Urgent Care (39 page)

Gina stared at the deserted loading dock. The fire exit for the research tower was beside it. On the other side of the building, several hundred people would be gathered to celebrate her heroism. Was she really going to draw Jerry into his death?

“Hey, Gina.” Jerry’s voice came through the speaker, jolting her back to the present. “I’m kind of busy.”

The man jammed the pistol between her ribs so hard that she gasped in pain. “Jerry, I need your help. It’s important.”

“Are you here at Angels? What do you need? What’s wrong?”

The man nodded in encouragement. A light went on in the research tower before her and she thought of Ken Rosen. And his crazy lab, a study in chaos theory.

Gina gathered her strength and threw everything she had into her next rush of words. “I need to see you. It’s life or death. Meet me at Ken Rosen’s lab.”

The slap rocked her head back against the headrest. The man was immediately on top of her, one hand circling her neck to choke her as he raised the gun.

“Gina, what’s wrong?” Jerry’s voice came from the speaker, sounding tinny and far away. Another voice came in the background—Lydia’s? What was Lydia doing with Jerry? Gina wondered through the haze of pain as she struggled to breathe. “Okay. I’m on my way.”

The line went dead.

“You bitch,” the man said, squeezing her neck so hard that Gina came up out of her seat. “Who’s this Ken Rosen? What the hell have you done?”

He released her and she fell back into the seat. She massaged her throat until she found the strength to speak. “Look up. No one’s in the tower because of the gala. You said you wanted privacy—it’s better than out here where the security patrols could drive by and see something.”

A car chose that very minute to drive by. The man forced her head down as the lights sliced through the car windows. He held her there until the coast was clear. Then he dashed from the car and around to her side before she could do anything.

He opened her door and yanked her out.

“If this is a trick,” he whispered into her ear, jamming the gun into her spine, “you’re going to live a long, long time. And you’re going to be screaming in pain every living moment.”

 

 

“SHE’S NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO TELL YOU MUCH tonight.” Nora heard Lydia’s voice as though from a distance. “Can’t you take her statement in the morning?”

“I can take her over to my office,” Tommy said. “She needs a chance to defuse, to start processing some of these emotions. Otherwise she might not make a good witness for anyone.”

“Well . . .” Jerry didn’t sound too sure. “I don’t want her alone—or without protection. Let me get one of my guys up here.”

“I’ll stay with her,” Glen volunteered. “I’m off duty anyway, and you guys have things covered here.”

Jerry’s phone rang before he could answer. From the conversation, Nora gathered it was Gina. She and Tommy had already begun heading down the hall to the elevator banks. Lydia and Glen followed.

There was a guard at the elevators, but he nodded to Glen and pressed the call button. Nora turned to Lydia as the doors opened. “Stay here, please. Let me know as soon as Seth is out of the OR.”

“You sure you’re going to be all right?” Lydia asked, gripping Nora’s arm.

Nora had no answer to that.

 

 

AMANDA HADN’T REALIZED HOW FAST THE TERATOMA removal would be. It was done laparoscopically, through a small incision. Dr. Koenig might have been a pompous windbag as a teacher, but in the OR he moved with a precise economy of grace that was inspiring to watch.

“There’s our baby,” he said as the forceps emerged with a glistening blob of tissue, no more than two centimeters in diameter.

“Hard to believe something so small could cause so much trouble,” she’d said.

He chuckled. “If you were right. Only time will tell.” He deposited the teratoma into the specimen jar the nurse held. “Now we wait.”

 

 

LYDIA HATED WAITING. SETH WAS STILL IN THE OR, Narolie was in the OR, Gina was probably getting her medal by now, Nora was talking with Tommy—hopefully the counselor was more effective than he had been with Lydia—and she was stuck waiting.

Her phone rang. Oh shit. Trey’s mother again.

“Ruby, I’m so sorry—”

“It’s me,” came Trey’s voice. “I wanted to let you know I was at my folks’. In case you were wondering.” It might as well have been Ruby. Seemed like Trey had mastered her technique of long-distance guilt induction.

“You have no idea the kind of day I’ve had.”

His sigh resonated through the phone lines. “Look, my family put a lot of effort into planning things for today. They wanted you to feel welcome. I really think you owe them an apology.”

An apology? Over a bunch of cookies? She was smart enough not to voice her thoughts out loud. “Okay, I’ll apologize. Put Ruby on.”

“Not over the phone, Lydia.” Irritation crackled through his voice. “Call me when you’re headed home.”

She started to tell him about Seth, about everything going on—but why? He’d rush over, crowd her, and then it would be two of them waiting with nothing to do. “I will.”

She hung up and pocketed her phone. Her clothes were stiff as Seth’s blood dried. Thankfully her dark jeans and top masked most of it from casual gaze, but it was uncomfortable. She had running clothes down in her locker, so she headed for the ER.

The sounds of the gala echoed down the narrow corridor that connected the cafeteria to the ER—clinking glasses, laughter, music. Social butterfly Gina would fit right in. No wonder the public had singled her out as the Hero of Angels.

The public as led by Pete Sandusky. The thought of him made her detour to the security office. No way was she going to allow him to shape Nora’s life through his slanted reporting and photos.

 

 

TOMMY, NORA, AND GLEN RODE UP TO THE EIGHTH-FLOOR skyway and crossed it in silence. Tommy’s office was on the fourth floor of the research tower, so there was another short elevator ride down. Nora felt dizzy—not from going up and down, but somehow time seemed to be going fast, then slow, whirling her around with it.

They stepped out of the elevator and Glen used his PDA to turn on the hall lights. The three of them walked down to Tommy’s office.

“You okay?” Glen asked as she moved to follow Tommy inside.

Nora shrugged in reply. Didn’t have energy for more.

She couldn’t shake the image of Seth, lying in his own blood. It was frozen in her vision, while everything else swooshed past her.

“Tell me about what happened,” Tommy said once the two of them were safely ensconced in his office, Glen standing guard outside. Nora sat on a leatherette love seat and Tommy sat beside her in a similarly upholstered chair. The lights were dim but she could see herself reflected in the window, as if she were looking underwater, into a dark lake with no bottom.

“Seth told you about my attack. Two years ago.” Her voice was steady, although her hands weren’t. She grabbed hold of her knees as she leaned forward, trying to find her balance.

“Yes. He wanted to know how to help you.”

“It was the same man.”

Tommy remained silent, letting her go at her own pace. Haltingly, out of sequence, she told him everything—as much as or more than she’d told Jerry yesterday. She wasn’t sure—it all seemed such a blur—until finally she collapsed back against the couch, empty. Numb.

“I think that’s enough for tonight,” Tommy said, his voice strained.

Nora merely nodded, resting her head on the back of the couch, feeling exposed and vulnerable. She drew her knees to her chest and hugged them tight. Silent tears coursed down her face and she made no attempt to stop them or dry them. Tommy stood, sliding the box of tissues close to her hand.

“Take all the time you want.” He rested his palm on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll be right outside.”

The door clicked shut behind him. She sat there, nestled in the corner of the couch. All she wanted was Seth. His arms around her, his grin to cheer her, just to have him near. How could she have been stupid enough to ever send him away?

“You didn’t tell him everything, Nora,” a man’s voice whispered through the air.

Nora jerked her head up. The room was empty. Had she imagined it?

“Tell him how much you liked it,” the disembodied, distorted whisper returned. She leaped off the couch. The door was closed tight; the room was empty except for her. She clapped her hands over her ears. God, was she going crazy?

“Tell him how I made you come over and over again, harder, faster than any other man could. Tell him how much you wanted it, how you begged me for more, how I made you scream with pleasure. Tell him, Nora.”

“No. No!” Her voice shattered against the walls in a brittle scream. She was surprised when Tommy didn’t rush in, but realized that the counseling office was soundproof. Which meant it couldn’t be Tommy or someone from the outside. It was all in her head.

Had the session with Tommy opened the floodgates to her unconscious? Revealing the final secret, the one thing she’d kept locked away, refusing to acknowledge even in her own mind . . . that at some point during those two days when the rapist touched her in every way possible, not only had she surrendered to him, but her body had responded to his touch . . . It wasn’t something she could help; it was just physiology, hormones, reflexes. Nothing in her control. But the memory filled her with a burning shame. As if she’d been a partner in her own violation.

She spun around in a tight circle, wrapping her arms around her chest, swinging her head back and forth searching for escape like a caged animal.

“You want me, Nora. Just like I want you,” the voice returned, insistent.

“No.” The syllable emerged shredded and torn.

“We’ll be together again, I promise.” The voice sounded so certain, confident.

“No. Go away. It’s not true!”

Laughter filled the room, washing over her like a tsunami. She crumpled to the floor, trying to block it out. Trying to block out the fear and revulsion and primal urge to scream. Curling up in a ball, making herself smaller and smaller, she fought to disappear entirely. She wasn’t really here, it wasn’t really happening, oh Lord, not again, she couldn’t survive, not again. . . .

An eternity later, she opened her eyes to silence. That one act of defiance gave her the determination she needed to uncurl herself and sit up. She had survived. She would survive.

She remembered the feeling of invincibility that had surged through her last night when she and Seth had made love. Shaking her fist at an unseen assailant, she climbed to her feet, wobbling, but standing on her own.

“I’m not afraid.” She tried the lie on for size. It was an awkward fit, made her feel small and childish, like when she was little, checking under her bed for monsters even as panic made her heart race out of control.

She was very afraid—as afraid that her mind had betrayed her as she was that the killer would return for her.

Either way, she wasn’t going to do any good standing here in Tommy’s office. She needed to get out of here, find a place to hide, to regroup and figure out what was happening to her.

Before it was too late.

Saturday, 5:28 P.M.

GINA’S ID GAINED THEM EASY ACCESS THROUGH the fire door. The man hustled her through the dimly lit hallway to the elevator and up to Ken’s lab on the seventh floor. He glanced up and down the corridor, nodding at the rows of darkened offices. “You were right. Deserted. Open it.”

She held her breath, had to try her ID in the card reader twice, but then was rewarded with a click as the door unlocked. The man shoved her inside, turning the lights on, before he entered with his gun aimed at her.

Except for the two white mice, the lab was empty.

“Wait here,” he said as he looked around.

Gina backed up against the incubator holding the tissue cultures. It had taken only a few moments with the door opened wide for the alarm to alert Ken this morning—that was too fast. Last thing she needed was Ken rushing in, getting shot. What she needed was for him to get concerned, bring more people—preferably armed people. Or, best-case scenario, run into Jerry and alert his suspicions.

She settled for pulling the door ajar—just enough to break the magnetic seal holding it shut. The man opened Ken’s office door, turned the lights on, and seemed satisfied with the layout. He motioned for Gina to join him in the office. He used the duct tape to bind her hands behind her back and positioned her behind the desk, against the window, where she was visible through the office door.

“Stand there, don’t move, don’t say a word,” he ordered. He tore out the office phone and backed out of the room, his gun never wavering.

He clicked off the lab’s lights, leaving Gina in the center of the only light in the two rooms. Then he wedged the lab’s door open to the hallway and stood to the side of the door, hidden in shadows. “Now all we need to do is wait.”

 

 

“NORA, WHAT’S WRONG?” TOMMY WAS ON THE phone in the reception area when she burst through the door and started out of the offices at a headlong pace. “Wait! Where are you going?”

She stopped, gasping for breath. “I heard him, Tommy—inside your office, inside my head, I don’t know. But I need to get out of here.”

“You heard the killer? In my office?” He stretched the phone cord as long as it would reach and came around the desk, peering through his open office door. “Nora, there’s no one there.”

“I know.” She edged toward the exit, trying to hide the shaking that devoured her body.

“Wait. There has to be a rational explanation. Let me play back the session tape. We’ll see what really happened.”

She shook her head, the man’s voice still crowding her thoughts. The last thing she needed or wanted was confirmation that she had lost her mind. Tommy’s attention darted back to the phone.