Gone(34)

(You have twenty-four hours)

He glanced at the clock hanging above the nurse’s station. The call from the computerized voice had come in three hours ago. Twenty-one to go.

“You seen the teenage driver yet?” asked Stokes.

“Not yet, just got here. What’ve you got for me on the sedatives?”

“Yep, okay. And the winner is . . . etorphine hydrochloride.”

“That’s the most potent?”

“It’s what Dexter uses.”

“Who?” Rondeau stuck his finger in his ear. There was some commotion on the floor, people talking loudly down by the nurse’s station.

“The serial killer guy? Dexter? The TV show?”

“I don’t know it.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

Two nurses moved quickly from the nurse’s station, concerned looks on their faces. Something somewhere was beeping.

Stokes continued, “There’s also pentothal, but I think the etorphine is most potent. They knock out elephants with that shit. It’s an opioid, but we’re talking up to eighty-thousand times more potent than morphine as an analgesic. Uhm, synthesized by Bentley & Hardy in 1963 . . .”

Rondeau kept watch on the activity down the hall. There was a sense of urgency in the air. But it wasn’t originating from Connie’s room. The nurses turned the corner down a second hallway.

“How do you get it?” He barked at Stokes. He didn’t mean to be so harsh, but his adrenaline was starting to crank. He scratched at his chest some more.

“It’s only approved for veterinary use. Zoos and stuff, game wardens, that sort of thing.”

“But other people can get their hands on it.”

“Sure. It’s possible. Anything’s possible on the web nowadays. You got . . .”

But Rondeau was lowering the phone. The doctor took off running in the direction the nurses had gone, stethoscope flying over his shoulder.

Rondeau turned to Millard and gave him a fierce look. “Stay here,” he said.

Then he bolted after the doctor.

*

The patient on the bed was bucking and thrashing. It took four nurses and an orderly to keep him down. The door to the emergency room was open, staff rushing in and out. Rondeau stood back, watching the chaos.

The patient arched his back. His eyelids fluttered, his eyes rolled back to the whites. He was frothing at the mouth, bubbling on his lips, foamy white strands of drool.

Millard crowded in behind Rondeau. He’d told Millard to stay put, but Millard had joined him anyway.

Rondeau caught the attention of a nurse hustling out of the room. “What’s going on?”

She looked him up and down.

“I’m a detective,” he said.

“He’s having a seizure.”

“Any idea why?”

“Excuse me.”

She jogged away, clearing the view to the room. Rondeau stared in. An orderly and a nurse placed a bit in the patient’s mouth and he chomped down on it. His head whipped back and forth. Someone gave him an injection. Then he stilled, his eyes rolled back, and he glared across the room. Right at Rondeau.

The door closed a moment later, shutting him out.

“That’s not good,” Millard said behind him.

“Shhh,” Rondeau said, holding his hand up. “Stay here.” He was treating Millard like a baby, or a dog. Rondeau hurried after the nurse. Two more orderlies ran past in the other direction.

He found her at the nurse’s station, rattling through some cabinets. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

She glanced at him, her eyes briefly falling to his holstered weapon. “Is this part of an investigation?”

“Yes,” he said, though he wasn’t sure how, yet.

“He’s in septic shock.”

“You mean infected? With what?”

“You’ll have to talk to the doctor.”

Rondeau opened his mouth to respond when someone interrupted. “Detective?”

Dana Gates, with the state police BCI, was standing in the hallway, a concerned look on her face. Rondeau realized there was tension in the air — his fault. The nurse hustled past him.

Rondeau shook it off. He offered Dana Gates a wan smile. He hadn’t met her before, but knew her by reputation. She’d been the lead detective on a serial killer case the previous year. They shook hands. Gates had short hair and was fit like a yoga instructor beneath her conservative pantsuit ensemble.

“They told me you were up here in ICU,” Gates said. “I’ve been down in the emergency room interviewing the driver.”

She scanned the curtained windows to the ICU rooms. “The vic is in one of these?” Her eyes landed on Rondeau. “She’s a personal friend of yours?”

Rondeau nodded. He felt his pulse easing. Suddenly he remembered Millard, and looked around for him. His brother-in-law wasn’t in the hallway. Millard hated hospitals. But if there was anywhere for him to wander safely, this was it.

Gates was watching him. “You want to talk?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE / The Past Catches Up

The waiting room outside the ICU was comfortable, with cushioned chairs and large windows. Rondeau watched the wind shear the leaves from the trees as Gates talked.