Most of the doors are open, empty waiting rooms. A few other doors are closed, but they’re obviously waiting rooms, too. I open these, poking my head in, calling David’s name. He’s not in any of them, just startled patients waiting to see their doctor, and I offer up a quick apology before moving on to the next room.
It’s starting to get loud in here. More nurses are telling us we have to leave. A few doors down the hall open. Out of one of them steps David, dressed in slacks and a dress shirt and tie. He looks quite spiffy.
“John?” He blinks, and then looks past me. His eyes widen. “Dad?”
“We need to talk to you,” I say.
He nods dumbly, blinks again, nods harder this time, and steps back so we can enter his office.
“Dr. Smith,” says one of the nurses.
David holds up a hand. “It’s all right, Janice. I’ll take care of this.”
“What about your appointments?”
“Have Ed and Shirley deal with them until I say so. Understood?”
Janice doesn’t look like she does, but she nods anyway.
“Everything’s fine,” David assures her. Then he steps into his office, closing the door, looking first at me, then at Eli, then at Marta, then at Ashley. Finally he shakes his head, rubs his eyes. “What the hell is going on here?”
forty-two
Tyson called and said, “They’re inside.”
“What?”
“Eli and his kid and the others. They’re inside and headed up to Neurology right now.”
Zach sat behind the steering wheel, a block up from the medical center, Hogan in the passenger seat beside him.
“Shit.” He started the sedan and pulled out into traffic. A car behind him screeched as it braked hard to avoid a collision. “How’d they get in?”
“Ambulance.”
“Ambulance?”
Hogan said, “What’s up?”
“Eli’s inside,” Zach told him.
“How?”
“How?” Zach asked Tyson.
“Not quite sure. They tied up two EMTs, had them in the back of the ambulance, left them there. They were gagged but they managed to kick the doors until it got someone’s attention. Word just went out to all security with their descriptions.”
“Are they accessing the video feeds?”
“Yes.”
“Scramble it. Delete it. Do whatever you have to do, but don’t let security track where they’re going.”
“It’s too late. One of the nurses from Neurology is calling them right now.”
“Fucking take care of it!” Zach shouted, one hand on the phone, the other hand maneuvering the wheel as he swerved the sedan around traffic.
Their only options were the emergency room entrance or the parking garage. Zach took the parking garage. He jerked the steering wheel hard and they bumped up over the curb into the entrance. Beside him, Hogan already had his gun out, racking the slide.
Zach punched the gas, tearing them up the incline to the second level, then the third. There were no empty parking spaces here, at least none near the door, but that didn’t matter. He stopped the sedan and cut the engine and threw open his door.
“We’re headed inside now,” he said into the phone as he and Hogan started toward the entrance doors. “Make sure they have the helicopter here ASAP.”
forty-three
Eli doesn’t waste a second. He ignores David’s question and says, “People are out to kill us so we need to leave right now.”
David doesn’t speak right away. He just stands there, staring incredulously at Eli. Finally he says, “I thought you were dead.”
“The longer we stay here the more likely it is we’ll all be dead.”
The wheelchair has brakes on each overlarge wheel. Marta engages them and stands up out of the chair.
David’s eyes widen again. “Mom? I thought you had-”
“I didn’t,” she says. “The stroke was just a story. David, we can explain everything to you soon, but right now we need to leave. They’re probably watching you-and now us-as it is.”
“Who’s they?”
“Good question,” I say, wandering toward the two windows in the office. Both have their blinds up. I move to one of the windows, standing off to the side, and peek out through the glass. I check the rooftops across the street, but I can’t spy any snipers, and besides, I figure that if there are snipers over there, they’re expert enough to make sure I can’t see them. As I lower the blind, I say, “I was just as skeptical as you are now, but so far everything tracks.”
“What everything?” David pauses. “Yesterday morning I received an email from Melissa.”
Eli says, “These people killed your sister and her family. They’ve already killed Valerie and her husband and Paul and his family. They even tried to kill John.”
I lower the blind for the second window, force a smile at David. “Luckily, they didn’t succeed.”
David acknowledges Ashley for the first time. Another frown creases his face. “Who’s she?”
Ashley looks like she’s about to speak, but Eli cuts her off.
“David, we don’t have time for this. We need to leave now.”
David shuffles a few steps back until his legs bump against his desk. He places his hands on the desktop, slowly leans back against it.
“If this … if this is all true,” David says, staring down at the carpet, as if running something through his head, “we need to call the police.”
Eli takes a step forward, speaks between clenched teeth. “Do you want to die?”
“What?” David looks up, startled. “Of course not.”
“Then let’s go. Once we’re far away from here, I’ll explain more.”
David slowly nods, still running through something in his head. “Okay. But I need to let my assistants know-”
“Absolutely not,” Eli barks. “What about this situation don’t you understand?”
David’s expression is the kind you might expect had Eli just slapped him across the face. He looks stunned, hurt, confused.
I clear my throat. “Hey.”
David blinks, looks over at me.
“Let’s just go, okay?”
He stares at me for a long moment, then slowly nods.
Marta says, “What’s the fastest way down to the street?”
David shrugs. “The elevators, I guess.”
“Are there any secondary elevators blocked off to the public?”
He thinks about it for a moment. “No, there isn’t. There’s a stairwell, but we’d need to go back through the waiting room. Everyone’s going to see me. They’re going to wonder why I’m leaving. What am I supposed to tell them?”
“That it’s an emergency,” Eli says. The stone of his face cracks just long enough for half a smile. “A family emergency.”
David nods again. It’s like he has to psych himself up to do this. I guess that makes sense, though I wish he would hurry up.
“Okay,” my brother says finally. He starts for the door. Just as he places his hand on the handle, an alarm goes off.
In the corner a strobe lights begins to blink, and immediately I’m hit with a sense of déjà vu.
Eli’s hand drifts toward his jacket pocket, where he has his gun. “What’s that?”
“Fire alarm,” David and I say simultaneously.
Ashley speaks for the first time. “Do you think it’s them?”
Eli says, “It’s definitely them.”
Marta leaves the wheelchair behind and starts for the door. “Then let’s go.”
“Wait.” David turns away from the door, hurries back to his desk. “I just need to grab something.”
“Goddamn it,” Eli says, “we don’t have time for this.”