She looked around, desperate. The dumpster beckoned. She tossed the attaché case inside and hurried off. The case popped open as it landed inside the empty steel bin with a loud crash.
She hustled out of the alley. Turned left, headed east on 46th Street.
Bubonic Mary quickened her pace as the infectious combination of toxins quickly seeped through her bloodstream.
Leigh Nelson sat behind her desk, sipping the microwave-heated cup of coffee. Thursday morning, no reprimands. Her coat remained on, her bones still chilled from the four-block walk. Thirty degrees out, ten with the windchill, and they have to pick today to start construction on the staff parking lot.
Opening her laptop, she logged onto the Internet and checked her e-mail, progressively deleting the obvious spam. She stopped at the subject line: lost person inquiry and clicked on the e-mail.
Dr. Nelson:
Thank you for your inquiry regarding the whereabouts of BEATRICE SHEPHERD, age 30–38, ONE CHILD (female) age 14–16. TOP 5 Search States Requested: NY. NJ. CT. MA. PA. The following positive matches were found:
Manhattan, New York: Ms. Beatrice Shepherd
Vineland, New Jersey: Mrs. Beatrice Shepherd
See also: Mrs. B. Shepherd (NY — 4)
Mrs. B. Shepherd (NJ — 1)
Mrs. B. Shepherd (MA — 6)
Mrs. B. Shepherd (PA — 14)
To provide you with the highest-quality results, we suggest our LEVEL 2 Detective Service. Fee: $149.95.
Nelson’s eyes locked onto the Manhattan match. She clicked on the link:
Shepherd, Beatrice—201 West Thames Street, Battery Park City, NY. Daughter: Karen (age unknown).
Phone: (212) 798-0847 (new listing)
Marital Status: Married (separated)
Click for MAP:
She printed the information. Checked the time. Cursing under her breath, she grabbed her clipboard and headed out, ten minutes late for her morning rounds.
The sound of catcalls and hollering could be heard clear down the hall. Leigh Nelson quickened her pace into a jog, bursting through the double doors of Ward 27.
The veterans were chanting from their beds. Those with hands were clenching fistfuls of money, those without were just as animated. At the center of the spectacle was Alex Steven Timmer, a US Marine Corps veteran. The single-leg amputee was balancing on his right leg and left prosthetic, a baseball bat cocked over his right shoulder. The breakfast tray by his feet served as home plate, a mattress leaning against the bathroom door was the backstop. An aluminum bedpan tied around the mattress was the strike zone, one baseball already caught in its well.
On the other side of the ward, standing in the center aisle sixty feet away, was Patrick Shepherd. Strangely imposing. A baseball gripped loosely in his right paw.
“What the hell is going on in here? This is a hospital ward, not Yankee Stadium!”
The men grew quiet. Shep looked away.
Master Sergeant Rocky Trett addressed the angry woman from his bed. “Timmer played college baseball for the Miami Hurricanes. Claims he hit.379 in the College World Series and that Shep couldn’t strike him out on his best day. Naturally, we felt a wager was in order.”
“Come on, Pouty Lips, give us two more pitches so we can finish the bet!”
“Yeah!” The men started cheering again.
Alex Timmer nodded at the brunette. “Two more pitches, Doc. Let us settle this like men.”
“Two more pitches! Two more pitches! Two more pitches!”
“Enough!” She looked around, measuring her patients’ needs against the reality of losing her job. “Two more pitches. Then I want everything back to normal.”
The men cheered wildly as she walked down the center aisle to speak with Patrick. “Can you even throw a baseball with only one arm? Won’t you lose your balance?”
“I’m okay. Sort of been practicing in the basement.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Timmer. “He looks like he can hit. Can you get him out without breaking anything?”
Shep offered a wry smile.
“Strangler! Strangler! Strangler!”
“Two pitches.” She took cover behind the nurses’ station alongside Amanda Gregory. The nurse offered a shrug. “Could be worse. At least they’re not thinking about the war.”
Alex Timmer pointed his bat at Shep, Babe Ruth style. “Bring it, hotshot. Right over the plate.”
Shep turned away, adjusting his grip on the ball, using his upper thigh as leverage. Unable to maintain his balance in a full windup, he had to pitch from the stretch. He set himself, then, ignoring the batter, focused his eyes on the target. His left leg kicked, driving his knee up to his chest before extending forward into a powerful stride that simultaneously unfurled his right arm, a slingshot that hurled a spinning white blur through the air down the center aisle past the flummoxed batter a full second before he completed his awkward uppercut of a swing, the two-seam fastball denting the bedpan at its center point.
Strike two.
The men went crazy. Money was exchanged, a few tempers flared — the batter’s among them. “One more, Shepherd, give me one more fastball. You’d better duck, this one’s coming back up the middle.”
Shep retrieved the last ball from one of the veterans. He set a slightly different grip on the seams, his expression rivaling the best poker faces in Vegas.
Nothing changed. Not the speed of the delivery or the angle of his arm or the release — just the grip. The white Taser flew past a sea of steel beds en route to the makeshift plate and the awaiting batter before the baseball suddenly nosedived into a breaking slider that slipped ten inches beneath Alex Timmer’s whirling lumber — his swing rendered so violently off kilter that it corkscrewed the one-legged veteran 360 degrees. Ash wood met prosthetic leg, the device shattering into shards of aluminum and steel, landing Timmer hard on his buttocks. He howled as a slice of metal punctured his left butt cheek.
Silence stole across the crowd. Dr. Nelson stood by the nurses’ station, her complexion as pale as her lab coat.
“Damn it, Shepherd! I waited eight months for this leg! Eight months! Now what am I supposed to do?”
Shep shrugged. “Next time, bunt.”
The men whooped and hollered with laughter.
Grabbing the closest walker, the one-legged man pulled himself off the linoleum floor and limped up the aisle, intent on assaulting the one-armed man. Dr. Nelson remained frozen in place, watching dumbfounded as her interns hurried to intervene.
Her pager reverberated in her pocket. She fumbled for the instrument. Read the text message:
the vips have arrived.
Her leap of faith was waning, replaced by a sense of dread. Heaviness weighed in her lungs. Nausea rose in her stomach. A dull pain took root in her temples, the headache made worse by the incessant ringing of bells. The Christmas sound grew louder as she approached the crossroad of 46th Street and First Avenue, the United Nations Plaza looming into view.
Heath Shelby stopped ringing the bell. Pulling off one glove, he scratched his face beneath the annoying Santa Claus beard. A freelance writer, Shelby also did voice-over for local radio spots. He had been a volunteer with the Salvation Army for two years — one of his wife Jennifer’s requirements when she agreed to uproot their family from Arkansas.