by Chaz McGee
Maggie walked straight to where Tyler’s mother sat, leaned over, and placed her son in her arms. It took a good five seconds for Callie Matthews to realize she was holding Tyler—her living, breathing son. During that time, no one in the room moved, not even the feds, who had turned as one at Maggie’s approach and been stunned into open-mouthed silence. And then Callie Matthews, who had lived so long with sorrow and loss that her mind could barely comprehend the world around her, realized that Tyler was as safe and content as the day he’d been born—that he had, it seemed at first glance, slept through the whole ordeal—and an extraordinary transformation took place in her heart, even if, from the outside, she looked no different. It was as if Callie Matthews was reborn. Where once there had been grief, there was joy. Where once there had been a conviction that life was cruel—taking first her husband and then her son—there was an almost electrifying knowledge that, sometimes, miracles did happen. Most of all, her conviction that life was nothing more than a life sentence was instantly replaced with a sense of purpose and a determination to protect her son that was so fierce I could feel the evolutionary connection between human beings and other living creatures, a link long since forgotten in our quest to be what we call civilized. She had a reason to live.
Callie Matthews could not speak. It was too much, and words would never be able to express what she was feeling as she stared down at her child, safe in her arms. Tears poured from her eyes, not in teardrops, but in tiny rivers that flowed down her cheeks. She looked up at Maggie, opened her mouth to speak, and still could not find the words. Maggie didn’t need words. She understood. She knelt before mother and child and gently touched Callie’s arm. “He’s fine,” Maggie whispered. “He’s going to be fine and you’re going to be fine. It’s all over now.”
And with that, Maggie stood and left the room without a word to anyone.
It was unbelievable.
She didn’t stay for her chance to be a hero. She didn’t gloat to the feds. She didn’t even look at the coworkers who had started to line the halls to see her pass by, the news being passed on through the building phone call by phone call. She just walked by them all with a quick glance at a terrified-looking Calvano, a glance that meant, You handle it. I’m out of here. Don’t screw it up, Calvano. It’s your turn to deal.
People need heroes. They need to be able to touch glory. They want to believe in beings larger than themselves. But there was no one left to worship other than the unlikely figure of Adrian Calvano, who had only a few hours before been hunched miserably in a chair in the waiting room, an abject failure who had managed to shoot a critical witness and prime suspect in the back. And now he was a hero. It was the fastest career resurrection in the history of the department and would likely be passed down as legend for generations to come. But for now, the others all clustered around him, asking questions at the same time, childlike and giddy with the unfamiliar feeing that something extraordinary had happened to them for once. They had been part of a miracle.
Maggie never even looked back. With each step that took us down the stairs and out the front doors, I could feel the determination in Maggie growing: “Fiona Harker has waited long enough. Now it is Fiona’s turn.”
Her cell phone rang incessantly during the drive to the hospital. She ignored it. It was Gonzales. He’d clearly been wakened by a lackey and given the good news. But she had no time for whatever triumphant gloating he had in mind now that one of his own had trumped an entire task force and brought home the most famous missing child since the Lindbergh baby, or so the papers were likely to say by the time their next editions hit the streets.
Oh, Gonzales would milk this to the max. And Maggie wanted no part of it.
She muted her phone and slipped it into her jacket pocket as she neared the hospital parking lot. There was no room for thoughts of Christian Fletcher, not anymore, not when she had pledged her fealty to Fiona Harker and could, at last, carry the banner of her cause. Maggie pulled into a spot that had opened up near the main entrance, her adrenaline so pumped she nearly jogged into the building.
The first streaks of morning light were spreading across the sky as she flashed her badge at the bored night attendant. She was quickly directed to a room on the second floor and took the stairs at a run, too impatient to wait for the elevator.
I followed—and the moment I stepped out into the hall that led to the critical care unit, I knew that something was wrong. A dark vein of impending death snaked through the halls. I could feel it as clearly as ice water flowing over me.
A soul was in torment, struggling for life.
This is what murder feels like.
A cop was sitting in a chair at the far end of the hall and I was there in a millisecond. He was reading a magazine about boats, oblivious to the malicious cloud that swelled around the entrance to the room he was guarding.
The man who called himself Cody Wells lay writhing in bed, his mouth open wordlessly like a gaffed fish as he gasped for air from a tube that was no longer there. It had been ripped from his mouth and dangled over the edge of the bed, bouncing each time his body flailed. His arms would not obey him, but he was still instinctively trying to grope for the tube, even as he tried to fight off the effects of the anesthesia.
And then I saw him, inches from the dangling mouthpiece—the apparition of the little boy who had followed me on and off over the past four days. He was staring with his strangely blank eyes at the man gasping for breath in the bed, and I could not read the emotions welling up inside him. Had he done this? How had he done this? What had the man done to him?
Cody Wells had started to turn blue and his movements were growing weaker. I had to try to save him.
I rattled the medical chart clipped to the end of his bed, but the sound was pitiful. It would bring no one.
The little boy turned to me then, staring at me with his blank eyes, but he seemed frozen, unable to react, so tied to the man lying in the bed that he could not even move.
Outside, I heard Maggie questioning the guard on duty about the last few hours and asking for details of the latest medical update.
Come on, Maggie. Your witness is dying. And there is nothing that I can do about it.
For the first time, I realized the room smelled of a fragrance, something flowery and dusty and slightly exotic. Perfume, I thought. Perfume that I had smelled before.
Perfume that smelled like funeral flowers. Perfume that smelled like death.
Cody Wells was suffocating. Unable to breathe on his own yet, his air tube had been ripped from his mouth. His death would be as cruelly silent as my own existence.
I had to do something. I concentrated on the tubes that led from the oxygen tank, the limitations of my powers all too prevalent in my thoughts. A spark, I thought. I just needed a spark. I had done it several times before. What had I learned so long ago in science class? Fire is a combination of oxygen and what? What was it? Hydrogen? Carbon dioxide. Heat, that was it. Heat and fuel. Would the contents of the oxygen tank serve as the fuel? God, this was hopeless.
Just make the spark. The thought came to me from somewhere—the little boy?
Just make the spark.
I managed three flickers, a bright flare, and then more. A steady flame at the mouth of the breathing tube. The oxygen grabbed at the spark and pulled it inside the pressurized tank. Within an instant, the tank exploded and fire broke out in the room. Pandemonium followed. Smoke filled the air, the ceiling sprinklers activated, an alarm went off, and half a dozen people burst through the doors, Maggie wisely running to a corner, out of the way, as the medical staff responded in choreographed efficiency. One grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and attacked the flames; another bent over Cody Wells, administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as two more nurses secured him in the bed and began wheeling him from the room. The little boy followed, unable to leave the man’s bedside. He was standing vigil—but over the man’s life or his death, I could not tell. He looked at no one but
the man who called himself Cody Wells.
They wheeled Wells into a room four doors down the hall and quickly reconnected him to a new respirator. When they were done, some of the staff left to check on their other patients, while others stood clustered around his bed, stunned at what had just happened.
Maggie was furious.
“That was deliberate,” she announced. They all recognized her anger and knew enough not to argue.
“The explosion may have saved his life,” the oldest of the nurses finally had the nerve to say. She was in her early fifties, plump with graying hair. Maggie did not frighten her. “His breathing tube had been ripped out of his throat. He would have died in another minute or so.”
Now Maggie looked stunned. She had been through a lot in this long, long night. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“We moved the patient out of the recovery room and into a private room earlier than usual because of security considerations,” the nurse explained to Maggie. “He was having some trouble coming out of anesthesia—that happens—and we had no way of knowing what he may have eaten or had to drink prior to surgery, so we had inserted a breathing tube to protect against aspiration.” The nurse did not talk down to Maggie, and Maggie liked that. I felt a bond form between them. “We were monitoring his vital signs very carefully. His readouts indicated he was still at a stage of recovery that would mean he did not have the motor coordination nor the strength to take the breathing tube from his own mouth.” She paused. “Or ring for help, especially if he was disoriented.”
“You’re sure?” Maggie asked.
“I’m sure.”
The other staff members were looking back and forth between the two of them. I got the feeling the gray-haired nurse was the Maggie of the ward. No one questioned her judgment.
“It looks as if the breathing tube was removed with some proficiency, based on the condition of his throat,” the nurse added. “It’s also possible he was administered something to hinder breathing on his own.” She was thinking the same thing Maggie was thinking: someone had tried to murder the man before he could talk to Maggie.
“Can you test for that?” Maggie asked her.
“Yes. It would be one of three or four drugs.”
“Do it,” Maggie said. The nurse set to work, unfazed. She trusted Maggie and she knew as well as anyone, at least anyone without blinders on, that Fiona Harker’s killer was someone who worked at the hospital.
“You,” Maggie said, pointing to a younger nurse. “I want you to stand beside him and not move until she can replace you.” She touched the gray-haired nurse’s arm. “Can you leave your other patients?”
“Yes,” the older nurse said at once. “My staff is well trained.”
“Good, I need you.” Maggie spoke to the younger nurse again. “No one comes near him but me and doctors I say can get near him, understand?” She nodded. “You.” She pointed to a tall man with dark skin who was a nurse’s aide. “You stand outside the door and see that no one comes in. No one but me and medical staff members I personally approve. If anyone else tries to get in, ask the guard to hold them, and I want their names.”
He nodded solemnly.
“And you—” She pointed to the panic-stricken patrolman who had been guarding the hospital room when the breathing tube was removed. “I want a word with you. The rest of you—out.”
They scurried away like mice with a cat on their heels. The young nurse guarding the bed stared discreetly at the floor as Maggie lit into the shamefaced patrolman. Behind her, the strange little boy stood watch over the man in the bed, without any recognition of what was happening around him.
“You want to explain?” Maggie asked.
“No one went in and out but medical staff,” the patrolman protested. “I swear to God.”
“He was under danger from medical staff,” Maggie hissed at him. “Did no one explain that to you?”
“He had to be treated,” the patrolman shot back. “He just got out of surgery. How was I supposed to know who was legitimate? They were all legitimate. I let in a tall doctor with dark hair, a couple of nurses, two more doctors, a nurse’s aide, and the same two nurses a couple more times. It wasn’t like I let a parade of people come through.”
“Describe them,” Maggie ordered.
He did a credible job, considering he’d not known how important it might turn out to be. His descriptions matched the nurses on duty and the nurse’s aide now guarding the door. The pair of doctors had included one taller man, possibly Indian or Pakistani, and a female doctor. They had walked in together, chatting as if they were a team, and then the male doctor had left a few minutes before the other one. The guard did not know much more about the remaining doctor. Her hair had been pinned up under a surgical cap and a surgical mask had partially concealed her face. In fact, both had been dressed in surgical wear. “It was clear they were part of his recovery team,” the patrolman said. “I think the man said he was the anesthesiologist or something.”
“And you are positive no one else entered that room?” Maggie asked, staring blatantly at the boating magazine that now lay in the middle of the hallway floor.
The guy was miserable. “Yes,” he said in a low voice, but it sounded more like a question than anything else.
Maggie was so frustrated that I could feel the irritation growing in her. She was exhausted and she was hungry and she was really tired of putting her case behind other priorities. She wanted justice for Fiona Harker, and she wanted it now. It was time for all this bullshit to stop.
“Guard the door,” she told the patrolman. “With your life. No one goes in and out unless they’re with me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly, and left the room.
“Who was his surgeon?” she asked the gray-haired nurse. She had returned after dropping off the blood sample and relieved the younger nurse standing by the bed.
“Dr. Verrett. He’s new.”
“Page him,” Maggie ordered.
“Not Dr. Fletcher?” the nurse asked, and for the first time her voice sounded tentative.
“Definitely not Dr. Fletcher,” Maggie answered promptly.
“But Dr. Verrett was his surgeon, not his attending,” she said. “He’s not really trained to—”
“He’s new to the hospital,” Maggie explained, handing her own cell phone to the nurse. “Page him.”
“Got it.” The gray-haired nurse took the phone and peered at the readout on it. “You have seven messages,” she said. “All marked urgent.”
“Page him,” Maggie repeated.
She dutifully made the call but held on to the phone. She looked at Maggie as if she could not quite decide whether to speak up.
“What is it?” Maggie asked.
“If you really want the patient to be safe, let me make one more phone call.”
“One phone call?” Maggie sounded skeptical.
“I’ll call my friend Claudette in obstetrics and tell her the patient died. It’ll be all over the hospital in five minutes. If they think he’s already dead, who’s going to try and kill him?”
“You should be a detective,” Maggie told her. “Make the call.”
The nurse obeyed and handed Maggie back her phone. “Maybe I should be an actress?” she joked, and the two women smiled at each other. I loved this sisterhood of competent women. It made me feel like the whole world was safer.
“Verrett doesn’t sound Indian to me,” Maggie told the nurse. “The guard said an Indian doctor was in here? Said he was the anesthesiologist?”
“He might have been. Or the woman doctor was and he was an attending looking over her shoulder,” the nurse explained. “The hospital’s a little paranoid about lawsuits, especially with Fiona being murdered. The big dogs are sniffing around a lot, second-guessing everyone. He was probably an attending who was checking up on staff and being very careful.”
“What’s his name?”
She looked apologetic. She wanted to help Maggie, but she
was also part of a bigger team and she wasn’t about to unleash a witch hunt based on skin color. “I’m not sure who it was. I didn’t see them. I had a patient code on me around that time, and this man technically isn’t my responsibility.”
“He is now,” Maggie told her. The woman nodded. She was willing to help Maggie any way she could.
“Did you recognize the female doctor the guard described?” Maggie asked.
The nurse’s tone was apologetic. “About a third of the doctors on staff now are women. The numbers grow every year.”
Maggie’s sigh was eloquent. I almost pitied her. When she was focused, no one could best her. No one. But she had been going hard for days now, running on empty. Bulling through alone wasn’t going to cut it.
“What’s going on?” a voice asked. “He was fine an hour ago. What happened?”
“This is Dr. Verrett,” the nurse explained. “The surgeon.”
Maggie introduced herself and explained why she was there. The doctor was tall and thin with short-cropped dark hair and intense eyes that he likely used to intimidate other people. His energy was even more intense. He was as coiled as a cobra. Maggie had no effect on him whatsoever. But then again, he had no effect on Maggie in return. She was not intimidated by him at all. I don’t think he was used to that, and it confused him.
“Christian Fletcher explained why you were here to me earlier,” he said when Maggie was done. “Are you sure someone tried to kill this man?”
The nurse nodded and said, “We’re sure.” Dr. Verrett seemed to take her word a lot more seriously than Maggie’s.
“Is he stable now?” he asked.
“Yes,” the nurse said. “If he was given something to impair his breathing, it seems to be wearing off.”
“Then there’s nothing I can do.” He turned to go.
“Wait,” Maggie said. “Every doctor in this hospital is under suspicion except for you.”
“Every doctor?” he asked incredulously. “Did Christian Fletcher not save this man’s life just a few hours ago? Why would he do that if he wanted him dead?”
