by Jana DeLeon
She poured one of the pills into her palm and slipped the bottle back into her pocket. Indecision plagued her. Could she risk taking the medication? Could she risk another night of no sleep? Earlier on shift, she’d had to sit down because her vision was starting to blur. If she didn’t rest, would she even be capable of leaving New Orleans tomorrow?
It was that last thought that made her mind up. Before she could change it again, she popped the pill in her mouth and took a swig of water. She was halfway through the rest of the cup when the door opened and Clara came in. She took one glance at Emma and frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re working a double again.”
“No. I just clocked out. I promise.”
“Good.” Clara walked over and gave her a critical look. “Those bags under your eyes are going to have to file for their own zip code if you don’t get some rest.”
“I have a feeling I’ll get some tonight.”
“I talked to Jeremy earlier this evening. He told me about what happened last night. You changed hotels, right? Is the new one better?”
“Not exactly. Actually, I’m going to sleep here tonight. I just…I don’t feel safe anywhere but here.”
“Oh honey.” Clara put her hand on Emma’s shoulder and squeezed. “I wish there were something I could do. If staying here makes you feel better, then do it. I’ll check in on you when I go on break.”
“Thank you.”
“You hang in there. This is all going to be all right. You’ll see.”
Emma nodded as Clara left the room, hoping the senior nurse was right. She pushed herself up from the table, tossed her cup in the trash can, and went through the back door on the break room and into the sleeping area. No other staff members were using the room tonight, at least not yet. She stuck her purse under the bed in the back corner and lay down on top of the mattress, not even bothering with a blanket.
She was asleep before her head ever hit the pillow.
###
Clara eased the door open to the patient’s room and stepped inside. Miss Melody, a tough old bird who’d broken her hip, waved at her, clutching her signature pink lip gloss, as she stepped inside.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Clara asked. Miss Melody might be tough, but in addition to her broken hip, she had an iffy heart, which was why she was lounging in intensive care instead of a regular room.
“Been sleeping darn near all day. A person’s not supposed to spend that much time unconscious unless they’re dead.”
Clara smiled. “That’s always the way it is when a body’s sick, isn’t it? You sleep all day, then you’re awake all night when there’s nothing good to watch on television.”
“If those cheapos at the hospital would get cable that wouldn’t be a problem. They’ve got reruns on older than I am.”
Clara put the blood pressure band on Miss Melody and took out her stethoscope. Miss Melody sat still and silent while Clara checked her vitals and made a note on her chart. Her blood pressure was a little high, but that was normal given the circumstances. “Is your hip hurting you?” Clara asked.
Miss Melody waved a hand in dismissal. “I’ve had corns that hurt worse.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do for you, just push that button.”
“Unless you got Netflix in your scrubs, I’ll have to rough it.”
Clara laughed. “At least try to get some rest. Your body heals while you’re sleeping, so you’ll get out of here faster.”
“Hmmm. I may have to think on that one.”
“I’ll be back later to check on you.” Clara exited the room and headed back to the nurse’s station. Miss Melody was the last patient in her rotation, so it was paperwork time until she had to start the next set of rounds. She was halfway down the hall when she veered off to the left, deciding to take a short detour past the break room.
The break room was empty, and she slipped through the back door to the sleeping area. It took a couple of seconds for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, but she finally spotted Emma on the bed in the back corner curled up in a ball. She eased a blanket out of one of the storage lockers and covered Emma with it before leaving.
Clara had tried not to get too much into Emma’s business, but the reality was, she was worried about the young nurse. Truth be told, Emma was in worse shape than some of the patients in her charge. Her body would only last so much longer before it collapsed. Either way, the bad guy won. If only there were something she could do. The older she got, the more she decided the world was becoming filled with crazy people.
Sweet little Emma with a stalker…some psycho attacking Corrine Archer…it was as if someone had declared a war against good. If Clara were thirty years younger, she’d be tempted to break heads. She was an educated woman with a solid professional history, but her life hadn’t started out that great. Growing up in the Ninth Ward, people cultivated all kinds of skill sets. She hadn’t needed any of them since the day she moved out of her mother’s shack and into the dorm room at college, courtesy of a full scholarship, but that didn’t mean she’d forgotten how to handle bad people.
###
He watched the hospital parking lot from the rooftop across the street. Her car was still there, but he knew she was no longer on shift. He’d called earlier pretending to be a police officer, and the receptionist confirmed that Emma had clocked out for the night. But almost an hour later and still no sign of her. If she got caught up talking to a staff member, she might be ten or fifteen minutes late leaving, but an hour was something else entirely.
She might have taken a taxi. From his position, he had a clear view of the front entrance of the hospital, and he was fairly sure he hadn’t seen a taxi pull through. He might be mistaken, but something told him he wasn’t. He thought back to the time he’d spent in the hospital for a broken wrist. Of all his injuries, it was the only time he’d actually gone to the hospital, but then, he’d been an adult and able to choose.
There had been a shooting at a bar that night and several people were brought in with gunshot wounds. He’d heard the surgeon who’d tended to them talking to the nurse outside his room, saying that he was going to stay the night so that he was available in case any of the patients needed him. That must mean the hospital had a place for staff to stay the night if they needed to. It made sense if they were handling a critical situation.
He was quite certain Emma wasn’t handling anything critical, not in a work capacity, but he’d bet anything that she was somewhere inside the hospital, utilizing that space set aside for personnel to stay the night. She thought she was being sneaky, but he was never far behind. This time was no different. Emma couldn’t hide from him. And he had one more card to play before the finale. With the private investigator out of the way, probably hovering over her rich, beloved mother, Emma was all alone again. And that was just the way he wanted her.
He scurried down the fire escape and up the alley to the hospital parking lot. The smoking area was off to the side, hidden from view of hospital windows and shielded from the parking lot by a tall hedge. At first, he’d been a little surprised that health professionals chose a habit like smoking, but then he supposed everyone had to have their outlet.
A couple minutes ago, an ambulance had returned to the hospital and he’d seen one of the paramedics head for the smoking area, already removing the black uniform shirt he wore over a white undershirt, trying to get a momentary break from the awful humidity. The other had remained in the ambulance and was slumped down in his seat, eyes closed, and probably wouldn’t stir unless a call came in.
He pulled his hoodie up and crept down the side of the hedge, careful to keep the security cameras from getting a good shot of his face. When he stepped through the hedge and into the tiny smoking area, the young paramedic looked up at him in surprise.
“Dude,” the paramedic said, “you scared me for a minute there.”
He glanced over and saw the shirt draped over a nearby hedge and held in a smile. “Sorry about that. I don�
��t suppose I could bum a cigarette?”
“Sure.” The paramedic reached into his pocket. “There’s been wild dogs roaming the alleys around here. We brought two people in last night who’d been bitten. Crazy shit.”
The paramedic pulled a cigarette out of the pack and looked back up.
He grabbed the paramedic by his hair and before the man could even utter a cry, sliced his throat from side to side. Blood spurted out from the cut and he pushed the paramedic backward before it got on him. The paramedic clutched his throat with both hands, blood pouring between his fingers, choked sputtering sounds coming from his throat.
He watched as he fell backward off the bench and lay there on the ground still gurgling until finally, his hands went limp and slid away from the incision. His eyes were wide open, frozen in that horrified look people got when they knew they were about to die. His mouth was open as well, as if he were trying to let out one final cry.
The eyes.
The eyes looked at him.
Judging him. Mocking him. Even in death.
He stepped across the bench and bent over, shoving his knife into the eye socket. He pressed down until the eyeball popped out with a sickening pop, then repeated the process on the other side. He gathered the eyeballs and threw them toward the dumpster behind him. Alley cats needed dinner, too.
He stepped back and studied his handiwork. It was the first time he’d managed a clean cut through the neck. It was an efficient way to kill someone but not an interesting one. It was all over too soon. Not enough suffering. Not enough time to contemplate all the bad decisions one had made.
Like marrying Emma.
Anger and loathing flared up inside him as he thought about David dying like this. Cut so cleanly and deeply that he didn’t have a chance to finish what he’d started. Caught by surprise by a whore. But that was okay. Emma would pay for what she did to David. She’d pay for not dying like she was supposed to. But first, he’d make her wish she’d died that night instead of David.
He pulled off his hoodie and used it to wipe the blood off his knife and hands. Then he threw it in the Dumpster and grabbed the paramedic’s shirt off the hedge and pulled it on. It was a little tight—the paramedic wasn’t as toned as he was—but it was good enough to get by. Good enough that no one would look twice. He pulled a ball cap from his back pocket and pulled it on. He knew how to avoid security cameras.
The receptionist barely glanced at him as he walked into the emergency room lobby and headed through the double doors. He walked past the empty rooms designated for emergencies and followed the hallway to the intensive care wing. David had told him that’s where Emma worked, so he knew she was somewhere nearby. He looked down one hallway but saw only patient rooms. On the next hallway, he hit the jackpot.
He pushed open the door to the break room and walked inside, barely holding in a smile when he saw the room was empty. At the back of the room was another door. He hurried to it and pushed it open, peering inside. The light from the break room streaming through the door opening was the only light available, but it was enough for him to catch sight of her.
His jaw clenched involuntarily when he saw her sleeping. That wouldn’t do at all. He wanted her awake and terrified. Resting was out of the question.
Voices sounded in the hall, and he jumped back from the doorway and hurried over to the cooler. When the nurses entered the room, he gave them a nod and exited the room with a cup of water. He could still hear them chattering as he walked down the hall.
He needed a distraction—something that got them mobilized in one location long enough for him to get to Emma without being caught. He turned down the hallway that contained the intensive care patients and headed to the last room. He pushed open the door and peered inside, smiling when he saw it was occupied by an old woman. He pulled on gloves as he walked over to the bed and glanced at her chart. Melody Pitre. A broken hip was about to be the least of her worries.
He stepped closer to the front of the bed and eased one of the pillows from beneath her head. She didn’t even stir. The lack of challenge was almost disappointing, but then Melody Pitre wasn’t really a target. She was simply a tool.
Leaning over the bed, he shoved the pillow down onto her face. Immediately, she started thrashing, and he was surprised at her strength. He could feel her fingernails digging into his hands as she pulled at his fingers. If not for the gloves, he had no doubt she had the strength to break the skin. He pressed harder, and after ten more seconds of struggling, she went still. The heart monitor set off an alarm and he dropped the pillow on the floor next to the bed and fled the room.
He ran toward the hallway to the break room and slipped into the janitor’s closet. Seconds later, he heard a rush of footsteps as the nurses ran past. He waited a couple more seconds, then slipped out of the closet and hurried for the break room. As he’d expected, the room was empty, but he knew that could quickly change.
A few minutes—that’s all he could risk.
But that’s all he needed.
Chapter Twenty
Clara picked up Miss Melody’s hand one more time, checking her pulse. It was faint but steady. She blew out a breath. This had been a close one. More than one time while they worked on her, Clara had been afraid that Miss Melody was never going to see Netflix again. They’d all been relieved when they got a pulse. Until she was conscious, they had no way of knowing how much damage, if any, had been caused, but she was alive. Right now, that was all that mattered.
Clara stepped back from the bed and reached for the pillow that had gotten kicked under the bed while they were working on Miss Melody. She’d get a new pillowcase from the linen closet. She looked down at Miss Melody once more and frowned. What in the world had happened? Clara had checked on the senior just thirty minutes before. Nothing in her vitals had indicated that her heart was under any more stress than normal.
The doctor had dismissed it as the stress of the hip surgery and Miss Melody’s weak heart, but Clara couldn’t help but feel that something was off. From a medical standpoint, the doctor’s assessment was sound. From Clara’s decades of experience standpoint, the doctor’s assessment was missing something.
She shook her head and pulled the pillowcase off the pillow. A flash of color on the white cloth caught her eye and she lifted the case up to get a closer look. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the pink lips impressed onto the pillowcase.
Mrs. Melody’s heart hadn’t given out on her. Someone had tried to smother her.
Shaye!
Still clutching the pillowcase, Clara ran out of the room, an irrational panic coursing through her. Miss Melody is a patient and no relation to Shaye, she reminded herself as she raced to the break room. There’s no reason for Emma’s stalker to attack a patient like he did Corrine. But every awful thing Emma had told her ran through Clara’s mind, and the logical argument didn’t cause her panic to subside.
She hurried across the break room and pushed open the back door, the light from the break room illuminating the sleeping area. Emma was still curled up on the back bed, but in the dim light, Clara couldn’t tell if she was breathing. She tossed the pillowcase on a table next to the door and grabbed a box of tissue and crammed it under the door to prop it open. She stepped into the room, peering into the dark corners, praying that no one lurked in the shadows.
Please, Lord, let her be all right, she prayed as she inched across the floor.
When she reached the bed, she leaned over and looked at Emma’s chest, but it was too dark for her to see if she was breathing. She hated to startle her, but seeing no other choice, she reached down and placed her fingers on Emma’s neck. She choked back a cry of relief when she felt it beating strong beneath her fingertips.
She backed out of the room, grabbing the pillowcase before she pulled the door shut behind her. As soon as the door clicked shut, she sank into a chair, silently willing her racing heart to slow. She took several deep breaths and blew them out slowly. Emma was sa
fe and that was a blessing. But someone had tried to kill Miss Melody.
She needed to call the police.
###
“Unit 718. Come in.”
Mike Phillips jolted awake and banged his elbow on the steering wheel of the ambulance. “Damn it!” He grabbed the radio. “This is unit 718.”
“Car accident at the corner of Esplanade and Burgundy.”
Mike glanced over at the passenger’s seat and shook his head when he saw it was empty. “My partner is taking a restroom break. Can you send another unit?”
“10-4.”
Mike glanced at his watch and cursed again. He’d been asleep for over thirty minutes. If he didn’t get a grip, he was going to end up losing his job. And God only knew that with a newborn daughter and a girlfriend who had an aversion to working, someone had to make a paycheck. He shoved the door open and stepped out of the ambulance to go find Drew. He was probably smoking again. How any one human being could smoke that much, Mike would never know. Not to mention that Drew had to spend a rent payment on cigarettes.
Mike yawned and stretched his arms over his head. He wouldn’t even care if Amy never got a job if she’d bother to pull her weight around the apartment. But every morning when he got home, it was a wreck, and that was the case even before she had the baby. Now he spent all day tending to a screaming colicky infant because Amy claimed she needed to sleep. What the hell did she think he was—a vampire? Tomorrow night was his night off, but swear to God, if he didn’t get some sleep tomorrow, he was going to tell Amy he had to work and check into a motel. Let her go a day or two without any sleep and see how it felt.
“Yo, Drew!” Mike yelled as he stepped around the hedge that blocked the smoking area from the parking lot.
He glanced around the benches but didn’t see his partner anywhere. Maybe he hadn’t lied when he told dispatch Drew was in the john. As he turned around to leave, an ear-splitting wail filled the air. He whipped around and saw an alley cat on top of one of the benches, his tail flickering. A second later, he jumped off the bench and the sounds of a cat fight filled the air. Mike frowned and headed over to the bench. Alley cats usually scattered when people came around, but these two hadn’t even noticed he was there.
