BESTSELLING AUTHOR
NADIA SIDDIQUI
Nathan Doe Book 2
The Preying Doctor
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 Nadia Siddiqui – All rights Reserved
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication / use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Table of Contents
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2
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7
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1
“Q
uickly, in here.”
Doctor Pierre Cox rounds the corner into the surgery suite he’s been called into. He was trying to have a break but food will have to wait tonight. On-call rotations are always a hit or miss for him. Usually they are the same boring cases; occasionally they will get a person who is obviously in withdrawal coming in asking for very specific drugs and claiming to have allergies to so many other things. They are so easy to spot now that he knows what he’s doing. Although, sometimes, on nights like this one, he gets a serious injury that he is able to get to before the police arrive. It’s difficult whenever it’s a gunshot wound or a stabbing, but this one, from the number of people jogging ahead of him down the hospital hallway, this looks like a car crash, which means that likely this was the victim and not the original driver, which means it should fit his qualifications; he might be in for a very lovely treat indeed. Entering the scrub room, Cox scrubs up to his elbows hastily with soap and water as he peers into the well lit room with a sly little smile that he quickly covers with his surgical mask. He can feel it; this is going to be a good one.
One scrub nurse squirts the body on the table with betadine while the other takes her sharp surgical scissors to the man’s clothing. The first pauses in swabbing his chest long enough to help lift one half of his body and then the clothes are slid away from him and discarded in a bloody heap in the corner while they finish pushing all of the other carts into place with the tools that Cox is going to need.
There’s no denying that Doctor Cox is a brilliant surgeon, many reports and papers have called him an artist with a scalpel. They state that being double board certified in both plastics and trauma response is nearly unheard of but it makes him a dream in any emergency room that he ever sets foot in. He is brilliant and loves his job unlike he’s ever loved anything in his life. To almost all, it just seems like he’s born for this, that he has a devotion to his calling to help people and that nothing else would have ever been possible for him.
However, mostly, he just enjoys seeing people cut open. Cox has always had a fascination for blood and, fortunately for him, he had always been blessed with a brain. Therefore he was able to find a career in which cutting people open regularly, or peeling back their faces, is not only profitable but also legal.
The injuries on the man on his table are extensive. Crushed ribs puncturing a lung, shrapnel and glass embedded in his face and arms, what appears to be bruising covering a majority of his skin. He doesn’t have the telltale “seatbelt bruise” so it would indicate that some of this has been brought on by himself simply choosing not to be more careful. The nurses set to work plucking the glass from the skin and swabbing those superficial cuts with antibiotic ointment, leaving the skin a patchwork of strange colors, and then he sets to work once the monitors are all officially attached.
He never sets out to kill them, but he is always so happy when is allowed to.
This case is no exception. “Scalpel,” he commands the nurse beside him who dutifully places it in his waiting palm and he opens the already prepped chest cavity. He has to relieve the pressure on the heart and locate the source of internal bleeding to make sure that the lungs will be functional again in the future. “What happened? Do we have an identity yet?” The anesthesiologist nods in response.
“Yeah, name’s Jake, some kid from the college the next town over on his way home from whatever vacation is happening this time of year.”
“You still having trouble keeping track of the days there, buddy?”
“I work nights. I never see sunlight ever, just let me live my vampire life in peace, okay?”
Cox chuckles and goes back to his work. “Have we gotten a hold of his parents yet?”
“No. Just the roommate, says that he’s a scholarship kid, a ward of the state.”
Something inside of Doctor Cox leaps for joy at this news. “Well, keep checking, make sure there isn’t somebody we can contact to help claim his belongings.”
A silence falls over the room; they all know that tone of voice. That sickly happy, almost drugged haze that takes over him as the whole atmosphere in the room shifts. As the hours tick on and no next of kin or even possibly emergency contact is located, Doctor Cox’s gifted hands start to slow. His movements are no longer about saving the boy's life but simply just stalling for time until they are sure nobody is coming for him. Slowly, the monitors are turned off and the gallery cameras are shut off. The recording devices one by one are turned off and any extra staff excused from the room.
The surgery continues slowly, but it’s mostly just making sure that this youth won’t die too quickly. The police still haven’t shown, and the stars really seem to be aligning just for him. The rush of excitement that Cox gets is nearly overwhelming. He must remain careful so as not to let his hands shake. He must control himself just a little bit longer. Later, when the police do finally show and start to ask questions, Doctor Cox will give him the very unfortunate news that the poor car crash victim died during surgery and that of course they did everything in their power to help the poor child. Nobody will ever be the wiser.
Once the boy’s condition is officially stable, Doctor Cox removes his hands from the body cavity and folds the sterile towel over them, not that an infection is anything to worry about anymore. All involved know that the man on the table, Jake, will not be leaving this room alive. Whether Doctor Cox keeps him in here for hours or minutes, it won’t make a difference.
Usually, he likes to play for hours.
“Time of death, one twelve a.m.”
It’s the final signal that the recording is supposed to be cut off here, that this is the last official moment of life for poor little Jake here. Jake who will never finish the college course that the state is paying for. Will never finish and get married, will never have the opportunity to build a life with another person or start a family that he’s probably never had. No, Jake will die here today and be forgotten. He will be a burden on the system no longer.
It’s a powerful feeling. Cox always works alone for these next bits, not because he has yet to find another soul who is willing to walk into this p
articular darkness with him but because he doesn’t like to share this feeling. He feels like a god whenever he holds life in his hand. He is overly experienced in giving life, reshaping it, and twisting it to human desires. He is equally as experienced in taking it away.
Finally there is only one person left standing in his way, one single witness that looks back over her shoulder with a wary eye and speaks in a soft voice. If only he were able to feed off of fear alone, how long would his life be then?
“Do you … ah … want me to turn the lights off, doctor?” she asks meekly.
For a moment he doesn’t acknowledge her because he’s so focused on the body cavity in front of him. His hands hold their positions of power looking at the person in front of him. He’s not deceased, not hardly. However, all of the medical reports will say that he died exactly at the time he was claimed to have and everybody in this room will testify that, yes, he had died. There will be no hint of malpractice. There will be no rumors or whispers about what might have happened here. Doctor Pierre Cox has perfected this to an art form. All of those scrub nurses and techs are either too scared of what he might do to them or they have been paid enough to turn a blind eye. Either way, this surgical suite is now his playground. The steady beeping of machines keeps him company while the rest of the team starts to disrobe and file out of the room.
“No, that’s alright, Ashley, just the overhead is fine. Thank you, darling,” he says in his sugar-sweet voice. There’s a snapping of latex being pulled from fingers and dropped into the bin and the sliding of the heavy surgical doors as the last scrub nurse finally leaves the room. Doctor Cox is focused on the monitor beside the body, knowing that the anesthetic is slowly about to start wearing off. He starts to hum, his soft, random tunes filling the eerie space and turning it somehow more sadistic. Whenever these bodies come into his emergency room he gets such a secret little thrill. Those bodies where they try and try again to contact an emergency contact or next of kin and they don’t come through, leaving the body to be taken to surgery with no consents or forms filled...leaving them totally and completely at his mercy.
Patience is key as Doctor Cox waits for the heart rate to start to rise, for the pulse on the monitors to start beeping more and more quickly. With unhurried movements the doctor reaches under the gurney and pulls up the arm restraints, buckling him in. With a strap across the open abdomen and tightened down there will be no chances of this poor man freeing himself. Doctor Cox adjusts the blood transfusion bag, just because the man is in shock doesn’t mean he is going to allow him to die before he’s had his fun, and Doctor Cox has quite a lot of fun in store for the both of them.
All he needs now is for his subject, his plaything, to awaken and for the screaming to begin.
2
I f Nathan was given a choice, he wouldn’t ever set foot on a bus again. He understands the need for them, the fact that it’s efficient and low-profile travel. It’s something that the company can set up for him early enough in advance that nobody seems to look at him. People ride busses because it’s cheap and usually because they want to be left alone. Nathan hasn’t ever been on a long bus ride in which he has spoken to another soul.
However, a plane would be nice every now and then.
He wouldn’t even be opposed to having a rental car situation. Something that would give him something to do other than sleep.
This mission the company has sent him on today doesn’t have too much information other than a string of deaths at a couple local hospitals. None of the victims have anything in common and they don’t have records. They are simply people who go into surgeries and then never come out again. More often than not they are unclaimed people without family that the hospital will mark as “John Doe” or “Jane Doe”. Which hits home for Nathan as that’s the only semblance of a history and personality that he can remember having.
After his last assignment, the company has offered him the first scrap on his long trail to possible retirement. Not that the end of his contract is anywhere in sight, but he has been allowed to know his real name. Dylan Ramsey. Nathan has tried to say it out loud a handful of times, but it doesn’t feel right on his tongue. It’s hard to know that he has a name other than the one he’s comfortable with. Nathan wears his “Doe” identification like a badge of honor. It’s a small elite group of task hunters like him. While this Ramsey person likely has had a family, or friends, or parents of some kind that might have once known him, Nathan doesn’t feel any attachment to it. Is that simply because he’s had that portion of his mind either wiped or locked away? Would he feel differently if he could remember even a small portion of that life? Would it make a difference? It’s the sort of throbbing ache that no amount of medication can help stem. The sort that builds until sunlight is no longer an option and he needs to sleep it off. Only Nathan doesn’t have that luxury. He doesn’t have the option of going to nap somewhere until he feels better. He should call the company and let them know that he’s feeling unwell to see if that will trade him any sort of leniency for any unforeseen setbacks that might occur due his change in physical health. Though likely they would just have him stop in to a contact somewhere and have them inject him with something that would assist in his ability to focus more properly.
When he steps off the bus, he wants to fall backward from the intensity of the sunlight outside. There will be a rental car waiting for him like there always is. It will sit somewhere that he can collect it and all of the information for the identity he’s supposed to be assuming will be placed in a duffle bag in the back of a locked truck. It will be an inconspicuous car, something small and slightly out of date. It will be the sort of car that nobody will look twice at because Nathan isn’t here to be noticed. He’s here for a mission and that mission only.
Until this point he hasn’t been offered a plethora of information as to the case he’s supposed to be solving, other than he’s not supposed to go to the hospital. Apparently, the place where the corrupted doctor works as well as the hospital that he rotates through are both state of the art. Both of them have top-of-the-range security systems in place that would record every inch of their interactions. While the company was perfectly capable of interceding the video logs it would be impossible to tell when things have been manipulated or changed if it were to go into a court situation, which still wouldn’t prove that anybody like Nathan had anything to do with it, but it could be a potential headache somewhere down the line.
So instead he is going to go another route. Finding the car in the otherwise abandoned parking lot is simple. It’s the only black car he can see including those of the employees. Nathan opens the truck and pulls out the sealed manila envelope from where it was tucked under the duffle bag and goes to the front to read the contents in the comfort of the air conditioning.
Though it’s harder to focus this time. It’s hard not to think about the location they have told him he’s from. It’s hard not to think of what it must look like and if that was why he’s never been on a mission to Muncie, Indiana. Have other Doe operatives been assigned there in his place? If he went there in person, would it feel familiar to him? Would he recognize it or, even more importantly, would somebody recognize him? Nathan’s never paused to think about the possible qualifications that the company has before selecting its operatives. What boxes would have been checked in his paperwork? Was he selected for service due to accomplishments or was it random?
Focus Nathan.
Nowhere he’s ever been has ever felt like home. Does he really want to imagine himself as one of those guys who lives in their hometowns their entire life? He doesn’t want to think that could possibly be true about him. Nathan doesn’t think he has ever been a sports guy. He’s slightly above average height and the sort of passing attractive that could make himself look very presentable should he need to draw that sort of attention to himself, but while dressed in average clothing he is exactly that, just average. He has good bone structure and a frame covered in enough muscles
to make him lethal should the situation call for it. He doesn’t think that in any world he would be beefy enough to have been a football star and he likes to think he has too active of a mind to have been able to be a track star. Nathan does know he’s not the sort of person who can sit still long. He knows that he’s the active sort; he likes to get things done. The variation that the company provides him is exactly what he needs in that respect.
This case in particular isn’t like the others that he normally is assigned to. Usually, he’s the one that gets his hands dirty insofar as quick message sending execution. He likes to make sure that these corrupted, evil souls get exactly what’s coming to them. If it were strictly up to him, after having read all of the things that this doctor has done to his anonymous or nameless patients, he would do the exact same thing to this sorry bastard. Instead, he’s to blend himself into a team setting. If he could have objected, then he would have. Nathan has never much liked working with partners; he is a solo sort of guy. In his opinion, he thinks that allows him to move more swiftly, quietly through the places that he needs to be. He doesn’t want to have to worry about another person or their safety.
The identity that he unpacks here is perhaps his rarest one because it’s the hardest to get the clearance for on a time limit. It means to Nathan that they want this handled today, no background work done. Today he will be Franke Locke, an early retired detective who was injured on the job. He will have been discharged and started work in private security until he discovered by accident the bounty hunter life that flourished into a predominantly missing persons hunting career. Locke is rumored to have a very high success rate so far in most of his cases because he can see things that most others don't. He will be witty and charming and a little mysterious. It’s perhaps the easiest of all of Nathan’s roles because it’s not a far stretch from the life that he actually leads.
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