While Justice Sleeps(5)

“Yes, sir.” She propped open the bedroom door and waited as he lumbered through. “Why don’t you slip into your pajamas, and I’ll bring your medication in two shakes?”

“Don’t condescend to me, woman. I’m dying, not senile. I can hear your feeble attempts at patronization before they pass your lips.”

“I’ve laid the black pajamas on the bed. Do you need any help?”

“Only if it means I get a replacement for you.” Wynn glared at her retreating form. “Bring me a goddamned whiskey with my death pills.”



* * *



—

    Eleven o’clock arrived before the private nurse crept into his room and discovered the open, vacant gaze, felt the reedy pulse that slouched through veins constricted by disease. She knelt beside him and winced as something bit into her flesh. Shifting her knee, she reached for the lamp with one hand and for the foreign object with the other. Her fingers closed over a pill bottle top that had fallen to the carpet. Raising it to the light, she saw the colored stripe she’d placed there herself and gasped. She reached under the bed, searching frantically for the bottle she knew she’d find.

The plastic bottle knocked against her hand and she drew it out, the label confirming her worst fears. He’d taken pills prescribed for the seizures that occasionally convulsed his limbs. Alone, the medication was dangerous, but when combined with his other meds and alcohol, the dose could be lethal. She groped under the bed, scooping up fallen pills, but she wouldn’t know how many were missing until she checked her charts.

But the evidence was clear. Justice Wynn had tried to kill himself.

Guilt clutched at her throat, forcing her eyes to the man she’d come to respect, even like, despite his fiery temperament. The promise of freedom and stability for her husband, Thomas, funded by the U.S. government, had seemed adequate justification for betrayal when she had accepted the post and her instructions. Become caretaker for a powerful but sick old man whose illness was slowly rendering him a security risk. Monitor his writings, report on his status weekly, and act when instructed. But that had been before she knew Howard Wynn.

Now her hands clenched around the disposable cell phone.

The number she was supposed to call, once she had confirmation that he was near death, had been drilled into her. A call, once made, that would guarantee he never awoke. She hesitated, unwilling to be the one to betray him as he suspected, but she told herself it was done now. Too late to undo the bargain she’d made. First, though, she’d check and be sure.

Pressing her stethoscope to his lungs, she heard labored breath sounds. The plastic cuff around his leaden arm registered a low blood pressure. She flicked the pen light with practiced care. Minimal response to light. In short order, she ran each test that would confirm his imminent death.

    The whispered words caught her by surprise.

“She has to finish it. For him.”

Instruments tumbled to the carpet, and she knelt again, this time in shock. “Justice Wynn?”

A feeble hand jerked up and seized her sleeve. “I’m not dead. Though you can try.”

“I didn’t want to—” Her fingers closed over the cold, trembling ones on her arm. “You took pills—”

“No time for excuses.” A hacking cough shook through him. “Avery has to save us. Swear it!”

“Let me call the ambulance,” she whispered, fumbling. “I’m so sorry!”

“It’s too late for apologies,” he wheezed as his eyes flickered. “Promise me. You’ll deliver a message. Just in case. Swear it.”

Too shocked to object, she responded, “I swear.”

“Tell her…tell her to look to the East for answers. Look to the river. In between. Look in the square. Lask. Bauer. Forgive me.”

“Justice? I don’t understand.” Frantically, Jamie leaned closer. “Who is Mr. Bauer?”

“Tell Avery. East. River.” He gasped then, choking on a bitter gulp of air. “Between. Square. Forgive me.”

Jamie shook his shoulders, trying to rouse him once more, to make sense of what she’d heard. But the irises stared out blankly into the tepid light, unresponsive. She moved his hand back to the bed.

“No. No,” she muttered aloud. “They won’t make me kill you.” She lifted the bedside phone and punched the speed dial assigned for such a moment.

“U.S. Marshals. What’s your emergency?”

“Justice Howard Wynn is unconscious. He needs immediate medical attention.”

“Identify yourself.”

“Nurse Jamie Lewis,” she answered tersely. “Now send an ambulance. He’s dying.”

“Please stay on the line.”

Once she was sure the ambulance was en route, she reached for the other phone and dialed the man she’d never met. She waited mere seconds for a connection.

    “Is it done?”

“I think he took an overdose.”

“On purpose?”

“Maybe.” She hesitated. “Pulse is weak, and he’s in and out of consciousness. He’s near death.”

“Do nothing. I will arrive in twenty minutes.”

Her eyes squeezed shut. “I can’t.”