“He has remained unconscious. We’ve intubated him, meaning we put a tube into his trachea through his nose to allow him to be hooked up to a respirator. We’ll be moving him to the ICU in a minute.
“We’re not yet certain why his blood isn’t clotting, but I’m thinking poison or an overdose. Most commonly it’s coumarin, or something chemically related to it like a superwarfarin, which is used as rat poison. It must have been a massive dose.
“We took stomach and blood samples, which will show us what was in his system, and maybe how long ago he ingested it. It will take a while for the results, though.
“To be blunt, I’m surprised he’s still alive. Even if he regains consciousness, he may not be able to talk. I strongly doubt his brain survived the anoxia, the lack of oxygen. Would one of you like to see him?”
Savich followed Dr. Bentley into a screened-off section of the emergency room.
“You’re the boss, right?”
“Yeah, I get all the perks.”
“Good luck.”
Nichols lay alone and still, his face white as a plaster saint’s. Dried blood and vomit caked the side of his mouth. His eyes were closed; his lids looked bruised, like someone had punched him. There were two IV lines tethered to his wrists. The obscene wheezing of the respirator was the only sound in the room.
Savich leaned close. “Mr. Nichols.”
Savich heard Dr. Bentley suck in a breath behind him when Nichols opened his eyes. Savich saw the death film beginning to creep into them. No, Greg Nichols wasn’t going to live through this.
“Do you know who poisoned you, Mr. Nichols?”
Savich was losing him. His eyes were darkening, the film creeping slowly over them, like a veil. His voice was urgent. “Who, Mr. Nichols?”
He was struggling for breath to speak but couldn’t.
His eyes froze. He was gone.
Nichols was dead and Savich wanted to howl. There were alarms, the heart machine flatlined.
Two nurses joined Dr. Bentley in the cubicle. Savich stepped out and returned to the small waiting room. There was an older black couple there now, their faces blank with shock, holding each other.
“Come with me,” Savich said to Jack and Rachael. He took Sherlock’s hand and led them into a long empty hallway, away from the emergency room and the soul-deadening silence of that waiting room.
“He’s dead. He regained consciousness, but it was only for a moment.”
“They killed him, Dillon.”
“Yes, Rachael, I think they did. And they did it dramatically, something I think pleased their vanity.”
“But why?”
Savich was quiet for a moment. Sherlock sighed. “I’m sorry, Rachael, but I think Greg Nichols was involved with them. After you and Jack met with him, maybe he spoke to them. Whatever he said must have made them realize he was a weak link, that he’d break, and so they killed him. I’ll bet you we’ll find out from Greg’s staff how they got to him.”
Savich’s cell sang out “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” He checked to see who it was, frowned. “Savich here.”
He was shaking his head as he said, “No, no, that can’t be, it just can’t be. Yes, we’ll be right there. We’re in the ER right now.”
He closed down, looked blankly at them. “That was Agent Tomlin. We’ve got to go to Dr. MacLean’s room.”
His voice was flat, but his eyes were dilated with shock. It scared Sherlock to her toes. She shook his arm. “Dillon! What in heaven’s name has happened now? Did someone try for Dr. MacLean again?”
He looked beyond her and said, “Timothy MacLean is dead, two floors up.”
FIFTY-SIX
It was chaos—medical staff walking about, seemingly without purpose, the hallway jammed with hospital security and above it all the fury of Agent Tomlin’s deep voice, trying to establish some order. He looked up, nearly yelled in relief at the sight of Savich.
Sherlock grabbed his arm. “What happened, Tom?”
“It appears Dr. MacLean had a gun. He put it to his temple and pulled the trigger. Chief Hayward’s inside with the medical staff, trying to figure out how this could have happened.” Tomlin swallowed. “Mrs. MacLean had just left when it happened. She came back up again, I don’t know why.”
Jack said, “Rachael, you stay put. Don’t come in, you hear me?”
She nodded, looked toward Molly MacLean, who was leaning against the wall opposite the nurses’ station, her hands over her face, weeping.
“Molly?”
Molly looked up, saw Rachael through a curtain of tears, recognized her.
“I’m so very sorry,” Rachael said, and pulled her into her arms. Molly’s pain swamped Rachael, drew her into the well of familiar grief she’d lived with since her father’s death. It was the hardest thing a human had to bear, she thought. She’d only known her father such a short period of time, a moment really in the long skein of a normal life, but the pain was constant and still throbbed inside her, like a beating heart. She couldn’t imagine Molly’s pain. She’d lived with her husband for more than twenty-five years. She’d lost someone stitched into the very fabric of her life.
Jack was walking toward them, and Rachael realized he was struggling to put his own grief away. She admired him greatly in that instant as she watched him get it together and the cop in him took over. He nodded to Rachael. Then he gently touched Molly’s shoulder. “Molly? It’s Jack. I’m so very sorry.” When Rachael’s arms dropped, Molly turned to collapse against him. She wrapped her arms around his back, held on hard, and wept against his neck. He held her, murmuring meaningless words, really, hoped it was comfort, but he doubted it. Nothing could make this mortal wound magically better. He said against her hair, “Molly, let’s go to the waiting room.”
The waiting room was empty, as he knew it would be. All the excitement was down the hall. It was relatively quiet in there. He closed the door, motioned Rachael to sit as he led Molly to a small sofa. He eased down beside her, continued to hold her, rubbing her back, and spoke quietly to her.
When she hiccupped, Jack gave her another squeeze and a Kleenex from a box on a side table. Rachael handed her a cup of water from the cooler in the corner. They waited in silence while she collected herself.
Molly raised her face, looked straight at Jack. “I know you’ve got to know what happened.” She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and another tear slid down her cheek. She opened her eyes, wiped a hand over her cheeks again. She drew in a big breath, held it. “All right. This afternoon, first thing when I walked into his room, Tim asked me to bring him his gun. He’s kept it for years in the bedside table; thankfully he’s never had to use it. I stared at him, terrified of what he was going to say, but when I asked him why, he looked at me like I was nuts. He said some guy had just tried to murder him and if it hadn’t been for Nurse Louise, what was left of him would be sitting in a lovely silver urn. He said he wanted to be able to protect himself, and if I really cared about him, I would bring him the gun. When I continued to resist, he shrugged, looked away from me, and said maybe it would be better if the guy came back and gave it a second try. After all, he was going to end up a vegetable, why not spare himself the indignity and welcome the guy back, maybe point to a good spot on his head where he should shoot him. It didn’t matter, nothing was going to change for him.
“I smacked him on the arm, called him an idiot. You never knew, I told him, simply never knew when medical science would come up with a new drug to help him. He listened to me, at least I thought he was listening.
“Then he looked up at me and said, ‘Bring me a gun, Molly, let me take care of myself. I don’t want to feel helpless.’