Severed

by Corey Brown

  “Goddamnit,” Cody says, welling up. “She’s going to be okay, she has to be.”

  Derek waits, gauges the moment, decides to wait a little longer. After several minutes he says, “Any word? How is Marion?”

  “She’s still in the operating room,” Gus says, swiping at his cheeks. “We don’t know anything right now.”

  Suzanne watches the four of them a few moments before backing away. What was she thinking? She didn’t belong with them. Suzanne had to find her brother but she was so tired. Suzanne knew she should go to her hotel room and get some rest, but where is David? She can’t….what? Can’t leave him not found? That doesn’t make any sense. She feels like crying.

  Turning and walking toward the exit, Suzanne realizes what she really wanted, what she had hoped for by introducing herself to Jamie and Gus. She looks back at those four huddled together, facing their crisis. Suzanne knows what had drawn her: their friendship. It was that simple. She did not want to be alone. Not here, not tonight, not in her hotel room. She did not want to be alone in the world.

  But she is alone and, to her, the four of them are strangers. She does not know them and as much as she wished they were, they are not her friends. Her shoulders sag, she exhales slowly, sadly. She had imagined those connective feelings out of loneliness, nothing more. Suzanne takes one last look at the others then leaves.

  “How’d this happen?” Cody says.

  Jamie shakes her head. “We don’t know. They found her in Lucas’s condo,” Jamie said, her voice becoming shaky.

  “What?” Cody says, his mind starting to race. “In Lucas’s condo? Who found her? Why was she there?”

  Jamie shrugs. “I don’t know, I guess to pick up Todd.”

  “Todd?”

  “Yeah, remember? I told you mom went to get him. He was with Lucas.”

  Cody frowns and says, “Where is Todd now?”

  Jamie puts a hand to her mouth, her eyes bursting with tears. “Oh God, I don’t know. Oh, I forgot about Todd. With everything that happened to mom, I just forgot”

  “Shit,” Cody says, “This is not good.” He feels his lungs growing tight. “Are you sure he was there? What about Lucas, where’s he?”

  “Marion is the only one the police told us about,” Gus says, softly. “We don’t know where the boy is. Or Lucas. They’re both gone.”

  Letting go of Jamie, Cody turns to Derek.

  “I’m on it,” Derek says, before Cody can open his mouth. “I’ll get to the scene, find out what I can. What’s Lucas’s address?”

  Cody pulls a business card from his wallet and scribbles on the back. Turning it over to show Derek the printed side, he says, “Here’s Laroche’s number. Convince him to start asking questions, get details. This is more than a random thing. If he doesn’t want to pass the information directly to me, that’s okay. See if he’ll go through you. Tell him I know I’m out of bounds, tell him this is not about me, it’s about----” The words catch, his voice turns husky. “Tell him this is about my son.”

  Derek nods says, “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything. You do the same. Call me as soon as you know anything about Marion, okay?”

  “Hey, stop by Gus’s place on your way,” Cody says. “Just in case Todd’s gone home.”

  “I’ll find him,” Derek says. He looks at Jamie. “Try not to worry, I will find him.”

  The glass doors make that swishing sound, opening for Derek as he walks out.

  “Todd’s in trouble, isn’t he?” Jamie says, pulling close to Cody. “You warned me, you told me. You told me to keep him. Oh God, Cody, what have I done? I forgot about Todd.”

  “You haven’t done anything,” Cody says, regretting how much emotion he had shown, wishing he’d been more like a cop than a father. “We don’t even know if Todd was around when Marion was shot. He might’ve been miles away. He’s probably fine. Hold tight, Derek will figure this out.”

  “But I forgot about him,” Jamie said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I…I forgot about my own child.”

  “Now, don’t go blaming yourself,” Gus says, patting her on the back. “Things have been on the wild side lately. How could anyone know it would come to this? You were worried about your momma. Ain’t no shame in being preoccupied.”

  Cody stares at Gus. He is a simple man, rough not just around the edges but all the way through; still, the old bastard sure had his moments. Cody cannot even begin to figure how or why but sometimes Gus can say just the right thing, at just the right time.

  Then Cody thinks about what Gus had said, how could anyone know it would come to this? But maybe they---- maybe he, Cody, should have known. First Jamie then himself and now Marion. Was there a pattern to the shooting? Were Todd or Gus next? But Hank Mitchell was killed hours ago, long before Marion was shot. That only suggested one thing: several people, or at least two people, were on the hunt.

  This new line of thinking makes Cody wonder if Hank Mitchell was, in fact, Julia’s murderer. From a timing perspective Mitchell could have easily killed Julia and followed Cody, but did it fit? Could there be three shooters involved? Or four, if you counted Nick’s murder?

  Jamie brushes at a tear. “Thanks, Dad,” she says, a weak smile turning up the corner of her mouth. “But mothers shouldn’t forget about their sons.”

  “Gus is right,” Cody insists. “For the last three days we’ve all been living in a shit storm, who wouldn’t get lost in it? Don’t punish yourself, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Jamie says, pressing her fingertips into the corners of her eyes. “But I’m still a bad mom.”

  Cody pulls her close. “Not hardly.”

  A hospital staff member approaches the three of them. He is wearing light blue scrubs, a blue surgeon’s mask and yellow shoe covers.

  “Excuse me,” he says. “Are you Marion Dubois’s family?”

  “Yes, I’m her husband.” Gus’s voice is tight, barely controlled.

  “I just want to give you an update, but unfortunately I don’t have much to tell you. She’s stable, that’s the good news. The bleeding is under control but she’s not out of danger, not yet. They haven’t been able to assess the damage, so they don’t know what needs to be done at this point. I guess that’s the bad news.”

  “Is she going to be all right?” Jamie says.

  “I don’t know right now. I’m sorry, I need to get back, but we’ll keep her in our prayers and the medical staff is doing everything they can.” He turns to leave but stops and says, “Have faith, believe.”

  “We will,” Jamie says. “Thank you. Please tell us as soon as you know anything.”

  «»

  Leaving the waiting room, leaving Gus and Jamie and Cody, Suzanne walks the halls of the hospital, partly out of a need to find her brother but partly out of confusion and disorientation. She is utterly drained. A little voice in the back of her mind keeps telling her to go to the hotel, to get some sleep, but now she isn’t even sure how to get out of the hospital. She finds a waiting room, wanders in and sits. The clock reads seven twenty-nine. Another hour stripped from her grasp. Another hour, just like her brother, is gone. Her emotions breach the walls she has tenuously constructed. Exhausted, Suzanne bends forward, covering her face. Silently, warm tears slip down her cheeks.

  “Can I help?”

  Someone, a man by the sound of his voice, touches her. His fingertips press firmly but gently into her shoulder, squeezing, reassuring.

  Suzanne does not look up. Without speaking, she shakes her head, no.

  “Are you sure? You seem pretty upset.”

  “I’m fine,” Suzanne whispers.

  “You don’t look fine to me. You look miserable.”

  Without lifting her head to see who this Good Samaritan is, Suzanne opens her eyes. Through her watery vision, near her feet, is a yellow shoe cover. Blue scrubs, too long for the man, touch the tile floor. Suzanne sniffs, wipes her eyes.

  The doctor, this stranger, kneel
s and takes her hand. His skin feels strange, warm and fluid like the stream of tears running down her cheeks.

  Suzanne looks into his eyes. He has a friendly, almost familiar face. A face from her past? She frowns. “Do I know you?”

  “Suzanne, do not be afraid. David is well, he is safe.”

  His voice, the words he speaks, reaches Suzanne’s ears but the meaning is twisted up in her mind. She knows what he said but she can’t quite grasp it.

  “No, he’s not,” she says, ignoring the floodtide of questions spilling into her head. “David is dead, I’ve lost him.”

  “You are a woman of conviction,” the doctor says. “Hold on to what you believe. Things are not as they appear.”

  Where had she heard that? Someone else had just recently said that very same thing. But who? Then it came to her: Sawyer had said exactly that while trying to explain her liaison with David… “Look, Ms. Carlson, I can only imagine what you must think of me but things aren’t as they appear…” Did Sawyer mean something else? Was she talking about something other than that fateful tryst?”

  Suzanne shakes off the memory, blinks and says to the doctor, “What are you talking about? David is dead.”

  “Go to your hotel room and sleep. The morning sun will bring a new light. I promise.”

  “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

  “Ma’am? Are you okay?”

  Suzanne looks in the direction of this new voice. A nurse, in her late fifties with a boxy shape, stands a few yards away.

  “Um, who are you talking to?” The nurse says.

  Suzanne points and at the same time realizes the doctor is no longer holding her hand. “Him,” she says. But there is no ‘him’. The man wearing yellow shoe covers is gone. How can that be? He was right…here. Her palm tingles and Suzanne holds her hand out, examines it. She can still feel the warm touch of his skin, the gentle strength of his grasp.

  Suzanne tries to collect herself. Had she imagined him, had she imagined that doctor?

  “I’m sorry,” Suzanne says. “My brother died today and I’m exhausted. I was just talking out loud. I’m really sorry.”

  A smile, empathetic and knowing, dashes across the nurse’s face.

  “I’m so sorry,” the nurse says. “Can I help?”

  Can I help?

  How odd this nurse would say the exact same thing her imaginary doctor said. Is this nurse real? Was she imagining this person, too?

  “No, I’m all right,” Suzanne says, rising from her seat. “I’ll leave now.”

  “Do you have a car? Should I call a cab?”

  “I’ll be fine, thank you.”

  Suzanne walks to the doorway, looks left and right then back at the boxy nurse. The woman is still there. That is a good sign. At least the nurse has not vanished into thin, or thick, air. Suzanne takes a step into the hall then stops. “I’m all turned around,” she says. “What floor is this, which way to the elevator?”

  The nurse points and says, “Fourth floor, the elevators are that way.”

  “Thanks.”

  Suzanne walks in the direction the nurse has indicated. How stupid. She should have known, she had traversed the entire hospital, walking each floor several times. She knew exactly where the elevators were.

  Pressing the call button, Suzanne steps back, waits for the car. Hold up, what floor is she on? Turning in a circle she tries to get her bearings but nothing indicates her location. Across the hall and to her right is the nurse’s station, staffed by one person. It feels like the third floor but she cannot be sure, they all look pretty much alike. Did the station nurse say this was the third or fourth floor?

  The elevator chimes, indicating its arrival. The doors slide open. Suzanne frowns then the breath freezes in her lungs. Her mind swims in confusion. Standing perfectly still, staring directly at her, is David.

  Chapter 27

  “How did I get here?” David says. He looks himself over. “Why am I…?” He stares at Suzanne. “I’m naked. Where are my clothes?”

  For Suzanne, the world seems to tilt and she has the sensation the entire building will topple. This cannot be real, she thinks. But Suzanne can see the remnants of splits in his skin. They are exactly how Sawyer had described them, bluish-black lines running in asymmetric patterns across his chest, over his shoulders, and down his legs.

  The woman at the nurse’s station stands up, squints, and says, “What in the world?”

  David shivers. The shiver becomes a shudder and he crosses his arms over his chest. His body quakes for another moment then abruptly stops. He stumbles forward and Suzanne catches him, slipping her arms under his. David’s skin is like ice. For a moment, she has a recollection of Oscar night, finding David slumped over his computer, his skin feeling cold and dry, only now he feels cadaverous.

  “David?” Suzanne says. “Oh my God----” Her words choke off in a swell of emotion, her eyes filling with tears. “You’re alive?”

  “I’m f-freezing.”

  Suzanne pulls him a half step out of the elevator and David’s knees give out, Suzanne takes on his full weight, pitching both of them backwards.

  “Help!” Suzanne calls out. “Someone help us!”

  One nurse rushes over and tries to bear some of David’s weight. The boxy woman with whom Suzanne had just spoken emerges from a patient’s room and says, “What on earth is happening here?”

  The first nurse calls to a wing technician, “Eddy, get a wheelchair and a heating blanket. He’s hypothermic.”

  “It’s my brother,” Suzanne says, to the boxy nurse.

  Boxy straightens, a confused look spreading across her face. “I thought,” she says, slowly. “Your brother was dead.”

  “He was.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” Suzanne says. “But look at him, he’s freezing. We need to get him warm.”

  “But, I----”

  “Please, we need blankets.”

  The wing technician returns with a gurney and says, “I couldn’t find a wheelchair. I notified the ER, they’re ready for him.”

  By now two other staff members, another wing tech and a third nurse, have joined the group.

  “Okay everyone,” the first nurse says. “Let’s get him on that thing and down to the ER.”

  «»

  In the emergency room Doctor Robiere turns away from an overdose statistic, pulling the privacy curtain closed with a snap of her wrist.

  “What’ve we got?” Robiere says as she walks toward the group of staffers huddled around the new patient.

  “Hypothermia, doctor,” a nurse says.

  “Hypothermia? How the hell can that be? It’s ninety-two degrees outside.” Then Robiere catches sight of Suzanne. “What are you doing here?”

  Robiere looks worse for the wear, her face is gaunt and exhaustion seems to paint her face in shades of gray. Suzanne is certain she had not gotten much sleep since they’d last met.

  “It’s David,” Suzanne says. “He’s alive.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  Suzanne shakes her head, points. “Look.”

  Robiere looks, she sees David. He is lying motionless on the gurney, eyes are closed, but his chest is rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Robiere stares at David Carlson, disbelief washing over her.

  “Doctor,” a technician says. “He’s dropped another two degrees. His core is only eighty-seven. Wait, make that eighty-six degrees.”

  “Not possible,” Robiere says, shaking her head. “This guy is dead, I pronounced him last night.” She looks again at Suzanne. “You saw him yourself this afternoon. I’m sorry but…your brother is dead.”

  “No, he’s not,” a nurse says. “I heard him speak, he was standing in the elevator.”

  The image of a dead man wandering the halls of her hospital darts through Doctor Robiere’s mind, sending a chill down her spine, and she shudders.

  “Eighty-four degrees,” the technician says. “And droppin
g.”

  “This can’t be David Carlson.”

  “Yes it can,” Suzanne insists. “Look at him. You know it’s my brother.”

  “Doctor Robiere,” the nurse says. “He has a heartbeat, the monitor.”

  The room falls silent. Robiere glances at the signal on the screen, a spike occurring every second or so as the white line jags up and down. Then the audio catches her ear. A persistent beep emitted with every signal of the heart monitor.

  “Oh my God,” the tech says. “He’s dropped another five degrees. Seventy-nine degrees and falling. Doctor, what do you want to do?”

  Robiere looks at the technician who is reading David’s temperature then at the heart monitor. Something about his condition does not make sense.

  “Are you sure about the temp?” Robiere says.

  “Positive.”

  “Then why is his heartbeat so strong?”

  Everyone stares at the monitor.

  “If this man is only seventy-nine degrees,” Robiere says, pointing. “His heart should have stopped, his respiration, too. Christ, his entire body ought to be shutting down. But look at him, his respiration is strong. His pulse is solid. There’s no way he’s hypothermic.”

  “Heavenly Father,” someone whispers. “If it’s your will, I beg you to save David’s life.”

  All eyes turn toward Suzanne. She has moved back a few feet. Head bowed and hands wrung together, white-knuckled, Suzanne senses that everyone is looking at her but she remains in prayer.

  “Please, Lord,” Suzanne continues, “I lost him once today. Please don’t let him go this time. Please God, but only if it’s your will.”

  Robiere feels awkward, pointedly aware that she’d used a holy name as a curse word. Robiere looks at David, struggling to make sense of it. Early this morning David had been DOA. Every lifesaving technique had been useless, nothing could bring him back. David Carlson had been as dead as any corpse Robiere had ever seen. But this dead man now had a heartbeat, steady and strong, and breath filling his lungs.