Under the Knife(78)

So had the drinks mattered? Slowed her reaction time during the operation, if only a little? Messed with her judgment? Dulled her perception just enough to allow her to miss the hole lurking in Jenny Finney’s intestine? The one that would leak poison into her abdomen for the next three days, before Rita diagnosed it, and rushed her back to the operating room?

By then it had been too late. After the second operation (the take-back, in surgeon-speak), Jenny Finney had lasted another week, the longest of Rita’s life, dying in the ICU, her life ebbing with each failed organ, and with each additional plastic tube inserted into her body by the ICU doctors.

An unusual complication. But not unheard of. And, as an expert panel of Rita’s surgical colleagues had determined, an unavoidable one. Had Chase had a hand in that? Rigged the composition of the committee, perhaps, and its exhaustive report? Maybe. If so, he’d never let on. In any case, they’d exonerated her completely. Jenny Finney’s death, in their official opinion, had been the worst kind of luck. Or, in the dry verbiage of the report: an unforeseen, catastrophic complication occurring within the standard of care.

And yet.

How many sleepless nights since? How many hours spent marking the headlights of passing cars that tracked across the ceiling of her darkened bedroom? Wondering what she could have done, should have done, differently. The woman had haunted her for the last year, her own personal ghost.

Rita hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since.

She considered telling Finney (or, rather, the twin version of herself sitting in the chair talking in Finney’s voice) all of this.

Instead, she said, “I wanted to come to her funeral. You wouldn’t let me.”

In her left ear, a new edge crept into Finney’s voice. “Your presence there would have made a mockery of it. You were DRINKING, Dr. Wu.”

Rita winced. “I tried. I tried so hard to save her—”

“LIAR!” Finney screamed.

The word was pain. It lanced through the substance of her brain.

And again: “LIAR!”

Agony.

There was nothing else.

Rita clutched her head, rolled over, shrieking, and fell off of the edge of the bed.

Again into darkness.





SEBASTIAN


“Liar!” Finny screamed a second time.

Jesus! He’s going to kill her!

“Mr. Finney,” Sebastian said. “Stop.”

“What?”

“Stop. Now. You need to get out of her brain for a while, boss. She can’t take much more of this. You’re going to kill her.” The display on his phone, and the sounds over the audio feed—crashing noises, and people rushing into the room—indicated she was seizing again.

“Sebastian.” Finney regained his normal, calm self. “She was drinking. The night of Jenny’s death.”

“I know, boss. We’ve talked about this. But you need to stop. She’s going to die.”

“What does it matter? She’s as good as dead already.”

“What?”

Silence.

“What do you mean she’s as good as dead? We’re done. It’s over. I’m due my back end, Mr. Finney. I’m ready for my payment.”

Sebastian didn’t like how much time elapsed before Finney responded. “You and I need to talk, Sebastian.”

Something, then, caught Sebastian’s eye.

A new icon had appeared on his phone, displaying a signal from the device inside Wu’s sister’s head. The one he’d implanted shortly after implanting Wu’s. The device they’d meant to use only as a backup—leverage against Wu in the event Wu’s device malfunctioned.

The new icon was a timer, running backward.

A countdown.

What did you do, boss? What the fuck is counting down inside that girl’s head?

Sebastian sucked his teeth. He didn’t like this development. Not one goddamn bit. Finney was up to something, and Sebastian needed his goddamn money.

Sammy and Sierra’s money.

“Okay. Let’s talk. But face-to-face, boss.” In a public place, you cagey bastard. Where everyone can see us.

“Fine. Where shall I meet you?”

“Higdon Park.” Without waiting for Finney’s response, he flicked off his audio and thought things over. He’d hear what Finney had to say. Feel the bastard out. Play along, for now at least.

And, if necessary, buy some time to set a backup plan in motion.





FINNEY


Nestled between Turner to the east, lowlying office buildings to the north and south, and the ocean to the west, Higdon Park was a small patch of green extending from the chain-link fence enclosing the construction zone to the edge of the tall cliffs over Black’s Beach.

That’s where, as agreed, Finney found Sebastian.

He walked toward him, across the grass. The grass was the rough-hewn variety common to municipal parks throughout San Diego, its resilience to dry heat attractive to small communities with limited park-maintenance budgets. Most San Diegans chose to forget, or at least overlook, that they lived in a desert that happened to sit next to an ocean.

Finney thought this type of grass comfortable enough, but scratchy, if you walked over it in bare feet, or stretched out on your back on it. But it smelled good, particularly after being mowed, and its smell evoked fond memories of long-ago afternoons spent in solitude, in Southern California parks like this one. His hours alone back then were oases, times when he could hide from the other kids and the shrill drumbeat of their shouting and screaming and shoving so that he could bury himself in his comic books.