Memory in Death (In Death #22)(77)

"What?"

"Just before, she spilled coffee on herself. Said she got bumped. And I got this little tingle, started moving in a little. Then our guy's airborne."

"Fuck."

15

EVE SENT BAXTER BACK TO STAND WITH Trueheart, then paced in front of the treatment room doors as the sharp scents and harried sounds washed over her.

She hated hospitals, health centers, emergency treatment centers. Places, she thought, full of sickness and pain. Of death and misery.

Of waiting.

Had she put Bobby here? Had her need to push things forward put him in harm's way? A personal need, she thought now. She wanted to slam the door on this part of her past, lock it away again. Not only for her own peace of mind, she admitted, but to prove she could. Because of that, she'd taken a risk—a calculated one, but a risk nonetheless.

And Bobby Lombard was paying the price.

Or was it just some ridiculous accident? Slippery, crowded streets, people in a hurry, bumping, pushing. Accidents happened every day. Hell, every hour. It could be just that simple.

But she couldn't buy it. If she ran it through a probability program and it came up one hundred percent, she still wouldn't buy it.

He was unconscious, broken and bloody, and she'd sent him out so she could sniff the air for a killer.

It could be him, even now, it could be Bobby who'd done murder. People killed their mothers. A lifetime of tension, irritation, or worse, and something snapped inside them. Like a bone, she thought, and they killed.

She'd killed. It hadn't been only the bone in her arm that had snapped in that awful room in Dallas. Her mind had snapped, too, and the knife had gone into him. Over and over again. She could remember that now, remember the blood, the smell of it—harsh and raw— the feel of it wet and warm on her hands, her face.

She remembered the pain of that broken bone, even now through the mists of time. And the howling—his and hers—as she killed him.

People said that sound was inhuman, but they were wrong. It was essentially human. Elementally human.

She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.

God, she hated hospitals. Hated remembering waking in one, with so much of herself—such as it was—gone. Evaporated.

The smell of her own fear. Strangers hovering over her. What's your name? What happened to you? Where do you live?

How could she know? And if she'd remembered, if her mind hadn't closed up and hidden away, how could she have told them?

They'd hurt her to heal her. She remembered that, too. Setting the bone, repairing the tears and scars inside her from the repeated rapes. But they'd never found those secrets behind the wall her mind had built.

They'd never known that the child in the hospital bed had killed like a mad thing. And howled like a human.

"Dallas."

She jerked herself back, but didn't turn. "I don't know anything yet."

Peabody simply stepped up beside her. Through the porthole of glass, Eve could see the emergency team working on Bobby. Why, she wondered, did places like this have glass? Why did they want people to see what they did in those rooms?

Hurting to heal.

Wasn't it bad enough imagining without actually seeing the splash of blood, the beep of machines?

"Go back and check with Baxter," Eve said. "I want whatever witness statements he has. Names of the wits. I want to verify the cabbie's license. Then send him and Trueheart back. I want that record into the lab. You stay with Zana. See what else you can get out of her for now."

"Should we get uniforms for his room? For when they finish in there?"

"Yeah." Think positive, Eve decided. He'd be moved to a room, and not the morgue.

Alone, she watched, made herself watch. And wondered what the girl she'd been—lying in a room so much like the one beyond the glass—had to do with what was happening now.

One of the med team rushed out. Eve grabbed her arm. "What's his status?"

"Holding. The doctor will give you more information. Family members need to stay in Waiting."

"I'm not family." Eve reached for her badge. "Your patient is a material witness in a homicide. I need to know if he's going to make it."

"It looks good. He's lucky. If getting hit by a cab a couple days before Christmas counts as luck. Got some broken bones, contusions, lacerations. Some internal bleeding we've stopped. He's stabilized, but the head trauma's the main concern. You're going to need to talk to the attending."

"His wife's in Waiting, with my partner. She needs to be updated."

"Go ahead."

"I've got a material witness on that table in there. I'm at the door."

Irritation flashed over the nurse's face, then she brushed a hand through the air. "Okay, okay. I'll take care of it."

Eve stood by. She heard the rush and confusion of the ER behind her, the beeps and the pages, the clop of feet with somewhere urgent to go.

At some point someone began to call out "Merry Christmas!" in slurred, drunken tones, laughing and singing as he was carted off. There was weeping, wailing, as a woman was hurried down the hall on a gurney. An orderly streamed by with a bucket that smelled of vomit.

Someone tapped her shoulder, and she turned, only to have homemade brew and poor dental hygiene waft into her face. The man responsible wore a filthy Santa suit with a white beard hanging off one ear.