But making yourself sick worrying about him isn't going to help him or you, Rhianna. You can't get back
in to see him; the bitch has seen to that. Unless I miss my guess, there'll be a court order prohibiting you
from coming within three hundred yards of that place come morning. So just sit your ass down and be
quiet. I'm tired of watching you dig a trench in the floor boards!"
"Then why don't you get your ass on home, Triplett?" she flung at him. "I don't need - " She was
interrupted by the ringing phone. She stomped to it, snatched the receiver from its cradle and barked a
nasty hello.
"Did I catch you at a bad time?" Boucharde laughed.
"What is it?" she asked, her hand tightening around the receiver. "Has something happened?"
"No," the FBI agent drawled. "I just wanted to let you know I spoke to one of the marshals down at
the clinic and our boy is resting comfortably."
Rhianna laid her head against the wall. "Thanks. I'm sorry I snapped at you."
"Hey, you're under a lot of strain. I understand." He cleared his throat. "Also, I wanted to tell you that
Jamie Cullen is here."
"Here?" she asked, straightening up. "Why?"
"He came out to see you. He went to the station, but that was when you were throwing your second
temper tantrum down at the clinic, Grace O'Malley."
"It wasn't a tantrum," she denied.
Boucharde let that pass unchallenged. "Anyway, Joey said the man looked really sick. He tried to get
him to go to the doctor, but Cullen refused so Cortesio took him home with him. He said to tell you he'd
bring Cullen over to your place in the morning."
"But why is Jamie here, Franc? Did you speak to him?" She had a bad feeling about this. When they
had last seen the Florida DEA agent, it had been in a hospital emergency room where they had taken him
to get help for his problem.
There was a pause, then the sound of the Fibber releasing a long, tired breath. "Yes, I spoke to him,
Rhianna."
"And?" she prompted, annoyed with him drawing the thing out.
"He doesn't think it's over, Rhianna," Boucharde answered. "He called Sullivan, Collins, and Keane
and apparently they agreed with him. He thinks the kidnappers are going to come after you."
"Meet me at Cortesio's!" she said and hung up.
****
Smiling gratefully up at the beautiful woman at his bedside, Dennis Clark closed his eyes to let the
morphine work its magic on the demon virus that was eating him alive. He put a thin, quivering hand on
the nurse's arm. "Thank you, Erica," he said, his voice hoarse from the chemicals, which rendered his
throat almost useless.
Slipping the empty syringe into the pocket of her uniform, the blonde beauty patted his hand
reassuringly. "Just close your eyes, Dennis. Try to get some sleep."
She waited with him, watched him until the faint rise and fall of his chest ceased and the heart monitor
at the head of his bed became one thin, unwavering line and the instrument played a single unwavering
tone.
She heard the squeak of hurrying footsteps stop abruptly outside. The silence was broken by the
swishing of the door opening.
"The family asked for a no code?" the night duty nurse asked as she came to the bed and stared down
at the dead man.
"Yes."
"I'll start the paperwork and have Dr. Kirby come in to pronounce," the nurse said and withdrew.
The resident came into the room, glanced at Dennis Clarke. "What time is it?" he asked.
Erica looked at her watch. "It's eight forty-five, sir."
"Time of death: eight forty-five p.m.," the resident said in a bored tone. He yawned, then left.
Erica began to remove the tubes and lines attached to the dead man. As she worked, she hummed a
Swedish lullaby. When every lifeline that had anchored Dennis Clark to the living had been taken away,
she drew the sheet up over his face.
****
Federal Marshal Sam Jennings heard the thin wail of the heart monitor and had been in enough
hospitals over the years and seen enough TV medical shows to know what it meant. The gay guy in the
room next door had finally bought it. Sam was looking at the _Des Moines Register_ Sports section
when the racy blonde nurse started toward him. "Guy's gone, huh?" he asked as she drew closer.
Erica stopped beside him and let her shoulders slump "Yes." She lowered her head. "I just never get
used to it."
"Well," Sam said, feeling uncomfortable. He folded the paper and laid it on the floor beside his chair.
He stood up. "That's life."
Sometimes Erica thought she would have made one heck of an actress. Making the tears flow down
her cheeks on cue was an art and Erica had mastered it long ago. Slowly she raised her head and let her
grief show. "He was so young."
"We all gotta go," Sam replied. He started to put his hand on her shoulder, but thought better of it. He
was on duty. Instead, he thrust his hands behind him to keep them out of temptation.
Erica molded her face into a mask of sorrow and the sobs tore from her as though pulled out one by
one with giant tweezers. Burying her face in her hands, she leaned into the guard.
Astonishment, then guilty pleasure, passed quickly across Sam's countenance before he hesitantly
brought his arms up and around her, holding her shaking body to him and patting her awkwardly. Her
arms circled his waist while she pressed her tearful face to his chest.
"It's okay, honey," he said as he inhaled the heady scent of her perfume. "It's okay." He barely felt the
sting of the needle that took him down into the black halls of unconsciousness.
Three*
It was a nightmarish drive through a world dissolving beneath the deluge of rain. The wiper blades
slapped viciously at wave after wave of water slamming against Trip's windshield. The wipers were
proving to be of little help in making out the black tar of the roadway. Only the almost-steady pulsing of
white light flaring across the firmament kept him from wandering off the road and into the overflowing
ditches on either side.
"Jesus Christ!" Trip complained as Rhianna swiped at the inside of the windshield with an old T-shirt.
"What is this? Another flood?"
Rhianna glanced at him. She'd been thinking the same thing. The Midwestern floods of nineteen
ninety-three had been devastating and they had started just this way. The rain had started in the early
hours of morning and now, at almost nine thirty at night, it showed no sign of stopping. She flinched as
another ultra-bright streak of light left an after-image on her retina.
"I can't see a damned thing."
"We're almost there. Turn right at the next intersection."
"Yeah, yeah," Trip snapped. "I know."
Trip's hands were like vise grips on the steering wheel and he dared not take his eyes from the road.
He had been hunched forward over the steering wheel the entire trip. Now, his back was killing him and
his shoulders cramped from holding the position for so long. Neither condition had done much to improve
his good humor.
"There," Rhianna said.
"I see it." Taking his hand from the wheel only long enough to flip on his turn signal, he tapped the
brakes, hoping he still had some braking power left.
Rhianna felt the car begin fishtailing.
"Sonofabitch!" Trip exploded. "Hold on!"
They took the turn in an arcing skid, barely missing the stop sign at the corner of the connecting road,
thankful no car was sitting at the intersection. The left rear wheel jumped the curb and dug into the
shoulder, but Trip tamped down on the accelerator just enough to keep their forward momentum going.
With a lurch and a thud, the four by four's tire slipped off the curb's cement obstruction and back on the
street.
"That's my baby," Trip said. "She's one fine piece of machinery."
"Did you take the evasive driving course?" Rhianna asked shakily as Trip finally got his car under
control.
"Shut up, Marek." His hands flexed around the steering wheel. "Two streets down, on the left, right?"
"Right."
By the time they pulled up in front of Cortesio's townhouse, the rain was one single rippling sheet of
tarnished silver hanging from the sky.
"No way I'm getting out in this," Trip told her.
Rhianna agreed. They had gotten wet enough just running from her porch to the car. If they ventured
out in this mess, they'd be soaked before they got five feet.
She had no choice but to sit back and wait until the rain slacked. The nightmarish ride to Joey's had
only underscored her nervousness, made her more edgy. Looking out at the water cascading down the
window, she thought it a good analogy for the tears she'd shed since Irish had disappeared.
"Even the heavens are crying for us," she whispered.
"What?" Trip asked.
"Nothing," Rhianna said, slumping in her seat.
****
Victor Busbee laid the unconscious guard on the floor of the utility closet. He stood up, adjusted his
orderly's uniform tunic and stepped into the hallway, pulling a large canvas laundry cart behind him.
Taking his time, he rolled the cart toward the dead man's room, barely glancing at the door behind which
his Patrino's enemy lay. Erica would stay with the others, keeping them busy at the desk, seeing to the
state-sanctioned paperwork that was necessary when someone died. She would see that no one came
down the corridor to notice the Federal Marshal missing from the door of Conor Nolan's room.
Victor pushed the cart into Dennis Clark's room. Working quickly, the black man flung the sheet from
the corpse, scooped the boy from the bed, and dumped him into the laundry cart. Covering the cart with
the sheet, he pushed it out of the room and down the hall. He stopped in front of the Irishman's door.
Glancing around to make sure no one was watching he backed into the room, dragging the cart with him.
****
Erica went to the water fountain at the terminus of the nurses' station area where the corridor led down
to Nolan's room. The Federal Marshal was gone and there was no sign of Victor. She stooped and
pretended to drink, her eyes on the door of room 318.
"Erica, will you see that Mr. Clarke is taken down to the back entrance?" the night duty nurse asked.
Erica straightened up and turned her head toward the speaker. "Now?" she asked.
The nurse nodded. "The hearse is here to pick him up."
"Okay." Erica left the fountain and went back to the desk. "Janice, do you have a stick of gum? That
garbage I had for supper left a funny taste in my mouth." She grimaced. "It tastes like a skunk crawled in
there and died."
"Sure," the nurse laughed. She bent over to retrieve her pocketbook and began rummaging through it
in search of the Wrigley's. "I've got some in here somewhere."
****
Victor stared down at the sleeping man and smiled. There was spite in his chocolate brown gaze and
the smile would have put a Great White shark to shame. Reaching inside the pocket of his tunic, the
black man took out a plastic zip-lock and pulled it open. He withdrew a chloroform-soaked rag and
clamped it over Conor Nolan's face. Conor came only partially awake beneath the pressure covering his
mouth and nose, then Victor's target went limp.
****
Just as Erica had done with Dennis Clarke, Victor slid the IV needle from Nolan's hand. He tossed
back the sheet, hefted the unconscious patient from the bed and laid him on the floor. Leaning down into
the laundry cart, he picked up the dead man, laid him on the bed and shoved the IV tube into his
rapidly-cooling arm. He covered Dennis Clarke with the sheet, titled his head so that his face was turned
away from the door, then lifted Nolan into the laundry cart.
He checked the hallway again, then hurried the cart into 316 where he placed Nolan in the bed and
pulled the sheet over his face. He pulled the laundry cart out of the room and took it back to the utility
closet.
Erica was waiting at the door as he came out again. Neither said a word; there was no need. The
blonde turned and headed up the corridor while Victor grabbed a gurney parked against the wall and
headed for Room 316.
The exchange had taken less than thirty seconds. In less than two minutes, Erica and Victor were in
the service elevator with the gurney and on their way to the waiting hearse.
Four*
Jamie Cullen looked worse than he had before. His eyes were sunken in his head and he was sweating
despite the chilled air that flowed from the Cortesios' air conditioning vents. "I got to thinking about it
after you left," Jamie said, trying to still the tremor in his hands. "I called Sullivan and he told me what you
all had come up with."
"About Luis Quinterras?" asked Boucharde.
"Yeah." Cullen wrapped his arms around himself. To everyone in the room, it seemed that was the
only way he could hold himself together. "I was lying there in the bed, in the hospital, going over it in my
mind." He laughed shakily. "What mind I got left. It occurred to me that Luis had done just about all he
said he would."
"Hurting the people Coni cared about?" Rhianna asked.
"And making Coni suffer." His teeth chattered.
"I'll turn down the air," Joey said, feeling the other man's misery to his very roots.
"Hey, thanks man," Cullen said. "I'm not used to this Iowa weather." He laughed softly.