A third sip.
Before the cancer tied her more and more to treatments at home, she'd visited Hawaii several times and seen the restaurant. It stood in a grove of palm trees on a street with a lot of A*s in the name that she could never remember, like a lot of Hawaiian words. Of course, any more trips there would be impossible.
A figure darkened her doorway.
She sat up.
"You awake, Sadie?" said a familiar voice.
"Father Jimmy. You're late tonight." The chaplain never failed to drop in to see if she'd fallen asleep yet, having learned of her insomnia shortly after her arrival.
He walked over and sat on the end of her bed as usual. In the half-light from the corridor, she saw that his eyes were more drawn and tired than ever.
"Thinking of Donny again?" he asked.
She smiled. He always knew. "I miss him so. And want to see him while I still can… before I…" She nodded toward the corridor where the latest visitors shuffled by, also garbed in protective gear, their muted voices already funereal.
He patted her hand and said the reassuring things he always did, but he seemed distant.
"How are you, Father? You're not your usual chipper self tonight."
"Me? Oh, thank you for asking. I'm fine- just tired after yesterday's big race. Did I tell you our Flying Angels won?"
"Yes. When you were here last night."
"Did I? Oh, sorry. I'm getting forgetful. And boastful, it appears, judging by my going on about our win. Pride goes before the fall."
"Depends on what you're proud of, Father. I'd say it's permissible to let your light shine in the matter of raising money for the hospital." She'd hoped to get a chuckle from him, but no such luck. "And you were right about that Dr. Earl Garnet. Remember I told you about his paying me a visit?" she continued, trying a different tack.
"Oh?"
"A first-rate man. He came by here again today and arranged for me to sit out on a lovely roof garden. He looked almost as tired as you, Father, yet took the time. I hope you don't mind, but he also seemed a bit down, so I said that you thought the world of him. That cheered him a bit. He laughed and said you'd put him up to coming on the ward in the first place." She'd hoped that after hearing one of the many small ways he had made a difference to her and others, Father Jimmy might relax a little. The tension around his eyes made it obvious that he needed someone to cheer him up once in a while.
Instead he cringed. She also noticed that, side-lit from the hallway, his normally youthful skin looked puffy in the shadows.
He must really have had a hard day, she thought, after they'd said good night.
She next awoke to the sound of running feet and the wobble of fast-turning wheels that she immediately recognized, and dreaded.
Another one unprepared to die.
As much as she wanted to see Donny again, she'd signed the DNR form when the nurses first presented it to her. Otherwise, when her time came, they might resuscitate her, and she'd have to meet death twice or more. Once would be enough, thank you very much.
She lay there, listening to the whump of the paddles as they delivered their shocks of electricity and the hushed, clipped voices of the team as they called it, then the telltale quiet.
Rarely they'd rush back out of the ward, pushing the bed, pumping breath into a ghastly-faced man or woman who would then linger on tubes, IVs, and a respirator in what must be a living purgatory. More commonly, the team quietly returned downstairs with their cart, and it would be the sobs of the family, if there were any present, that broke the stillness. Afterward the staff would lead them away, green-shrouded figures escorting the family members slowly in a ghostly procession. Finally, the sheeted form would be wheeled out.
The thought of herself eventually ending up in a refrigerated morgue with a lot of other corpses gave Sadie the creeps, and she tried not to think about it.
Outside her window a rind of gray light had eaten into the night sky along the eastern horizon. She turned to her bed table and did what she always did when the resuscitation team came calling: marked a tiny cross on her calendar and said a prayer for the victim, however the body left the floor.
Chapter 7
Monday, July 7, 12:35 p.m.
The roof garden, St. Paul's Hospital
I leaned back on the chair and pretended to enjoy the heat of the noonday sun on my face. But fear had become my cancer. Always present, it ate away at me day and night.
There were moments when I forgot. Awakening from sleep, I could still surface to the promise of a new day with a peace of mind that belonged to the time before I'd killed. Then the memories would sweep through me, and I would sink beneath the weight of my secret, knowing I could never escape its chains, never redeem myself. But as soon as I started to play my part, I would be okay.
Until I thought of Earl Garnet being on my trail.
Like all good physicians, he had an obsessive nature when it came to solving clinical problems. But if he sensed something wrong- lab mistakes, errors in judgment, incompetent technique- watch out. It was almost as if he took screw-ups like that personally. He was forever lecturing about how they caused avoidable injuries that the culprits could have prevented, and just about everyone at St. Paul's knew he would consider such failures a betrayal of those who had entrusted their lives to his domain in ER. I don't think he consciously aggrandized himself with that way of thinking. It was more an attitude that he'd be damned if anything would go wrong on his watch. None of that bothered me as long as he'd confined himself and his scrutiny to his own department. But now that he'd expanded his territory…
Panic at the thought of capture spread through me like rot. And for the millionth time I silently railed at having been fool enough to think I could get away with it, that I'd be so clever and outsmart them all.
But I'd had this plan, this technique, my ability to wall off what I didn't want to be or feel, I would remind myself. I'd perfected it trying to separate me from her pain, her scars. Except back then I'd learned it too late- I hadn't gotten the barricades up in time to keep her anger from becoming mine. But now, with the trick down pat, I had a cloak to wrap around myself between murders and make me invisible, an entity able to move about like a ghost. Or to paraphrase the philosopher, I don't think, therefore I am not. If Garnet or anyone else ever did realize that a killer had been at work, they'd be after someone who'd vanished, ceased to exist. At least that was what I told myself until I lapsed and thought about what I'd done, like now.
A slow, cold chill shuddered through me despite the heat and extra clothing, and I broke into a clammy sweat.
Shit! If only I'd never started. Or quit at the first death. No one would have known. But instead I pushed on, certain that Algreave had been a fluke, that I could still pull the rest through their sessions. Now I'd no choice but to continue, just to stay clear of the living death of being buried in a prison cell forever or, worse, awaiting execution.
Through half-closed eyes I watched Garnet lounging in a seat nearby, and a surge of resentment grabbed me by the throat. Leave it to old Goody Two-shoes Earl, making this into a roof garden for staff and patients. Rumor had it that he'd arranged for the greenery to be on permanent loan, or at least until the snow flew in the fall. What a fucking god he'd become around here!
My bitterness toward him and his good works surprised me. But why should it? After all, I'd condemned myself to seeing him across a moral divide, the man's inherent decency a luxury I would never again enjoy. Little wonder I envied and hated him for it.
The warmth of my mask and gown grew sweltering, my skin hot and sticky. Nevertheless, I stayed put, glancing around the rest of the area.
A gaunt-eyed woman whose few remaining wisps of hair floated on the breeze like gossamer sat nearby in a wheelchair parked under one of the potted trees. Perfect place for her, I thought.