The 5th Horseman (8 page)
Authors: James Patterson
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #General, #Suspense, #antique
“Gee, I’m jealous,” I said, putting down my spoon and beaming into Yuki’s face.
I meant every word.
I imagined myself on a ship at sea. A pile of good books, a comfy deck chair, and the gentle roll of the waves putting me to sleep at night. Plus Joe, of course.
No meetings. No unsolved homicides. No stress.
“Lucky you,” I said. “And your lucky mom.”
Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
Chapter 31
YUKI WAS ON HER WAY HOME from Lindsay’s, on Eighteenth Street just merging into I-280, when her cell phone’s fluting melody sang out from the depths of her handbag, which was now lying in the passenger-side footwell.
“Shoot. Wouldn’t you know it.”
She set an angled course toward the right lane of the highway, and while holding the wheel with her left hand, she fished below eye level for her handbag.
A large bronze SUV honked at her as she threw magazines, her makeup kit, and her wallet out of the voluminous bag onto the floor.
“Sorry, sorry,” she muttered; then she palmed her phone on the third ring.
“Mom?” she said.
“Ms. Castellano?”
Yuki didn’t recognize the man’s voice. She held the steering wheel with her elbow, buzzed up the windows, and turned off the radio so that she could hear a little better.
“Yes, this is Yuki.”
“It’s Andrew Pierce.”
Yuki’s mind scrambled as she fitted the two names together. It was Dr. Pierce. Her stomach lurched. Dr. Pierce had never called her before. Why was he calling now?
“Dr. Pierce. What’s wrong?”
His voice was tinny on the cell phone, overwhelmed by the roar of the traffic surrounding her. Yuki pressed the phone even tighter to her ear.
“Your mom’s in some trouble, Yuki. I’m on my way to the hospital now.”
“What do you mean? What happened to her? You said that she was okay!”
Yuki’s eyes were fixed on the road ahead, but she saw nothing.
“She’s had a stroke,” Dr. Pierce told her.
“A stroke? I don’t understand, Doctor.”
“She’s hanging in,” Dr. Pierce went on. “Can you meet me at the hospital?”
“Yes, yes, of course. I’m less than ten minutes away.”
“Good. Your mother’s in the ICU on three. She’s a fighter, which is good news.”
Yuki tossed the phone onto the seat beside her. Images and words cascaded inside her head.
A stroke?
Her mother had been eating ice cream four hours ago. She’d been chatty. Funny. Perfectly fine!
Yuki forced her focus back to the road, realizing too late that she’d passed her exit. “Damn it!”
Frantically, desperately, she sped down I-280 to where it ended at Berry Street, then gunned through a yellow light as she took a sharp turn onto Third.
With her heart pounding, Yuki pointed her little Acura north toward Market Street. This was a slower route, more cars, more lights, more pedestrians crossing against them, but it was her only alternative now.
Yuki reviewed her brief conversation with Dr. Pierce. Had she heard him right? She’s hanging in, he’d said.
Tears gathered in Yuki’s eyes. Her mother was strong. Always. Her mother was a fighter. Even if Keiko was paralyzed . . . Nothing could keep her down.
Yuki wiped tears away with the back of her hand.
Visualizing every cross street and stoplight between her car and San Francisco Municipal Hospital, Yuki floored the accelerator.
Hang on, Mommy. I’m coming.
Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
Chapter 32
FIGHTING DOWN PANIC, Yuki exited the elevator on Municipal Hospital’s third floor; she followed the arrows around turns and through doorways until she found the ICU waiting area and the nurses’ station beside it.
“I’m here to see Dr. Pierce,” she said tersely to the nurse at the desk.
“And you are?”
Yuki gave her name and stood until Pierce came out into the waiting room. His weathered face was buckled with concern as he led Yuki to a pair of small straight-backed chairs.
“I can’t tell you much right now,” the doctor finally said. “Most likely, plaque flaked off an arterial wall and formed a block to her brain. She’s on an anticoagulant—”
“Just tell me. What are her chances?”
“We’ll know soon,” Pierce told her. “I know this is hard—”
“I have to see her, Dr. Pierce. Please,” Yuki said. She reached out and clamped her hand around the doctor’s wrist. “Please.”
“Thirty seconds. That’s all I can do for you.”
Yuki followed the doctor through the swinging doors to the curtained-off slot where Keiko was lying. Wires and IV lines were running from her body to machines that had been assembled around her bedside like concerned friends.
“She’s unconscious,” Dr. Pierce said. “But she’s not in any pain.”
How could you possibly know that? Yuki wanted to yell at Dr. Pierce.
“Can she hear me?” she asked instead.
“I doubt it, Yuki, but it’s possible.”
Yuki bent close to her mother’s ear, spoke urgently.
“Mommy. It’s me. I’m here. Hold on, Mommy. I love you.”
She heard Dr. Pierce speaking to her, as if from miles away. “Will you be waiting outside? Yuki? If I can’t find you out there, I’ll call your cell—”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right outside. I’m not leaving under any circumstances.”
Yuki walked blindly out of the ICU, took up a position in a chair.
She sat, staring straight ahead, nerves screaming, all of her frightened thoughts fused into one.
There was only one way this could turn out.
Her mom was going to make it.
Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
Chapter 33
KEIKO CASTELLANO HAD never been more frightened in her life. She felt the prick of a needle in the back of her hand.
Then she heard a rhythmic beeping sound — then the whoosh of machines.
Voices mumbled around her, but they were not her concern.
She had a flash of understanding. She was in the hospital. She’d had a serious incident of some kind — there was a pressure in her head, jamming her thoughts.
She remembered being a young girl at the Dontaku Festival, the street full of people in bright-colored costumes playing samisen and beating drums.
Thousands of paper lanterns floated on the water. Kites with tails of red ribbons danced overhead, and fireworks burst open the sky.
Keiko felt more pressure building inside her head, a thunderstorm. Dark and cold and terribly threatening. The noise of the storm was a loud rumble, drowning out all other sound.
Was she passing now?
She did not want to go!
Keiko was inside this darkness that was not sleep, when suddenly Yuki’s voice, close but distant, broke through the numbness.
Yuki was speaking to her. Yuki was there.
“Mommy. It’s me. I’m here. Hold on, Mommy. I love you.”
She tried to call out, Itsumademo ai shiteru, Yuki. I love you forever, my daughter.
But a large tube filled her mouth, and she could not speak.
And then Keiko drifted farther into the darkness.
But she came back — she was fighting the storm.
Someone was inside her room. Someone here to help?
She heard footsteps around her, felt a pull at the IV line in the back of her hand.
Her heartbeat sped up!
This was not a dream.
Something was wrong. This person hadn’t come to help.
An explosion of pain bloomed inside Keiko’s head.
She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear. Keiko screamed out in fear, but nothing came out of her mouth.
She understood what was happening now — she was being murdered; then her thoughts melted as she slipped into the void.
Keiko never felt the cold, metallic touch of a coin, first on one eyelid, then on the other.
She didn’t hear the whispered words in her ear.
“These coins are your transfers, Keiko. Good night, princess.”
Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
Part Two
Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
MURDER, MURDER EVERYWHERE
Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
Chapter 34
YUKI WOKE UP in the dark, her heart racing in leaps and bounds. Everything came back to her immediately, and with unusual clarity. Dr. Pierce mouthing condolences in the hospital waiting room. Lindsay driving her home from the hospital, putting her to bed, sitting with Yuki until she finally slept.
Still, it made no sense.
Yesterday, her mother had been well! Today she was gone.
Yuki grabbed the clock — almost 6:15.
She called Municipal Hospital, punched her way through the Audix menu. At last she got a live operator who connected her to the ICU.
“You can come anytime, Ms. Castellano,” the ICU nurse said. “But your mother isn’t here. She’s in the basement.”
Yuki’s rage was instant and blinding. She sat upright in her bed.
“What do you mean she’s in the basement?”
“I’m sorry. What I meant to say is that we can’t keep deceased patients in the ICU—”
“You put my mother in the hospital morgue? You insensitive—”
Yuki slammed down the receiver, then picked it up again and dialed for a cab. She couldn’t trust herself to drive right now. She dressed quickly in jeans, a cardigan, running shoes, and leather jacket, and dashed outside her apartment building to Jones Street.
She struggled during the seven-block cab ride to assimilate the frankly unbelievable.
Her mother was gone. There was no more Keiko in her life.
Inside the hospital, Yuki wove her way through the shuffling people in the lobby, sprinted up the stairs to the ICU. Eyes darting, she looked from one to the other of the nurses at their station. They were talking to one another, acting as if she didn’t exist. She lifted a chart and banged it sharply down on the counter. That got their attention.
“I’m Yuki Castellano,” she said to the nurse, the one with the bran-muffin crumbs clinging to the front of her uniform. “My mother was here last night. I need to know what happened to her.”
“Your mother’s name?”
“Keiko Castellano. Dr. Pierce was her doctor.”
“May I see your medical power of attorney?” the nurse asked next.
“I’m sorry?”
“You know about HIPPA? We can only tell you about your mother if you have medical power of attorney.”
Anger blazed through her. “What are you saying? Are you mad?”
What did her question have to do with patients’ rights? Her mother had just died. She had a right to know why that had happened.
Yuki fought for control of her voice. “Is Dr. Garza here, please?”
“I’ll call him, but Dr. Garza can’t tell you anything, either, Miss Castellano. He’s bound by HIPPA, like we all are.”
“I’ll take my chances,” said Yuki. “I want to see Dr. Garza!”
“Take it easy, okay,” said the nurse, training her huge, expressionless eyes on Yuki, letting her know that she thought she was out of her flipping mind. “I’ll see if he’s still here.”
Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
Chapter 35
DR. GARZA WAS INSIDE his stark, windowless office when Yuki knocked on the open door. She almost hesitated as he looked up at her, his face hard, showing his instant resentment at her intrusion. What a dick, Yuki thought.
But she pushed on, taking the chair across the desk from him, coming right to the point.
“I don’t understand why my mother died,” she said. “What happened to her?”
Garza plucked at his watchband.
“I’m sure Dr. Pierce told you, Ms. Castellano. Your mother had a stroke,” he said. “You understand? A thrombus, a blood clot, went to her brain, preventing blood flow. We put her on anticoagulants, but we couldn’t save her.”
The doctor flattened his hands on the desk in front of him, a gesture that signified “That’s it. End of story.”
“I understand what a stroke is, Dr. Garza. What I don’t understand is why she was chirpy at dinner and dead by midnight. She was inside a hospital! And you people didn’t save her. Something about that stinks, Doctor.”
“Please take your tone down a few notches, if you don’t mind,” Garza said. “Bodies aren’t machines, Ms. Castellano. And doctors aren’t miracle workers. Believe me, we did our best.”
Garza reached out and covered Yuki’s hands with his. “It’s a shock, I know. I’m sorry,” he said.
It was an oddly intimate gesture that startled Yuki, and repelled her. She jerked her hands away instinctively, and the doctor retracted his.
“By the way,” said Garza, turning cold again, “you’ll need to speak to Nurse Nuñez on your way out. Your mother has to be transferred to a funeral home within twenty-four hours. I’m afraid we can’t keep her here longer than that.”
Yuki stood up abruptly, knocking over the chair as she got to her feet.
“This isn’t over. I’m a lawyer,” Yuki said. “I’m going to look into this thoroughly. I’m going to find out what actually happened to my mom. Don’t move her until I say so, understand? And by the way, Dr. Garza, you have the bedside manner of an eel.”
Yuki turned toward the door, stumbling over the upturned chair, her feet catching the legs, pitching her forward.
She stopped her fall by grabbing at the wall, snapping off the light switch with the flat of her hand as she clumsily regained her balance, plunging Dr. Garza’s office into blackness.
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