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  “Always Ms. Inappropriate aren’t you? This isn’t the time.”

  Detective Markov normally loved the back and forth; the constant bickering. It certainly kept things interesting. But now, the only thing on his mind was Ramirez. They were buddies at the academy and he’d helped him through not one, but two divorces. An 11-98 meant “Officer down.” By itself it could mean anything, but the fact that it was code 3 worried the hell out of him. Markov swung the wheel to the left through a yellow light, skidding slightly on his wheels. He was still learning how fast he could take those corners. The Mustang had a lot more power than he was used to.

  Detective Hall held on to the roof through the turn. Normally he’d let her drive, but tonight he was testing out his new ride. She got some sort of weird satisfaction from being the driver. He’d known since he met her that she was a bit of a control freak, but now he was seeing a new aspect of that power complex blossoming.

  “You know,” Markov said, “You don’t have to press the imaginary brake when I turn. I’ve got this.”

  “You’ve got this?” she asked using air quotes. “Like the time you had me with the Midtown Slasher?”

  “Always back to that nut job. Like I said before, I was tied up with his accomplice downstairs.”

  “You’ve got an excuse for everything, don’t you?”

  Detective Markov could feel his blood pressure rising. He scratched the nicotine patch under his brown blazer and tried to stem his craving for a menthol cigarette. He could taste it in his mouth under the remnants of hot dog and mustard and relish, itching away like a tick under his skin. He knew she was playing with him to get his mind off Ramirez. She wasn’t very good with this sort of thing. Emotions, that is. She’d much rather fight.

  Markov made the turn into the hospital parking lot and brought the Mustang to a halt behind two police vehicles. Karen switched off the siren and sat silently. He knew what she was going to say.

  “You’re not coming in, are you?” he asked.

  “I’ll take a cab back to my place and grab Stella. I’m more use on the street and out of everyone’s hair.”

  Stella was what she called her beat up excuse for a car. So many parts were broken or missing Markov had trouble calling it a car at all. Still, she was right. He’d seen her in situations requiring tact and connecting emotionally with others. Long story short, it didn’t turn out well. She never was one to say the right thing. She was good at just one thing. Catching or killing murderers. Make that two things.

  Karen powered up her window and opened the door. As she was getting out she turned and looked back to Markov with what passed for a sympathetic face. The look was strained on her face, unnatural and wooden.

  “I’ve got another couple hours until shift ends. Call me if you want to grab a beer later.”

  She got out and shut the heavy door with a dull thud, walking off into the darkening night. Markov wouldn’t have said she was insensitive, so much as unconscious. She was an efficient partner with an arrest record that was unmatched in the department. It was her personal skills needed work and so far he didn’t have any luck helping her. It would help if she’d wanted to change. And then she wondered why she couldn’t find a boyfriend.

  It was five past eight and the entrance to the Emergency Room was bustling with people. Detective Markov powered up his window and killed the engine. It wasn’t any use trying to ‘fix’ her. Karen was Karen, plain and simple. Now, he had to focus on Ramirez. For some reason he’d let his partner occupy his head. He knew what he should be thinking about but he couldn’t concentrate on the task at hand. He was irritated and it wasn’t just his craving for a menthol.

  3

  2000 Hours – Day 1 – St. Mary’s Hospital

  Tires screeched as Officer Johnson slammed the brakes of his squad car. He flipped a switch on his dash to cut the siren and slammed his blood-stained fists on the steering wheel. A number of statistics ran through his head from previous cases. It had taken a little under five minutes for the ambulance to get to St. Mary’s Hospital, and including the time before the ambulance arrived, the situation was looking grim.

  Officer Clement had taken the other squad car and was just pulling in behind him. In the rear view mirror, Officer Johnson saw a thrashing figure in the back of Clement’s vehicle.

  Shit, he thought, not this again.

  His least favorite part of his job was dealing with people needing psychological help. It was depressing and there really wasn’t anything he could do for them except try to keep them from hurting themselves or someone else. He had to leave the rest to the folks over at the Psych Ward. They were the best in the business, but even they had low rehabilitation statistics. In his opinion, the mind was a fickle thing.

  Johnson got out of his squad car and stepped up to Clement’s window, tapping it three times. Clement found the button and the window slid down. Behind the cage that separated the front seats from the back, Neil Meriwether thrashed his body around violently. When he kicked the cage, it made a small dent. Officer Johnson had arrested much larger people, but none of them had been that strong.

  “I’m going to go inside and get some help,” Johnson said, adding grimly, “one way or another he’s going to be taken off our hands.”

  Officer Clement simply nodded, ignoring the thrashing man behind him and turning up the radio, blasting Neil with Kenny G. He’d told Johnson that his Army buddy, a member of Army PsyOps, had taught him that trick. Psychological Operations devised countless ways to mess with the minds of the enemy. Some of their methods were borderline torture, others just made Johnson laugh; like the story of the time Clement’s buddy blasted Britney Spears at a Taliban stronghold for three days before his forces attacked. It was enough to make any grown man scream.

  Johnson smirked. Clement had a sick sense of humor. Ever since his childhood, Johnson’s father had encouraged him to enjoy the little things. Even before his father’s death, he’d played pranks on the Oncologist, making him believe an x-ray of his lungs contained a grapefruit sized tumor. The nurses were in on that one. For a fleeting moment he’d forgotten his worries. He smiled at the memory of his father and then steeled himself once more before making his way through the double glass doors to the Emergency Room.

  •

  Neil Meriwether was rolled into the hospital under heavy sedation and bound to a stretcher with 4-point leather restraints. Despite the drugs the Emergency Department RN administered, the man was still cognizant enough to scream out obscenities, frightening many of the people in the waiting room as they wheeled him to a private room.

  An ER doctor barked commands and the nurses and techs followed without question. They brought him to Trauma Room 1, where they took off the pair of handcuffs that held him to the gurney, leaving the sturdy leather straps in place. Officer Johnson had seen them before once or twice. They were thick and required a key to unlock.

  A dumpy technician held down the grizzled man’s arm and shoulder while another drew blood. After several tries, one of the techs got an IV into him and began administering fluids. Officer Johnson stood in the doorway of Trauma Room 1 watching with contempt. The technician had filled two vials with blood when he turned around and scolded the police officer.

  “Sir, you’ll have to remain in the waiting room,” the technician said.

  “I haven’t given you guys my report.”

  The ER doctor looked up from the patient and bellowed, “Someone will come out to speak with you soon. We need room to work!”

  The technician drew a curtain around Mr. Meriwether and closed the door on Officer Johnson. The policeman cursed and dragged his tired feet to the waiting room, dinging the bell at the reception desk and cutting in line in the process. A graying woman peered up at the officer over her thick teal glasses and halted her rhythmic gum-chewing simultaneously.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “Officer Luis Ramirez,” Johnson stated. “What’s his condition?”

  A f
ew of the people waiting in line began to mumble to one another. One man cradled his arm, which appeared to be broken. Officer Johnson didn’t like the situation, but he needed information. An officer down took precedent over a broken arm every day of the week.

  “Are you friend or family?”

  “I’m his partner,” Johnson replied. “A little of both I guess.”

  The receptionist changed her expression to one of pity and said after checking her database, “Luis Ramirez is in surgery. You can wait here if you like and we’ll let you know when we hear something.”

  “Thanks,” Johnson said, somewhat relieved. “I appreciate that.”

  Officer Johnson took a seat in the waiting area next to Barrows, who had just had a splint put on his nose. As far as Johnson could tell, he was going to have some monster bruising. He wondered if that’d change his attitude around the ladies. The rookie was starting to get a reputation around the department for shameless flirtation. The way the department was going, he wouldn’t last long on his current trajectory. Barrows didn’t say anything when Johnson sat down beside him; he merely communicated with his eyes the way that two grown men often do. Officer Clement slumped down in the seat next to Johnson a few minutes later, showing his exhaustion on his face.

  Johnson wasn’t a fan of waiting, but ever since the mix-up at LAX had left him stranded there for 26 hours, he’d learned a little patience. However, in this situation, no amount of patience could keep him from obsessing over the details. He wondered if there was anything he could have done differently to have prevented this from happening.

  After a couple of minutes a large shadow overtook a slumped over Officer Johnson. He raised his head and saw Detective Markov in a patched brown blazer and a worried look across his husky face. Markov sat down in the chair opposite him and rested his elbows on his thick knees.

  “I heard over the scanner. How is he?”

  “We don’t know,” Johnson croaked.

  They sat in silence for almost an hour before the hospital staff came out to speak with them. The middle-aged nurse with dyed-blonde hair strode up to them with an ER tech trailing close behind. The nurse’s scrubs were blue-green with pictures of jaguars and cheetahs emblazoned on them. Johnson wondered how the hospital let her get away with that. The technician standing in her shadow wore hot pink scrubs and was almost short enough to be comical.

  “Hello officers, I’m Rosie, the House Supervisor.” The nurse said, extending her hand to Officer Johnson.

  “I’m Officer Johnson. Any news about Ramirez?”

  Rosie put her hands in the front pockets of her Cheetah print scrubs and hung her head. “He’s still in surgery, it could take a while,” she replied.

  Johnson bent forward with his elbows on his knees and cursed. He needed to call Captain Riggs. Johnson tried to work out how to tell him his favorite officer had been injured, but nothing sprung to mind. There were some things people didn’t want to say to the Captain. He always seemed to be one argument away from an ulcer.

  “I still haven’t given my report,” Johnson said.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Rosie replied. “I know this is a hard time for all of you, but any information you can give us regarding his condition will be helpful.”

  Officer Johnson leaned back in his chair and began playing with his patrol cap. Detective Markov retrieved a notepad from his blazer to follow along. “We responded to an assault call at a supermarket. This guy was eating everything in sight and had assaulted three employees, killing one. We surrounded him and were about to talk him down, when he tackled Ramirez and bit into his neck. It took all three of us Tasing the guy to get him down. Normally, I’d say it looked like he was on some crazy drug trip, but something just seemed off about him, like a rabid dog. I saw foam at his mouth and his eyes had a weird green tint. That last part could just be my mind playing tricks on me, but who knows? All I’m sure of is this guy assaulted three citizens, broke Barrows’ nose, and messed up Ramirez pretty bad. I wouldn’t let him out of your sight.”

  Detective Markov scribbled away quickly with his pen, taking in every word. If anyone was going to do anything about this guy, it would be him, Johnson was sure of it.

  •

  Rosie nodded in somber silence. She had seen people come in with hundreds if not thousands of ailments, but Neil Meriwether was different. She’d just received his drug screen after an hour of waiting and it had come up negative; the man was clean. All of the symptoms pointed to an acute neurological disorder, but they would have to run more tests to be sure.

  “Thank you, Officer Johnson,” Rosie said, then added, “I think we have enough to go on.”

  Officer Johnson pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and looked at his counterpart. “The boss is going to want to hear an update,” Johnson mumbled to the burly detective sitting next to her.

  Rosie said goodbye and returned to the back area. The technician that followed her was a podgy girl that hardly fit in her pink scrubs. Katie stood all of five foot nothing and had a voice that was as annoying as a munchkin on helium. Even when she said nothing, Rosie could hear the girl’s voice grinding in her head and it made her clench her teeth. At the end of a long shift Rosie’s jaw was always sore.

  Several shouts emanated from Neil Meriwether’s room, booming down the hallway and sending a shiver down Rosie’s spine. This was perhaps the worst part of her job. She didn’t mind cleaning up infected poop or putting in catheters; it was the mentally unstable that got to her. The ones who didn’t know who they were or what they were doing were often the ones who assaulted her nurses and made her life difficult. Nobody assaulted her nurses on her watch. Nobody.

  Rosie opened the patient’s door, where two nurses were attempting to confine the man who had managed to break one of the restraints with his surprising wiry strength. They had stripped him of his clothes and gotten the polka dot patient gown on halfway when Neil’s hand broke free of a restraint and found its way to a nurse’s throat.

  The ED Doctor pushed Rosie aside and barked orders.

  “Sedate him!” he said, pulling the man’s hand free of the nurse’s throat. “Intubate him, I want him out cold.”

  •

  “I need a CT scan done on him,” Dr. Flores instructed the charge nurse. “Bring Dr. Baldwin.”

  Rosie stood behind Dr. Flores in Trauma Room 1. The patient’s dark brown hair was a tangled, greasy mess and his sunken face was caked with sweat. She was used to standing in the background as the ED Doctors shouted orders. Rosie had been in the game long enough to know their commands before they said them and to double-check their work as they went. She wasn’t paid nearly enough for the job she did.

  The charge nurse acknowledged Dr. Flores’ order and found an ER technician to help with the gurney. Dr. Baldwin, the Hospitalist on duty, was already approaching down the long hallway and joined them. Rosie went through a checklist in her head. Every process in the hospital had specific regulations. For a CT scan they needed to have the nurse, the ER tech, and the Hospitalist. Though Rosie wasn’t needed, she was as curious as any of the nurses as to what exactly was wrong with the patient.

  An hour ago Neil Meriwether was choking a nurse, now his cheeks were sunken in and his eyes reflected green light like a cat in the nighttime. At first, he didn’t look like another transient, but a regular guy with a little extra weight around the middle and what was once a slick haircut that said he was in sales. In under an hour, Rosie could see that his course face had visibly lost weight. This was something she had never seen before, and she was going to get to the bottom of it. Despite his issues, she couldn’t back away from a good challenge.

  “Keep Dr. Flores informed,” Rosie said, “I’ll meet him in the observation room in a minute.”

  Rosie grabbed Mr. Meriwether’s chart and thumbed through on her way to the observation room. His vitals were way out of the normal range. Even sedated his heart rate was 110 bpm. There might have been an explanation for the sudden w
eight loss in some medical dictionary, but what kept her on edge were his eyes. They weren’t like anything she’d ever seen in her 18 years of nursing.

  The observation room was only big enough for three people if personal boundaries weren’t an issue. There were five doctors crammed in watching the screen when Rosie entered. Only two of them had been invited; Dr. Baldwin, the Hospitalist, and Dr. Flores, the ED Doctor. It seemed the news of her patient was spreading rapidly. These doctors always pounced on any new or weird cases just to add it to their bag of tricks. The hypocrisy of that thought was not lost on her.

  “Let’s get started,” Dr. Flores instructed the imaging technician.

  The young man sitting at the computer toggled a few buttons and the machine through the glass window stirred. The whole process took about ten minutes. Finally, images began populating on the monitor. The black and white image of Neil Meriwether’s brain materialized as mostly a medium grey color, a black mass near the center of each slice growing and shrinking as the images came in, appearing to pulsate.