40 Souls to Keep, page 20
He wound his way through the main lobby, happy to be avoiding the ER for once, and stopped at the information desk. Twenty-eight was close, but his gnawing hunger made focusing difficult.
“Is there a café or something here? You know...soup and sandwiches?” Anything too greasy was out of the question—the dream for number twenty-eight had been particularly vicious—there was bound to be a lot of blood. He wasn’t squeamish, just cautious.
“Of course, dear,” the elderly lady said. “Just through there. They opened at eleven.”
Jase thanked her, then stood in the lobby, waffling. His gut was pulling him in two different directions. Upstairs or around the corner to the restaurant? His conscience set his feet moving in the direction of the elevator, and he resigned himself to his grumbling stomach for at least a few more minutes.
The elevator stopped on the second floor, and the invisible thread between Jase and twenty-eight pulled him out of the car and down the hall. A few of the nurses gave him odd looks, and he soon saw why. The entire staff was dressed in scrubs, and there wasn’t a visitor to be seen. Several people lay on gurneys, their charts propped up against their leg or stomach. A large sign overhead read OR #3.
Jase pressed his lips into a frown. He’d never seen a pre-op so cold, bland and unfriendly. No wonder most of the patients looked scared. His senses led him to a gurney halfway down the hall, where he found a young woman with tears leaking from her eyes. Her rich black hair had been braided and slung over one shoulder. She clutched her chart in trembling hands. He laid a hand over hers, and his stomach clenched. Yes, this was the one.
“Hello,” Jase said, smiling. His stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly, startling them both, and the woman broke into nervous giggles. “Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t had lunch yet.”
“I haven’t had breakfast yet,” she complained, then glanced around guiltily. “Sorry. I don’t mean to complain. Are you a doctor?”
“Yes,” Jase lied. “How are you holding up? You look kind of nervous.” He held out his hand for her chart and she relinquished it. Jase flipped to the most recent notes. “Gall bladder? Don’t be scared—” he glanced back at the chart, “—Linda. It’s a routine procedure.”
“That’s what they tell me. I’m still nervous.”
More than nervous. Terrified might be a more accurate descriptor. Jase took her hand and squeezed it. “You’re going to be just fine. Promise. What time do you go in?”
“Oh, not for another hour,” Linda said. “I hate the way they put you out here so far ahead of time. It’s nerve-racking.”
Nerve-racking and insensitive. Jase kept these thoughts to himself and patted Linda’s hand. “Would you like me to come back when it’s time? I can stay with you during the surgery, if it would make you feel better.”
“Oh! Please!” A smile lit up her face.
“No problem. I’ll be back in a bit.” Hallelujah. He saw soup and a sandwich in his future. An hour would be plenty of time, especially if the OR was behind schedule. Filling his stomach would only take thirty minutes. Obviously, something was going to go wrong with Linda’s procedure—negligence of some sort or a bad reaction to anesthesia maybe. No matter. Jase would be there.
Something niggled at him as he walked away, and it took a minute to pin it down. Going into cardiac arrest on the operating table was no picnic, and there would be blood obviously, but his most disturbing dreams normally preceded violent situations, and Linda’s dream had been one of the worst. What was so violent about getting a gall bladder removed?
His footsteps faltered. Stay.
Eat, his stomach demanded, and Jase, a creature of routine and his own invincibility, chose lunch over the subconscious warning.
The café was exactly where it was supposed to be, tucked into a corner of the lobby, as small and uninspiring as Jase had feared. Still, there had to be something to fill the hole in his gut. A line of at least a dozen people stood in front of him. Annoyed, but not so put out that he’d misuse his power, Jase thrust his hands into his pockets and stepped to the back of the queue.
Fifteen minutes later, he was one person away from being served and salivating at the chicken salad wrap taunting him from behind the glass case. At first, the clanging alarm didn’t register. To him, it was just another sound in a building filled with beeps and whistles, but the nurse in front of him turned and raised an eyebrow. “Why’s the security alarm going off?” he asked.
Jase groaned but held his tongue.
“Are you going to order?” the woman behind the counter asked.
“Uh...yeah. Sorry.” The guy hesitated one more second before turning his back on Jase and rattling off his order.
She asked him to repeat it twice. “Will someone please find out why the security alarm has been activated?” she called over her shoulder. “I can’t hear a darn thing. Whoever decided a drill was a good idea during the lunch rush needs to be fired.”
“There was no drill scheduled for today,” a woman offered from farther back in line, and, cued, another alarm sounded, this one much louder and accompanied by running feet.
Several people turned, gasping. “That’s the lockdown alert,” the man in front of Jase said before dashing away.
Jase’s blood went cold. He dodged out of line and sprinted across the lobby toward the elevators, vaulting more than one couch rather than run around them. He ground to a halt in front of the metal doors, seconds behind a security guard.
“Sorry, sir.” The guard placed a hand against Jase’s chest. “The elevators are not running at the moment. Please find the nearest emergency exit and proceed to the visitor’s parking lot. You’ll be given instructions there.”
Like hell. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make the elevators move with the power of his mind. “Where are the stairs?” he barked.
The security guard answered immediately. “There.” He pointed. “Come on. I’ll show you.” He jogged around the corner, belt flopping, and Jase followed. “You need a key.”
“Hurry!” Jase yelled, though the man was already rushing and Jase’s command only made him more upset. Key after key slid through his grip.
Jase listened with increasing panic to the noises coming from the stairwell. They could only be emanating from the floor above, where he’d left Linda. He heard shouting and banging, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
Someone was screaming. A woman.
Finally the guard fit the proper key into the lock, turned it and stepped back. Jase thundered into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. He burst through the door and into chaos.
“Watch out!” An orderly rushed by him, arm slung around an elderly man. Moaning, the man clutched at his arm. Blood snaked over his fingers, trickling from where his IV had been ripped free.
Jase managed to catch the stairwell door with his foot before it slammed shut. “In here.” He helped the two onto the landing. “Can you get him down by yourself?”
“Yeah.” The orderly pushed past.
“What’s happening?” Jase called as they limped down the stairs.
The older man answered him. Mouth twisted in a grimace of pain, he pointed a gnarled finger at the door behind Jase. “He just went crazy when they tried to give him the gas. Grabbed a scalpel and starting threatening people.”
“Come with us,” the orderly called, gesturing to Jase. “Enough people have been hurt. They’ve got security on it.”
“Wait,” Jase said, confused. “One person is causing all this commotion? How hard is it to subdue one guy?”
The elderly man stumbled down the last few steps, but the orderly caught him before he fell, managing to keep them both on their feet. He threw one last look at Jase before hustling his patient out the door and into the lobby. “It’s just one guy. But he’s got a hostage.”
Jase’s knees went weak. Clutching the railing, he allowed himself three seconds of panic, then turned and got his feet moving. Careless! So careless, and now he was going to pay.
The hall had nearly emptied, but near the end a group of security guards ringed two figures in hospital gowns. One of the patients had his back to the wall. Eyes wide and dilated, he did indeed have a scalpel in his hand and was pressing it against Linda’s neck as he shouted at the guards to stay away.
Jase’s headlong sprint stuttered at the sight of blood dripping from her throat onto her gown. The man had done little more than hold the instrument to her throat, but its razor-sharp edge had cut into her skin like it was butter. Linda’s eyes were rolled up in her head, and her chest heaved with fear.
Before Jase could act or speak, one of the guards charged. Two others quickly followed.
A child could have seen the folly in their plan. Jase yelled in denial as the sudden attack sent the man reeling back. The scalpel sank deep into Linda’s throat, and the trickle became a gush.
Dread blackened the edges of Jase’s vision. How long would it take for Linda to bleed out with her jugular cut clean open? A minute? Already the spurts of blood were becoming weaker as her heart slowed.
She was going to die. Because he had wanted a chicken sandwich.
He crashed into the throng at full speed, screaming for the men to move out of his way. His feet slipped out from under him on the blood-slick floor, and he went down hard, cracking his head on the tile.
The security guards descended on the screaming madman while beside him, Linda thrashed weakly.
“Oh God, oh God,” Jase babbled. “Please don’t do this to me.” Half-stunned by the blow to his head, covered in Linda’s blood, he hefted her into his arms and placed his hands over her throat. “You’re going to be okay, Linda. I promised you, didn’t I?”
The power exploded out of him, as intense as always, and the flash of pain had him screaming into his shoulder, then collapsing sideways with Linda in his arms. It ripped him inside out, blinded him, but he didn’t care. It was Linda’s pain; he was taking it for her. Besides, he deserved it ten times over.
He came back to himself blinking tears out of his eyes and heaving ragged breaths. The euphoria was far away, beating in his blood, but Jase barely felt it. Several sets of hands were trying to pry his arms apart. “Sir? Sir! You have to let me get to her. Please let go, sir.”
Jase let go, and the young doctor slid Linda free of the pool of coagulating blood to check her pulse. “I don’t believe it.” He raised astonished eyes to the gathering crowd. “She’s alive!”
Jase laid his head on his arms and wept.
After Linda, when he found whomever he’d been sent to help, he stayed with them no matter the circumstances, for as long as it took, chancing nothing. He forged a promise to himself that day—a blood promise. Never again would he come that close to failing a soul he’d been tasked to save.
Never again.
Chapter Fourteen
The sun was almost over the horizon when Lucas pulled up to the security gate of Paradise Palms. Holding his breath, he punched in the universal access code he’d been given a few nights ago. The candy-striped bar rose in a series of jerks, and Lucas coasted under as soon as the Jetta’s roof had clearance to pass.
He activated his GPS, instructing it to find the last programmed address, and soon the cheerful British voice was directing him to turn onto Mariner Drive.
Night had covered the worst of it. Lucas remembered the street as empty, but daylight revealed something far uglier. Whoever had coined the term air of abandonment knew what they were talking about. More than one pool cage had been compromised, the screen shredded, and with that feeble protection gone, the pools within had become green sludge. Lucas didn’t want to consider too carefully what else might be living in the water. White bedsheets hung in windows. Stacks of rolled newspapers littered driveways.
He rolled to the end of the cul-de-sac and up onto the driveway. Martinez’s yellow crime tape fluttered in a light breeze where it stretched around the side of the garage to the front porch, and Lucas’s stomach rolled with sense memories—the flash of a scaled tail disappearing into the canal, pretty pictures on the wall, and the wet smell of blood.
Jase shifted, muttering in his sleep, and Lucas reached over to squeeze his shoulder. Jase rolled his head toward the touch, looking rumpled and vulnerable, killing Lucas’s personal promise to scale back the intimacy between them. He cupped Jase’s cheek, swiping his thumb across his lips. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty. We’re here.”
Jase rubbed his eyes open. “I slept.”
“Is that so surprising?” Considering the past few days, anyway. Macy had been the only one getting her fair share of rest.
“I thought I was way too keyed up to sleep. Had the strangest dream,” he mused. Something I haven’t thought about in years.”
“That’s your ever-so-helpful subconscious. You should pay attention to your dreams,” Lucas said. “They usually mean something.”
“Yeah,” Jase said gruffly. “I’m sure.” He opened his door when Lucas did, canting his neck side to side as they walked through an arched portico to the tiny courtyard guarding the front door. “You don’t really think the front door is open?”
Lucas shrugged. “Can’t hurt to try.” The knob refused to twist in his hand. “Ah well. Plan B.”
He skirted the low stucco wall that framed the courtyard and followed a gravel path that led around back. It felt as though the house stretched forever, but that was the builder’s solution on narrow lots. It let people snatch up their slice of heaven at rock-bottom prices.
“How far back does this place go?” Jase asked.
He slid on the loose gravel, and Lucas reached back, steadying him. “Almost there.”
The screen door leading into the three-story pool cage wasn’t locked, but that didn’t mean they’d get inside the house. One hurdle at a time. They passed through the door, entering a dying medieval jungle. In some places, the brown, wilted plants were stacked three deep. Set above the pool, a hot tub, framed out in glass brick, looked like someone had filled it with hot chocolate. A cracked red garden hose lay half submerged in the murky water.
Fifteen-foot bamboo plants hemmed the pool. The previous owners had used more bamboo to set off different areas of the lanai. Lucas caught a glimpse of a bar and the top of a patio umbrella. It had probably been beautiful in its time, the pride of the neighborhood. Now it looked dangerous—a predator-filled rainforest.
They found the glass sliders locked as tightly as the front door.
“Why don’t you go over there,” Jase said, tipping his chin to the opposite side of the patio. He hefted a wrought-iron chair and tested its weight.
“Trying to protect me?”
“Plausible deniability, that’s all,” Jase answered.
Reasonable, but it rang of cowardice. “I’m fine,” Lucas said. Besides, “over there” looked a bit too creepy and snake-infested.
“Suit yourself.” Jase threw the chair through the doors, and they shattered impressively. Stale air, scented sweetly of blood, rushed out over Lucas’s face, and he gagged.
“You okay?” Jase called as he turned and walked quickly away.
“Yeah. Just the smell. Go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Jase peered inside, then back at Lucas. “Okay. I’ll stay on the main floor.”
Lucas made his way back to the stone wall hiding the pool equipment, swallowing back the saliva that kept flooding his mouth. He’d managed to overcome this the other night, so what was the problem now? Other than the fact that the carpets had been saturated with blood three nights ago and were probably still tacky. Stomach turning, he fumbled for the hose spigot. The tap turned, but only a few rust-stained drops emerged. “Jesus.” He’d do anything for a mouthful of something cold. A ripple moved across the surface of the hot tub, and Lucas followed it with his eyes. Okay, anything except dangle his feet in the Jacuzzi.
Jase’s voice drifted out the door. “Okay, Lucas?”
About as okay as could be expected. He pulled a picture of Macy to the front of his thoughts and concentrated on that. Mind over matter. Shoulders squared, he crossed through the dead forest to the jagged hole in the glass and stepped through.
“I take it the worst of it is upstairs,” Jase said from the kitchen. The rising sun had yet to penetrate the windows. Lucas squinted at Jase’s shadow. “Yeah. But the family was camped out down here.”
His eyes tracked to the jumble of abandoned furniture and boxes in the cavernous room across from the breakfast nook. Just as it had done for the neighborhood, the dark softened the details. He could have been looking at a child’s play fort, the way the sheets had been draped over boxes and tucked into the corners of couch cushions. Even with five bedrooms at their disposal, they’d settled for this bit of flimsy privacy, as though the house weren’t a shelter at all, but something to be feared.
Turns out, they’d been right about that.
The police had turned the tiny camp inside out. Lucas remembered it as Spartan but neat. Organized. Their little bit of control over a world that had fallen apart around them. Little of that neatness could be seen now.
Lucas bent down to sift through a stack of papers and books, but the room was too dim to make out the titles. “I’ve got a flashlight in the car,” he called. “I think we’re going to need it.”
“Hang on.” A beam of light appeared in the kitchen. “Looks like one of your buddies left their Maglite behind.”
“Score. My tax dollars hard at work.”
Jase picked his way over and shined the flashlight where Lucas directed. The pile of papers were coupon circulars, the books third-grade readers. “Nothing here,” Jase said, picking up one of the schoolbooks. “Looks like Macy’s mother was doing her best.”
