Eerie - Crouch Blake - Страница 37

The nurse was already shaking her head.

“Nobody but you has walked through those front doors since I came on shift at midnight.”

“His car’s out front.”

“Well, he didn’t come this way.”

“You didn’t hear him pull up?”

“Kind of been busy.” She held up a folder. “Thirty-five patient charts to complete before eight a.m.”

“I spoke to your head of security about five minutes ago, told him there was a possible threat to one of your patients. Jim Moreton.”

“I don’t know anything about that. I’m sorry, but without a signed release I can’t discuss any patients or even confirm that the person you just mentioned is actually a patient here.”

Sophie leaned in. “Is there another entrance to this facility?”

“On the north side, but it’s only open and staffed during visiting hours.”

“I need you to take me to Jim Moreton right now.”

“Ma’am, HIPAA is pretty clear on the protection of patient privacy.”

“How about the protection of their physical safety?”

“Ma’am, I—”

“Do you understand what I’m telling you? Men may have come here to kill Mr. Moreton.”

The woman stonewalled.

“Tell me you understand what I just said,” Sophie pushed.

“I understand.”

“And you’re refusing to take me to him so I can check on his welfare? You believe the intent of HIPAA is to prevent a law enforcement officer from checking on the welfare of a psychiatric patient who may be in grave and immediate danger?”

Two gunshots erupted, muffled and distant.

The nurse’s eyes grew big.

Sophie pulled her Glock. “Where is he?”

“Acute unit.”

Another gunshot, different caliber.

“Tell me how to get there.”

The nurse rose from behind the desk and came around to Sophie.

“I’ll have to take you. It’s like a maze, and doors don’t open without an ID badge.”

Sophie followed her out of reception and down a long corridor.

“Are more police coming?” the nurse asked.

“Yes, on their way. What’s your name?”

“Angela.”

“I’m Sophie.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t—”

“Forget it.”

They picked up the pace, now moving through a series of intersecting short corridors that Sophie would have never been able to navigate on her own.

Straight ahead, the way was blocked by a pair of double doors, each with a square of glass inset at eye level.

Angela unclipped her ID from her scrubs and reached for the card-swipe.

“Hold that thought,” Sophie said, waving her off.

She leaned into the glass window and stared through. The hallway on the other side ran perpendicular to this corridor, and her field of vision only extended for several feet each way beyond the doors.

Sophie strained to listen—nothing but Angela’s elevated respirations and the ever-present hum of the lights overhead.

“All right,” Sophie said. “Go ahead and swipe it, but I want you to hang back until I give the all clear.”

The internal locking mechanism buzzed.

Deadbolts retracted.

Sophie pulled open one of the doors, stepped over the threshold.

She poked her head out into the corridor and glanced both ways.

Nothing but miles of empty linoleum.

Sophie whispered over her shoulder, “All right, come on.”

Angela led her down a corridor that shot between two larger buildings.

The windows on either side were barred, rainwater streaming down the glass.

“What’s going on exactly?” the nurse asked.

“I’m not a hundred percent sure. Have you worked with Mr. Moreton?”

“Yes.”

“Is he locked in his room each night?”

“And medicated. He’s a threat to himself and others.”

The corridor banked into a building, and they arrived at another pair of doors, these windowless and steel-reinforced.

“What’s on the other side?” Sophie asked.

“Acute.”

Sophie put her ear against the door. Over the clamor of her own heart, she thought she heard voices, though she couldn’t be sure.

“Angela, give me your ID.” The nurse handed it over without hesitation. “Now I want you to run back down the corridor as far as you can. Find a room without windows and lock yourself inside. Go now.”

The nurse turned and hurried off down the hall, the soles of her Keds sliding across the linoleum as she turned a hard corner and disappeared.

Sophie waited until the echo of her retreating footsteps had almost faded away. Then she turned the card over, lined up the magnetic strip, swiped it through.

The sudden buzz of the locks retracting unleashed a new belt of adrenaline.

She shoved the card into the inner pocket of her jacket, tugged open one of the doors, and got a solid two-handed grip on her Glock as a quiet voice in the back of her mind whispered, You’ve never even drawn your weapon in the field, much less shot it. ‘Lil bit different than the range.

Straight ahead, a nurses’ station.

Two corridors branched off behind it on either side.

She heard that noise again—what she’d thought were voices from the other side of the doors.

Crying.

Someone whispering, Shut up.

The stifled, high-pitched hyperventilation of a person in hysterics fighting to hold it back.

It was all coming from behind the nurses’ station.

Sophie sited it down the barrel of her G22 and announced herself, “Seattle PD. Who’s behind the desk?”

A deep, male voice said, “It’s three of us. We work in this unit.”

“I need you to stand up for me. One at a time, very slowly. Keeping your hands interlocked behind your head.”

“We can’t.”

“Why?”

“They tied us up.”

“Who did?”

“Four men.”

“Are they still on this wing?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did they want?”

“They asked where Jim Moreton was. They took my ID card and my key ring.”

Sophie moved forward toward the nurses’ station.

When she reached it, she rose up on the balls of her feet and peeked over the edge of the desk. Two orderlies and a nurse lay on their stomachs on the floor, wrists and ankles bound with Zip Ties.

The smell of gunpowder was strong. It competed with the sweet bite of urine. The nurse was lying in a pool of it, her scrubs around her crotch darkened.

“Anyone injured?”

Headshakes.

“I heard gunshots. Were they armed?”

The nurse’s mascara had run all to hell, her black-rimmed eyes swollen with fear.

She nodded. “Yes, two of them.”

“Where did they go?”

“Jim Moreton’s room.”

Sophie kept scoping each corridor and glancing back at the double doors she’d come through moments ago. Tactically, this was a dangerous spot—centrally located and vulnerable to multiple points of attack.

She said, “Did another police officer come through here?”

“I think so.”

She yelled, “Art!”

There was no response.

The nurse continued, “I didn’t see him—we were already tied up—but I heard him yell ‘police’ and then the shooting started.”

“What room is Jim Moreton in?”

“Seven-sixteen. Down the hall to the right.”

Sophie started toward the corridor.

“You’re just leaving us here?” the nurse cried.

“Backup’s on the way. Stay quiet.”

“Please!” she begged. “Don’t leave us!”

“Shut up!”

A door slammed somewhere on the wing.

Sophie exploded down the corridor, the heels of her boots pummeling the tile.

Room 701 blurred past.

Full sprint now.

702.

Heart thudding through the slats of her ribcage.

706.

707.

Her elbow clipped a rolling IV stand that toppled hard and went skating across the floor.

713.

714.

715.

She slowed to a stop a few feet away from Moreton’s room. The door was cracked, but no light escaped.

Her lungs burned.

Somewhere on the wing, a patient banged against the inside of their door and warbled incoherently.

Sophie leaned back on the wooden handrail that ran the length of the hallway and inched forward. The smell of gunpowder was strongest here, and under the fluorescent glare, something glinted on the floor—a .40 cal shell casing.