Marker

by Robin Cook

  Wasting no time, she retraced her steps back to the fire door. Once on the other side she leaned her back up against the door. She was a bit unnerved by the unexpected complication, but she quickly collected herself. She reasoned that she had to expect problems once in a while, despite her planning. She then examined her forearm in the better light. She had three gouges on the volar surface of her forearm from Stephen’s nails, with trailing linear scratches about three inches long extending down toward her wrist. Two of them were oozing blood. She shook her head, thinking that Stephen certainly had it coming to him.

  Jazz warily replaced her sleeve and checked her watch. It was three-twenty, and she had one more sanction to accomplish. She knew it was an opportune time, because the nurse assigned to Rowena was on break with her and wouldn’t be back for another ten minutes. But she couldn’t dillydally. Walking rapidly, Jazz returned to the main elevators and went back up to her floor.

  There was only one person at the nurses’ station. It was Charlotte Baker, a pixieish nurse’s aide. She was busy writing nurse’s notes. Jazz glanced in the utility room and the drug room, the Dutch door of which was open on the top. Both were empty.

  “Where’s our fearless leader?” Jazz questioned. She looked down the corridor in both directions. She didn’t see anyone.

  “I believe Ms. Chapman is down in room 602, helping with a catheterization,” Charlotte said without looking up. “But I’m not entirely sure. I’ve been holding down the fort here for fifteen minutes or so.”

  Jazz nodded and looked down toward 602. That room was situated in the opposite direction from Rowena’s room. Sensing that the time would not get any better, she pushed away from the counter that overlooked the nurses’ station, made sure Charlotte was not paying her any attention, and headed toward 617. Once again, her pulse quickened as she anticipated action, only this time the thrill was tinged with anxiety after her experience with Stephen Lewis. A mild ache from the scratches on her forearm was a reminder that she couldn’t control all the variables.

  A patient caught a glimpse of Jazz as she hurried past his door, and he called out to her, but she ignored it. Checking her watch, she figured she had six minutes before anyone was scheduled to return from their lunch break, including the nurse assigned to Rowena, but since no one was ever early, she had a bit of a buffer. Six minutes was plenty of time.

  The stage was similar to what she’d found in Stephen’s room, but without the carpet, fancy drapes, upholstered furniture, and fine art, and the only light was a nightlight. The bathroom door was ajar, but the lights were off. Rowena Sobczyk was asleep in the bed with both feet bandaged from a bilateral hallux valgus repair. She was on her back and snoring slightly. Jazz looked down at the woman. Although she was twenty-six, she appeared much younger, with tiny features and a mop of dark, unruly hair splayed out against the white pillow.

  Jazz opened the IV to run freely, then bent over to check for any swelling. There was none, so all was set. She pulled out the full syringe and, holding it in her right hand, lifted the IV port with her left. Just as she’d done in Stephen’s room, she used her teeth to remove the needle cap. Immediately, she inserted the needle into the port and then repositioned her hand with her thumb over the syringe’s plunger. After taking a breath and holding it, she smoothly depressed the plunger.

  Rowena stirred, writhing her upper body. Jazz removed the syringe, and as she did so, she heard footsteps out in the hall on the composite flooring. Her intuition immediately flashed a warning as the sound of the footfalls made her think of Susan’s clodhopper nursing shoes. She glanced briefly at the half-open door to the hall, then back at Rowena, who was now clutching at her arm with the IV and making gurgling noises.

  In a panic, Jazz dropped both the syringe and the needle cap into her pocket and backed up from the patient. For a second, she thought about hiding in the bathroom in case Susan heard the noises, but then discarded the idea as it might make a bad situation worse. Instead, she started for the door, thinking the best defense was offense.

  Confirming her worst fears, Jazz literally ran into Susan coming into the room just after Susan had stepped over the threshold.

  Susan took a step back, acting indignant and looking up at Jazz with the same challenging expression she had had earlier. “Charlotte said you’d come down here. What the hell are you doing? This is June’s patient.”

  “I was passing in the hall, and she called out.”

  Susan bent around Jazz, who was trying to fill the doorway, and squinted into the half-light of the room. “What was the matter?”

  “I guess she was dreaming?”

  “She looks like she is moving around. And the IV is running full tilt!”

  “Really?” Jazz questioned. Susan pushed by, forcing Jazz to step aside.

  Susan slowed down the IV as she bent over Rowena. “My God,” she said. Then, turning to Jazz, she shouted: “Hit the lights! We’ve got a code here!”

  Jazz did as she was told while Susan sounded the alarm. Susan then directed Jazz to help get the opposite-side bed rails down. Seconds later, the code was announced over the hospital PA system.

  “She’s got a thready pulse, or she did!” Susan barked. She had her fingers pressed into Rowena’s neck to feel her carotid artery. She let go and climbed up to kneel on the bed. “We’ve got to start CPR. You breathe, and I’ll do the compressions.”

  With great reluctance, Jazz pinched Rowena’s nostrils shut and placed her mouth over Rowena’s. She blew in and inflated the lungs. There was little resistance, suggesting to her that the patient was essentially flaccid. She was the only one who knew that at this stage, trying to resuscitate Rowena was a joke.

  Charlotte and another nurse named Harriet arrived and managed to get an EKG hooked up and going. Susan was continuing the compressions, and Jazz, for appearances’ sake, continued with the breathing.

  “We have some electrical activity,” Harriet said. “But it looks like strange complexes to me.”

  At that point, the resident cardiopulmonary resuscitation team arrived and quickly took over. Jazz was pushed to the side as Rowena was expertly intubated and started on pure oxygen. Drug orders were barked out, and the drugs were given. Arterial blood was drawn and sent off to the lab for a stat report on blood gases. The strange complexes as noted by Harriet at the outset had quickly disappeared. The EKG traced a straight line, and the residents began to lose their enthusiasm. Rowena wasn’t responding to anything.

  While the resuscitation was still technically going on, Jazz walked out of the room. She went back to the nurses’ station and stepped into the utility room. She sat down and cradled her head in her hands. She needed a few minutes to pull herself together. She had been unnerved by what happened with Stephen Lewis, and then having something untoward happen with Rowena seemed like too much. Jazz couldn’t believe it. She’d never had any problem whatsoever on all her previous cases. She couldn’t help but wonder if she would be spooked on her next mission.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Susan appear out at the nurses’ station. Jazz couldn’t hear but assumed Susan had asked the aide manning the desk where Jazz was, because the aide was soon pointing in Jazz’s direction. When Susan started toward the utility room, Jazz knew that she was about to weather another confrontation.

  Susan came in and closed the door. She didn’t talk, even after she sat down. She just stared at Jazz.

  “Are they still trying to resuscitate the patient?” Jazz asked, discomforted by the silence. Jazz wanted to get it over with if they were going to have an argument.

  “Yes,” Susan said simply before another pause. Jazz felt it was like some kind of weird staring contest, so she decided to wait it out. Finally, Susan said, “I want to ask you again why you were in Sobczyk’s room. You say the patient called out. What exactly did the patient say?”

  “I don’t remember if it was any words. I just heard her, okay? So I went in to check.”

  “Did you talk with
her?”

  “No. She was asleep, so I just turned around and came out.”

  “So you didn’t see that the IV was wide open.”

  “That’s correct. I didn’t look at the IV.”

  “Did she seem all right to you?”

  “Of course! That’s why I was coming out when we bumped into each other.”

  “What are those scratches on your arm?”

  The way Jazz was sitting with her elbows on the built-in desk, her sleeve had fallen just enough to reveal the three scratches and a bit of dried blood.

  “Oh, these?” Jazz questioned. She took her arms off the desk and shook her sleeve back down to cover the wounds. “It happened in my car. It’s nothing.”

  “They’ve been bleeding.”

  “Maybe a little, but it’s no problem, really.”

  Jazz again found herself having the same weird staring contest, as if they were in the third grade. For almost a minute, Susan didn’t say anything and hardly blinked. Jazz had had enough. She pushed back and stood up. “Well, time to get to work.” She skirted Susan and opened the door.

  “It strikes me as a strange coincidence you being in that room,” Susan said as she swung around and faced Jazz.

  “Obviously, when the patient called out, it was the beginning of whatever caused her code. It just wasn’t apparent when I went in there. Maybe I should have checked her better than I did. But tell me! Are you trying to make me feel worse than I already do or what?”

  “No, not really,” Susan admitted. She looked away.

  “Well, you’re doing a pretty good job, whether you’re trying or not,” Jazz said before walking out to find the nurse’s aide she’d been assigned to work with that night.

  At first, Jazz felt like she had talked herself out of a potentially problematic situation with Susan, but as the rest of the shift wore on, she got progressively paranoid. It seemed like every time she turned around, Susan was staring at her. By the time report rolled around and the morning-shift nurses were hearing about the evening, including the code on Rowena Sobczyk, the problem had advanced to a point of ridiculousness. With Susan’s behavior, there was no question in Jazz’s mind that she was suspicious. All Jazz could think about was Mr. Bob telling her that there could be no ripples. As far as Jazz was concerned, this situation with Susan wasn’t threatening ripples—it was portending a tidal wave.

  Jazz’s biggest fear was that Susan would take off after report and go directly to blab her suspicions to the nursing supervisor, Clarice Hamilton, an enormous African-American woman who Jazz thought was as big a dud as Susan. If that happened, all hell would probably break loose, and Jazz would surely have to use the emergency number to call Mr. Bob. Yet what Mr. Bob could do at that point was fairly limited.

  The moment report was over, Jazz remained where she was and pretended to be doing a bit more chart work. Susan spent another five minutes debriefing the day charge nurse about specific problems. As close as Jazz was, she could hear most of the conversation. Luckily, Susan didn’t say anything about Jazz. When that was over, Susan got her coat, and laughing and carrying on with June, she went down to the elevators. That was when Jazz got her own coat. She also grabbed a pair of latex gloves from a box on the utility-room desk next to the door.

  At that time in the morning with the shift changing, the elevator area was crowded. Jazz made sure she stayed in the periphery, as far from Susan and June as possible. When the car came, she wormed her way to the very back. She could tell where Susan was by her ridiculous bun.

  When the elevator stopped on the second floor, Jazz pushed her way to the front and disembarked, along with a half dozen other people, including Susan. Jazz knew that Susan, like herself, drove to work. Like a clutch of cackling hens, the group walked down to the door that opened onto the connecting bridge that crossed over to the parking garage. Jazz hung back to bring up the rear. As she walked, she pulled on the latex gloves.

  Once in the garage, the group splintered off to their respective vehicles. At that point, Jazz upped her pace. She had her hands in her pockets with her right hand gripping the Glock. She closed the distance between herself and Susan so that when Susan slipped in along the driver’s side of her Ford Explorer, Jazz was doing the same on the passenger side. The second Jazz heard the unlocking mechanism activate, she opened the passenger-side door and slipped into the front seat.

  Jazz had timed it perfectly. It was almost as if she’d been sitting there when Susan climbed in. Under different circumstances, Susan’s shocked expression would have been hilarious. The trouble was, Jazz wasn’t finding any of this funny.

  “What the hell?” Susan questioned.

  “I thought maybe we could talk in private and mend fences,” Jazz said. She had both hands in her pockets with her shoulders scrunched up and her arms straight.

  “I don’t have anything to talk to you about,” Susan snapped. She put her key in the ignition and started the engine. “Now get out of my car. I’m going home.”

  “I think we have plenty to talk about. You’ve been giving me the evil eye all night. I want to know why.”

  “Well, you are an odd duck.”

  Jazz laughed with derision. “That’s funny, coming from you.”

  “That’s the kind of comment that underlines my impressions,” Susan spat. “To be honest, I’ve never felt confident in you. I don’t know why you are a nurse. You don’t get along with anyone. You have no compassion. Every night, I have to give you the easiest cases.”

  “Oh, bull!” Jazz sputtered. “You give me all the junk cases.”

  For a second, Susan stared at Jazz just the way she had been doing all evening. “I’m not going to argue with you. In fact, if you don’t get out of my car, I’m going to go get security and let them deal with you.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you have been gawking at me. I want to know if it has anything to do with Rowena Sobczyk.”

  “Of course it has something to do with Rowena Sobczyk. It’s too much of a coincidence with you coming out of her room when she wasn’t your patient. And I happen to remember you were seen coming out of Sean McGillin’s room, and he wasn’t your patient, either. But talking to you about all this is not my job. It’s the nursing supervisor’s job, so you’ll be talking with her I’m sure.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Jazz sneered. “I don’t think you should be so sure, you freaking loser.” With a little effort, Jazz got the Glock out of her pocket.

  Susan saw the gun coming and was only able to raise her right hand when Jazz shot her twice in the side of the chest. Susan slumped laterally against the door, with her cheek pressed up against the glass.

  Despite the suppressor, the noise within the car was more than Jazz expected. So was the smell of the cordite. With her free hand, she fanned the fumes. Twisting around, she looked out the back of the SUV. Multiple cars were coming into the garage, but all were going by and up the ramp, since all the second-tier slots were taken. A few cars were going out. With all the noise and commotion, Jazz was confident that no one would have heard the double thump of the Glock. Jazz worked the gun back into her pocket.

  Reaching over, she grabbed Susan by her bun and righted her, letting her head fall against her chest but keeping her upright. What a loser, she thought as she positioned the woman’s lifeless arms to rest on the steering wheel. And losers deserve to lose. She switched off the car’s ignition.

  Next, Jazz opened Susan’s purse and rifled through it to find her wallet. Opening the wallet, she took out the cash and the credit cards. Then she tossed the wallet and the cards on the floor, hoping for the appearance of a fatal mugging. Twisting around again, Jazz looked through the back window at the door to the connecting bridge. As she did so, a group of nurses emerged and waved to each other as they split up to go to their respective vehicles. Jazz hunkered down until they were out of sight.

  Sitting back up, she eyed her Hummer. It was only two cars away. After a quick check to make sure the coast was clear
, Jazz got out of Susan’s vehicle and away from it by going around the front of the immediately adjacent car.

  Inside her own SUV, she stripped off the latex gloves and pocketed them. She started the engine, backed out, and headed for the exit. As she passed behind Susan’s car, she glanced inside. It looked as though Susan was taking a catnap after a hard night. It was perfect.

  Out in the morning traffic, Jazz allowed herself to take a deep breath. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been. It had been a hard night, but she was confident she’d handled it well. She was ten thousand dollars richer, and she’d managed to eliminate a potential problem. Operation Winnow was alive and kicking. Life was good.

  nine

  LAURIE’S ANCIENT WINDUP alarm jangled in the morning’s half-light, and she reached out to turn it off without even opening her eyes. As she settled back into the warmth of her bed, she shivered, not from cold but from nausea. Her eyes blinked open. She’d experienced a touch of nausea the previous morning as well, but she had ascribed it to the scallops she’d had the night before with Roger. She loved scallops, but there had been a few times in the past when they had made her feel queasy the following day. Luckily, yesterday’s nausea had not lasted. By the time she had walked around a bit, it had all but disappeared.

  Laurie sat up. She shivered again. After taking a sip of the water she had at her bedside, she felt a bit better. The problem was that this time, she hadn’t had scallops for dinner. In fact, she’d had some reasonably bland chicken, the memory of the nausea in the back of her mind.

  As she clutched her sheets around her, she noticed a new symptom along with the nausea: mild right lower quadrant discomfort. It wasn’t strong enough to call pain. Using her fingers, she gingerly pushed in her abdomen in the general area over the crest of her hip. She couldn’t tell if it made the discomfort any worse, since pushing in her stomach mostly reminded her of her full bladder.