard, Nurse Madbar was just another robot starting up the red tape.

S
il came to stretched out on a hospital gurney. The shredded nylon jacket was gone and a hospital gown, still folded in a neat rectangle, had been draped across her rib cage below her bared breasts. Most of the blood had been cleaned away and a young, dark-haired doctor with dusky skin swabbed carefully at the gaping wound on her shoulder. A harried-looking nurse set a tray with surgical tools, sutures and bandages on a cart at the doctor’s right and accepted the syringe of blood he held out. “Get a lab workup and type on this right away,” he ordered. “We’ll need X rays, an orthopedic surgeon, operating room and anesthesiologist. I can’t fix this here—the damage is too extensive. She’s going to need surgery to set this shoulder properly.” The triage nurse nodded, whipping the privacy curtain around the cubicle before ducking out with the blood sample.

Sil blinked and tried to push up on her elbows, groaning at the pain that shot through her. “Now, don’t move,” the doctor told her firmly. “You were hit by a motor vehicle, a truck, and the ambulance brought you here. I’m Dr. Shah. We’ve finally got all the bleeding under control and we don’t want it to start again. It looks like we’re going to have to send you to surgery. You’ll need—hey! Wait—don’t get up!
Stop it!”

Sil ignored the white-coated doctor and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the gurney. Her arm and shoulder throbbed terribly, so much so that it was difficult to think about anything else. There were other things going on, things she must do and others she must avoid, and her mind was too foggy to pull it all together right now. She did know, however, that she mustn’t stay here, in this place of needles and medical people so much like the complex at which she was nearly killed only a few days ago. She had to leave before it was too late, before the people from the compound traced her whereabouts. To be in sharp enough shape to do that, she had to take care of the problem with her shoulder.

She turned her head until she could see the flesh of her shoulder and the sizable tear in the meat and muscle that Dr. Shah had temporarily closed with large butterfly clamps. When she moved even a fraction of an inch, Sil could feel the jagged ends of the bones grinding against each other. She focused on the skin, muscle and bone, really
concentrated,
walling out the pain, the monotonous harping of the doctor, the constantly yammering PA system and the strident noises from the rest of the emergency room, blocking them from her consciousness until she heard nothing but the essence of her own body. For a few moments her view of her surroundings faded, replaced by a more fundamental, moving panorama of blood, skin and bone rearranging itself, repairing damage that to Sil seemed only a temporary, albeit painful, inconvenience. When her vision cleared again, the butterfly clamps had popped off and all her miserable wounds were gone, her thoughts were lucid once more, and Dr. Shah’s prattle had ceased. Now he was staring at her with an expression of utter disbelief.

“Y-y-your shoulder,” he stuttered. “It w-w-was . . .” His eyes narrowed. “What the hell’s going on here?” he demanded. “Airborne hallucinogens? Some kind of practical joke? I’ll bet Cooper from ICU put you up to this.” He reached for Sil’s arm but she pulled out of reach. “You tell him I’ll have his ass on a platter—”

“Dr. Shah!” A different triage nurse poked her head through a slit in the privacy curtain. Her gaze swept and dismissed Sil. “Are you available? We just got a child in with third-degree burns over sixty percent of her body—some kind of stove explosion. Can you—”

“Coming,” Dr. Shah barked. He spun on his heel and started to stalk out, then paused halfway out of the cubicle, his olive-skinned face seething. “Be sure and tell Cooper I didn’t think this was funny and I’ll be in touch with the hospital administrator regarding this matter.” Then, with a snap of the plasticized curtain, he was gone.

Cooper? Sil didn’t know anybody by that name but she was grateful for someone else to take the heat. It only took a few seconds to shake out the hospital gown and slip it on; a hard tug all the way around and it could barely be distinguished from a cutoff T-shirt. A quick glance outside the curtain and Sil scooted out of the ER via the first door she found and kept going; if anyone noticed that the ripped hospital gown didn’t exactly go with the black miniskirt, they didn’t say anything.

At the end of the hallway, a handsome man saw her coming toward him and jumped to his feet, hurrying to meet her. “Are you all right?” he asked urgently. She let him enfold her hand in his larger one as he began walking with her to the exit. His eyes were a remarkable light blue and full of sincerity. Ginger-colored curls fell over his forehead. “I was sure you were badly hurt.”

“I’m okay,” Sil said. He started to let go of her hand, but she entwined her fingers around his and smiled shyly. “What’s your name?”

“John,” he answered, looking bewildered. “John Carey. I can’t believe—I mean, I
saw
you, all the blood and everything. It must be a miracle or something.”

Sil smiled wider. “Yes,” she agreed with a nod. “A miracle. But I’m okay now. Can we go?”

“You’re well enough?” he asked anxiously. “The doctor said you can leave already?”

“Oh yes,” Sil answered. “He said I’m completely healed.”

26

“I
haven’t found anything that looks relevant,” Laura said. Still at the team’s makeshift headquarters in Stephen Arden’s room at the Biltmore Hotel, she’d been linked to the computer network of the Los Angeles Police Department for more than an hour. “Lots of murders, but none that fit what we know or anticipate about Sil’s behavior.”

Slumped on the chair next to the writing desk across the room, Press snorted. He ran his hands through his dark hair, then stood and walked to the window. “You’re not going to, either,” he said. “I’ve never known a cop who was current with his reports. They
hate
paperwork, and they’re almost always at least two or three days behind.”

“I can’t believe that,” Fitch commented. “That’s not the way you catch a criminal or cross-reference evidence.” The scientist folded his arms. “You watch too much television.”

“Don’t be a moron.” Press didn’t bother to turn around. “The only time they keep up to date is when they’re tracking a serial killer who’s in full swing. There’s nothing in Sil’s three victims to tie them together. Yet.”

Laura sat back. “I think Press is right, Dr. Fitch. The computers are a dead end.”

“What do you mean, yet?” Dan asked.

“Reproducing problems aside, he means if we don’t get her off the streets right away, sooner or later one of the police departments is going to get its reports punched in and start comparing victims,” Stephen replied, joining the conversation. “Software that routinely checks the crime-scene statistics and figures is commonplace among all but the smallest venues. The commanding officer at the Central Area Station in downtown L.A. is already suspicious about the connection between the murder at the ID and the guy in Hollywood Hills. It’s no secret Robbie Llywelyn was at the club before he died, and the Central Area commander is asking questions we’re not prepared to answer. Seeing the army troops everywhere doesn’t help matters.”

The phone rang and Fitch reached for it as Press went over to stand by Laura. He peered at the computer screen. “Don’t give up hope, though. We’re still tracking the credit cards, plus there’s an APB out based on the videotape.”

Laura eyed him doubtfully. “That’s not much help.”

Press shrugged. “Even if the local flatfoots aren’t up on their paperwork, they still have shift briefings where they get the rundown on what’s on the hot sheets, et cetera.”

“The murdered man’s car has just been found in Santa Monica,” Fitch broke in. “It ran out of gas.”

“What’d I tell you?” Press asked scornfully as they all grabbed for their stuff and hurried out. “You can kill somebody in L.A. and never get caught, but everybody in the world knows when you rent a room or hoist someone’s car.”