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twenty-four

IT HAD BEEN A BUSY NIGHT, maybe one of the busiest Jazz could remember at her present place of employment. They'd been inundated with trauma patients coming up from the PACU and filling all the empty beds. As the self-appointed acting charge nurse, a status that was soon to change, according to rumor, with the hiring of a new, senior night-shift RN, it had fallen to Jazz by default to divvy the patients up among the current night-shift nurses and the nurse's aides. There hadn't been too much complaining, since Jazz had made it a point to take her share. More important, she'd also made it a point to add Laurie Montgomery to her patient roster. Once that had been established and accepted, Jazz relaxed. She knew she'd be able to carry out her Operation Winnow responsibility at her whim.

Jazz stretched her arms over her head and rotated her head a few times to loosen up her neck muscles. She was tense. She'd just finished the last of some paperwork and was looking at some well-earned downtime from patient care, which she intended to put to good use. Even the lunch break had been truncated for everyone because of patient demand, forcing Jazz to skip eating altogether. Instead, she used the time to disappear into the ladies' room outside the cafeteria to load a syringe with the potassium chloride she'd pilfered from the ER stock and to dispose of the empty ampoule. From her perspective, the preparation for a sanction had become routine.

It was four-forty A.M., and all was ready. She had been waiting for the right moment, and it had arrived. Elizabeth, who had been sitting there with Jazz two seconds earlier, doing her own paperwork, had been called to help a patient in room 637 and had just disappeared from view. At the same time, all the other nurses and aides were likewise out of sight, tending to their assigned patients. The dimly lit corridors had that peaceful nighttime tranquility that Jazz had come to appreciate. She looked up one corridor and down the other. It was a perfect opportunity.

Pushing back from the desk, Jazz stood up. Her hand went into her right jacket pocket for a reassuring fondle of the full syringe. Taking a deep breath to control her excitement, she set off. With quickening steps, she silently hastened down to room 609. Pausing outside the door, she cast yet another glance up and down the long corridor. Once she'd started a mission, she preferred not to be seen to avoid any talk after the fact.

Conveniently, no one was in sight. The only sound was the quiet, metronomic beeping of a monitor in a nearby room. Jazz smiled. Sanctioning Laurie Montgomery was possibly going to be the most effortless assignment she'd done, both because she'd been able to pick the time and because the target was sedated and in restraints. What could be easier? Jazz questioned under her breath.

Jazz stepped into the room. A half hour earlier, when she had found herself passing by on her way back to the nurses' station after tending another patient, she'd ducked in to make certain the sedative had taken effect. It had. While she was there, she'd lowered the back of Laurie's bed so she was horizontal. She had also turned off the overhead fluorescent lights. Now, similar to the corridor, the room was bathed in a gentle incandescent glow from the recessed nightlights positioned just above the baseboard.

Without a sound, Jazz moved over to Laurie's bedside. Laurie was in a deep, drug-induced sleep. Her mouth was slightly open, and Jazz could see that her lips and tongue were dry and crusted. "Oh, poor dear," Jazz whispered scornfully. Jazz was enjoying herself. Of all the patients Jazz had so far sanctioned, she felt Laurie deserved it the most, with all her demands and poor attitude. For Jazz, Laurie was the quintessentially entitled, rich bitch who was the female equivalent of all the Mr. Ivy Leagues Jazz had to endure. And on top of that, she was a doctor who was still ordering Jazz around while she was a patient! From Jazz's perspective, Laurie Montgomery with her silver-spoon past "had it coming to her" to be taken down one big, ultimate peg.

Jazz eyed the restraints binding Laurie's wrists and felt a shiver of pleasure. There was no doubt that the restraints made the mission easier, and she was confident that Laurie wouldn't be scratching her arm like that bastard Stephen Lewis. But beyond the practical, she thought the restraints had an appeal similar to what she felt when she watched the collection of bondage movies she had downloaded off the Web. For her, it was a control issue.

Gently, Jazz lifted Laurie's head and slipped out the pillow. She was confident with the sedative she'd given her that Laurie wouldn't stir, and she didn't. Jazz tucked the pillow under her arm. She wanted it handy to slap over Laurie's face in the eventuality that Laurie made any untoward noises like pain-in-the-neck Sobczyk. She didn't expect Laurie would; the IV was a central line, meaning the concentrated potassium would be dumped into a major vein and would be less painful than a superficial one, but Jazz wanted to be prepared. She prided herself in being a quick learner, and the fewer the surprises, the better.

Reaching up, Jazz grasped the IV line and opened it so it flowed freely. She waited for a few minutes, to be sure it was running well. When she was certain the IV was functioning perfectly, she got out the syringe with the potassium. Using her teeth to take off the needle cap, she inserted the needle deep into the IV port.

After looking back at the door to the corridor and listening for a moment for any suspicious sounds, Jazz made the injection with strong, sustained pressure. It only took five seconds. She knew that the more the potassium arrived at the heart in a concentrated bolus, the more effective it would be. As usual, as she injected, she saw the fluid level rise in the micropore chamber below the IV fluid bag.

As soon as the syringe was empty, Jazz withdrew the needle and replaced the cap. She then pulled the pillow from under her arm as Laurie stirred, moaned, and popped open her eyes.

"Bon voyage!" Jazz whispered. With the pillow in her right hand poised for action and the syringe in her left, Jazz then bent over Laurie because she thought Laurie had mumbled something. Jazz started to ask her to repeat herself when Jazz recoiled in shocked surprise at the sound of the door to the room being slammed against its doorstop. In the next instant, an apparent maniac dashed into the room. Jazz was momentarily dumbfounded by the sudden, whirlwind arrival in the silent and dimly lit environment, particularly because she was tense and engrossed in what she was doing, and also because she thought she'd been so careful to avoid surprises. Except for taking a reflexive defensive step back, Jazz was momentarily paralyzed.

"How is she?" Jack barked as he rushed to the foot of Laurie's bed. His breaths were coming in noisy heaves. His hair was dripping and plastered to his forehead. He appeared like a wild man with an unshaven face, red eyes, wet clothes, and soggy shoes. He leaned with both hands on the metal foot of the bed as if exhausted but quickly revived. It was apparent he immediately didn't like what he saw. His eyes darted to Jazz, who had not answered him. He saw the pillow and the syringe in her hands. His attention reverted back to Laurie, who was softly moaning and fighting weakly and futilely against the wrist restraints.

"What's going on?" Jack demanded. He rushed around the side of the bed to Laurie's right, across from Jazz. "Laurie!" Jack yelled. His hand briefly clutched Laurie's wrist, but then shot up and gripped Laurie's forehead to keep her from moving her head from side to side. "What the hell are the restraints for?" Jack cried, but he didn't wait for an answer. On closer inspection, it was apparent Laurie was in a worsening, desperate state and possibly agonal. Her face reflected a mixture of terror, confusion, and pain.

"Hit the lights!" Jack yelled. "Call a code!"

Jazz still didn't respond other than to take yet another step back, stunned by the unexpected events.

"Fuck!" Jack screamed at the nurse's paralysis. His voice reverberated off the sleeping hospital's walls. He needed help fast, but he didn't want to leave Laurie alone even for a few seconds.

In frantic, desperate frustration, Jack yanked the bed away from the wall. Its locked wheels made a screeching sound on the composite flooring. After pushing the night table to the side, causing the collection of objects on its surface to crash to the floor in a clatter, Jack squeezed himself between the head of the bed and the wall.

With his foot, Jack released the wheel locks. Gritting his teeth and allowing a battle-like yell to escape from his lips, he pushed the bed farther from the wall, yanking out its power cables in the process. With a grunt, he angled the rolling bed toward the door. It picked up speed, and although it hit the door and then the opposite jamb, they were glancing collisions and didn't interrupt his forward progress. In seconds, he was out in the hall, and using all his strength, he got the bed rolling at a good clip down the hallway toward the bright lights of the nurses' station.

"Call a code!" Jack shouted at the top of his lungs as he pushed. An unfortunate housekeeping cart loomed in the way, but Jack ignored it. The bed with Laurie in it had considerably more inertia, and the hapless cart was bowled over with a crash, spilling its supply of individual hand soaps and other material out onto the floor. Next came a walker, which was nearly crushed by the bed's momentum. "Call a code!" Jack yelled again. Nurses, nurse's aides, and even ambulatory patients began appearing in doorways to see Jack streak by.

Jack tried to slow the bed down as he closed in on the nurses' station with only partial success. The bed caromed off the counter, taking with it all the charts that had been left on the top, as well as a vase of cut flowers that had yet to be delivered to one of the patients. In the bright light, Jack could see how bad Laurie looked. She was ghostly pale and unmoving. Her eyes, with dilated pupils, blankly stared up at the ceiling.

Stripping off his wet coat and jacket and letting them fall to the floor, Jack moved to Laurie's side. After quickly determining that she was definitely not breathing and had no pulse, he pulled Laurie's chin back, pinched her nose and sealed his mouth over hers. He breathed into her several good breaths, then vaulted up onto the bed and began closed-chest cardiac massage. Seconds later, several nurses were at his side. One produced an Ambu bag and began respiring Laurie, carefully pacing herself with Jack's compressions. She inflated Laurie's lungs after Jack had applied five compressions. Another nurse wheeled over a bottle of oxygen and connected it to the Ambu bag.

"Has a code been called?" Jack yelled out.

"Yes," the nurse said who was breathing for Laurie.

"Well, where the hell are they?" Jack demanded.

"It's been less than a minute since they've been called."

"Damn, damn, damn," Jack sputtered through clenched teeth. He was out of breath from the running, the pushing, and now the compressions. Silently, he lambasted himself for having left Laurie, even if it had been her suggestion. He should have parked himself outside the PACU as he had threatened. From his position looming over her, he could tell her color was a tiny bit better prior to starting the CPR, so they were making a little progress. "What are her pupils doing?" Jack asked the nurse who was bagging her.

"Not a lot of change."

Jack shook his head in frustration. "How long does it usually take for the resuscitation team to get here?" he yelled between compressions. If what he had suspected had happened to Laurie, her life was clearly in the balance until resuscitation team arrived, and even then, he didn't know what the chances were. One thing he was dead certain of: CPR alone wasn't going to hack it. She had to be treated.

As if an answer to a prayer, an elevator door opened out in the lobby and a cardiac crash cart rattled out. Accompanying it were four medical residents, two women and two men who came running. The leader of the pack was Caitlin Burroughs, who looked as if she had been in Shirley Mayrand's medical-school class for gifted toddlers. If Jack had seen her on the street, he would have thought she was a high-school senior, not a senior medical resident. The men looked young, too, but not nearly in Shirley or Caitlin's league.

One of the residents immediately took over the Ambu bag from the nurse. Two of the others started attaching EKG leads. They obviously knew how to work as a team.

"What's the story here?" Caitlin barked, checking Laurie's pupils.

"Hyperkalemia," Jack shot back.

"That's a rather specific diagnosis," Caitlin exclaimed. She spoke in a rapid, staccato fashion. She might have looked young to Jack, but she exuded confidence that could only have come from experience. "How do you know her potassium is too high? Is she a renal patient?"

"No renal disease," Jack snapped back. He wasn't one hundred percent sure Laurie was suffering from high potassium, but he was a hundred percent sure that if they didn't act immediately, and it turned out that she was hyperkalemic as he suspected, they'd lose her for certain, and she'd end up a statistic in her own series. "It would take too long right this minute for me to tell you how I know, but I know," Jack continued emphatically. "We have to treat for high serum potassium, and we have to do it now! This second."

"How come you're so sure? And, by the way, who are you?"

"I'm Dr. Jack Stapleton," Jack blurted. "I'm a medical examiner here in the city. Listen! You've had a series of unexpected cardiac deaths in this hospital since January. All have been unsuccessful resuscitation attempts on young healthy people just like this patient. A red flag has gone up over at the OCME. We think it's purposeful, iatrogenic hyperkalemia."

"We've got almost nothing on EKG," one of the residents announced, standing by the machine mounted on the crash cart. EKG tape was spewing out the side, tracing poorly formed complexes.

Caitlin grabbed a quick look. Whatever she saw pushed her over the edge into Jack's camp, and she began barking out orders that had the nurses scurrying. She wanted calcium gluconate; she wanted twenty units of regular insulin along with a fifty-gram dose of glucose; she wanted sodium bicarbonate; she wanted cation-exchange resin set up for a retention enema; she wanted blood sent for stat electrolytes; and, most important from Jack's perspective, she wanted a surgical resident paged to help with emergency peritoneal dialysis. In Jack's mind, it was the dialysis that could potentially save the day.

While the nurses were busy carrying out the orders and obtaining and drawing up all the medication, one of the male residents climbed up on the bed and relieved a reluctant Jack, but as soon as the man started his compressions, Jack acknowledged the resident was probably doing a better job. As an ophthalmologist-turned-medical examiner, Jack was out of practice when it came to CPR. He was also exhausted, but it was hard for him to stand there at the foot of the bed and do nothing while Laurie's life hung in the balance. While concentrating on doing the chest compressions, he'd been less able to think about the potential tragedy of what he was witnessing.

Jack hadn't run all the way from the OCME to the Manhattan General Hospital, but he had run quite far just the same. He'd run almost ten blocks up First Avenue without seeing an empty taxi. A number of cars had passed him and sprayed him with water, but none had stopped. Then his luck changed. Near the UN headquarters, a police patrol car had pulled over in front of him, apparently thinking he was fleeing from a crime. When Jack flashed his medical examiner badge and breathlessly said he was on an emergency run to the Manhattan General, the police had told him to jump in. They took him nonstop with their siren blaring. If it had crossed their minds why a medical examiner who deals with dead bodies had an emergency in the middle of the night requiring him to sprint up First Avenue, they hadn't let on.

As Laurie's hyperkalemic treatment began to bring down the high potassium that Jack feared was coursing around in her blood, an anesthesiologist showed up. He proceeded to deftly intubate Laurie so she could be respired with more certainty. When he straightened up after finishing the procedure, Jack caught his name. It was José Cabreo, and Jack did a double take. He remembered the man's name from Roger's lists. Jack found himself watching José's every move and was relieved when the anesthesiologist quickly left.

The peritoneal dialysis was started percutaneously without a hitch, using a large bore trocar. Jack averted his eyes as the trocar was punched through Laurie's abdominal wall, but he was close enough to hear the popping sound it made as it went through the fascia, and he winced. A moment later, he watched as isotonic fluid free of potassium was then run into her abdomen. Jack secretly crossed his fingers and prayed that the procedure would help. He was aware that with the extensive surface area within the abdomen as a result of the loops of intestine combined with the rich plexus of blood vessels, peritoneal dialysis was the most efficient even if passive way to lower potassium or any other elevated electrolyte in the blood.

Unfortunately, after ten minutes of the aggressive therapy, there was disappointingly little change in Laurie's status. Caitlin ordered more calcium gluconate and injected it herself. Jack heard this from afar, as he'd begun pacing between Laurie's bed in front of the nurses' station and the elevator lobby. It wasn't the caffeine that was propelling him now, it was his mounting fear and guilt. His nagging concern was that this episode might be another instance of his being a jinx to those he loved. The thought haunted him mercilessly. In one night, he already had lost a potential child; now he was on the verge of losing the person he loved. To make matters worse, he knew he was at least partially to blame.

When the stat Woodwork came back, Caitlin brought it over to Jack. "Well, you were absolutely right," she said while pointing to the highlighted abnormally high potassium level. "That's about as high as I've ever seen it. After this is all over, I'd like to hear how you knew."

"I'll be happy to tell you," Jack said, "provided Miss Montgomery pulls through." If Laurie didn't make it, he didn't know if he'd be willing to talk to anybody.

"We're doing our best," Caitlin said. "At least her color is good and her pupils have definitely come down."

As the minutes inexorably passed, Jack kept his distance. As a bystander, it was progressively upsetting to him to see Laurie splayed out on the bed with a stranger pounding on her chest and another dispassionately squeezing the breathing bag. The ambulatory patients who had earlier come to their respective doors to watch the unfolding drama had gone back to their beds. Most of the floor nurses had also been called away by the needs of their own patients.

It was twenty minutes to six when the first truly optimistic sign occurred, and it was Caitlin who noticed it. "Hey! Gang!" she shouted. "We're getting some electrical activity in the heart!" The medical resident who was not currently doing either the closed chest massage or the breathing-bag compression rushed over to the EKG machine to look over Caitlin's shoulder. "Send off another stat potassium level," Caitlin yelled to the nurse who was assisting them.

"Wow! Those complexes are starting to look quite normal," the resident said to Caitlin, who nodded in agreement. "And they are getting better."

"Hold up on the compressions!" Caitlin called out to the resident, who was kneeling on the bed over Laurie. "See if she's got a pulse!"

The resident who had been breathing for Laurie also stopped long enough to feel along Laurie's neck for a pulse. "She's got a pulse! And, my gosh, she's breathing on her own!" He took the mask away from the end of the endotracheal tube. With his palm, he could feel the amount of air she was breathing in and out. "She's breathing pretty darn normally, and she's bucking the endotracheal tube."

"Deflate it and pull it out!" Caitlin ordered. "Her EKG now looks completely normal."

The resident quickly followed orders and slipped the tube out of Laurie's mouth but still held her chin back to make sure her airway stayed open. Laurie coughed several times.

Hearing these exchanges, Jack rushed back from where he was pacing in the darkened elevator lobby and went behind the nurses' station desk. Laurie had been connected to one of the monitors built in over the desk, but to see it, one had to be on the opposite side of the counter from where the action was. A half hour earlier when he'd looked at it, the blips for the blood pressure and pulse had been tracing straight lines across the screen. It was different now, and his heart leaped in his chest. Laurie had both a pulse and blood pressure!

"Hold up on the peritoneal dialysis!" Caitlin ordered. "And drain out the cation exchange resin. We don't want to overshoot and then have to worry about too low a potassium level."

Jack rounded the nurses' station counter. There was once again a flurry around Laurie as Caitlin's latest orders were carried out. Jack didn't want to get in the way, but as hopeful as these developments were, he wanted to be close to her.

"Hallelujah!" said the resident who had been most recently breathing for Laurie. "She's waking up!"

Unable to hold himself back, Jack crowded in at the head of Laurie's bed that had been backed up against the nurses' station countertop. He looked down and saw what he thought was a miracle. Laurie's eyes were open, and they were moving from one face poised over her to another and reflected not a little confusion and fear. Unexpectedly, Jack burst into tears such that it was hard for him to see. All he could do was shake his head when he tried to talk.

"Release her wrists," ordered Caitlin, who had pushed in across from Jack. The restraints had been left in place during the ordeal. Caitlin bent over Laurie and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Everything is okay. Just relax. We've got things under control. You're going to be all right."

Laurie tried to speak, but her voice was barely audible. Caitlin had to bend down to put her ear next to Laurie's mouth. "You're in the Manhattan General Hospital," Caitlin said. "Do you know your name and what year it is?" Caitlin listened, and then straightened up. She looked across at Jack, who had calmed enough to control his crying and wipe away the tears. "This is looking very good indeed. She's oriented. I have to say your rapid diagnosis undoubtedly saved the day. With as high as her potassium was when we started, she surely wouldn't have been able to be resuscitated."

Jack nodded. He still couldn't talk. Instead, he bent down and put his forehead on Laurie's. Now that her hands were free, Laurie reached up and patted the side of his head and whispered in a scratchy voice: "Why are you so upset? What's going on?"

Laurie's questions unleashed another wave of tears. All he could do for the moment was squeeze Laurie's hand.

A nurse at the nurses' station desk stood up behind the counter. She'd just answered the phone. "Dr. Burroughs," she called. "The stat potassium on Montgomery is four milli-equivalents."

"My word," Caitlin exclaimed. "That's darn near perfect." She turned to her three resident underlings. "Okay, here's what we are going to do! While I call the attending physician and give her an update, you three get the patient down to the cardiac care unit and get her set up on the monitor. I'll want another potassium level as soon as you get there, and I'll be there as soon as I finish here so we can decide on her fluids."

As the preparations were quickly made to move Laurie, Jack found his voice. "I'm not upset," he whispered in Laurie's ear. "I'm happy you're okay. You gave us a scare."

"I did?" Laurie questioned. Her voice was returning as well, but it hurt her to talk.

"You were unconscious for a while," Jack said. "What was the last thing you remember?"

"I remember leaving the PACU, but nothing after that. What happened?"

"I'll explain everything I know at the first opportunity," Jack promised as the bed started to move.

"Are you coming?" Laurie asked, holding on to Jack's arm.

"You'd better believe it," Jack said as he walked alongside. A nurse ran up and handed Jack his damp coat and jacket.

They used a patient elevator to take Laurie down to the third floor, where the CCU was located. At the door to the CCU, there was a holdup. The charge nurse would not let Jack come in, although he would be able to visit once she was situated. At first Jack had balked at the idea. He wanted to stay by Laurie's side, considering what had transpired when he hadn't. Eventually, Jack relented, convinced that Laurie would be in good hands. The resuscitation residents assured him that one of them would be at the bedside continually.

"I'll be right here," Jack assured Laurie, pointing out a small waiting room just opposite the CCU door.

Laurie nodded, preoccupied with her physical symptoms, which had become progressively more bothersome as her mind had cleared. What she wanted at the moment was some ice chips for her dry mouth and sore throat, as well as something for the pain she felt at her incision site and in her chest. As far as her memory was concerned, it was still a blank after leaving the PACU.

Jack went into the waiting room, which was empty of visitors. A clock on the wall indicated it was six-fifteen in the morning. There were several couches and a number of chairs. A mixture of old magazines littered a coffee table. Complimentary coffee was available in a corner. Jack tossed his coat and jacket on the arm of one of the sofas and sat down, letting out a heavy groan in the process. He leaned back, put his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. He felt shell-shocked. He'd never had such stress combined with such physical exertion and wide swings of emotion. Making matters worse were the residual effects of the caffeine, which were enough to make him sick.

The process of closing his eyes made it possible for Jack to think about the sheer criminality of what Laurie had luckily endured. With the immediacy of taking care of her, he hadn't thought about it until that moment. In his mind's eye, he could see the tanned nurse in Laurie's room when he'd barged in. In the dim light, she'd appeared almost gaunt, with dark, short hair, deeply set eyes, and startling white teeth. What he remembered the most was the pillow in one hand and the large syringe in the other. He knew there could be many explanations for why she had been holding such things, just as there could be an explanation for her apparent paralysis in the face of what was obviously a life-and-death emergency. Jack had seen others freeze like that when he was a resident. In fact, he had done essentially the same thing on his first cardiac arrest after graduating from medical school. Yet under the circumstances, Jack couldn't help but think of her actions as being suspicious. He'd seen her again during the nerve-wracking resuscitation, but only for brief glimpses when she'd appeared at the nurses' station to go into the drug room to use the computerized dispenser.

She'd not participated in the resuscitation. Jack had asked one of the nurses who had helped what the tanned nurse's name was. When she told him, Jack was even more suspicious. It was another name on Roger's lists.

Jack's eyes popped open. He fumbled in this coat pocket for his cell phone. Knowing Lou Soldano's private home number in SoHo, and despite the hour, he quickly put in a call to him. After what he had witnessed, Lou had to get involved. There could be no more excuses. The phone rang six times before Lou picked up. His voice was gravelly, and Jack had to wait through a coughing jag on the detective's part.

"Are you going to live?" Jack questioned when Lou finally fell silent.

"Cut the humor," Lou growled. "This better be important."

"It's more than important," Jack said. "Laurie had to have emergency surgery last night at the Manhattan General. Then a couple of hours ago, someone put her on the edge of the abyss and gave her a good shove. She came as close to dying and not dying as you can get. In fact, for a few seconds or maybe even minutes, she was dead."

"My God!" Lou blurted, which initiated another fit of coughing.

"Do you cough like this every morning?" Jack asked when Lou came back on the line.

"Where is she now?" Lou asked, ignoring Jack's question.

"She's in the cardiac care unit on the third floor," Jack said. "I'm sitting in a visitor's room just opposite the door."

"Is she in any danger?"

"Medically or otherwise?"

"Both."

"Medically, I think they have things pretty much in hand. She lucked out with a particularly sharp cardiology resident who looks like she belongs in middle school. She's the second person tonight that has made me feel over the hill. As far as the person who tried to kill Laurie getting another crack at it, I don't think that's a problem. Not in the cardiac care unit-there are too many people around, and I'm sitting outside the only door."

"Do you have any idea who did it?"

"There's one person, a nurse actually, who I'd be willing to put some money on, but it's circumstantial. I'll tell you the details when you get here. We've also got Roger's lists, so your work is cut out for you. But the idea of Laurie's series being hypothetical is no longer tenable. She almost became a statistic herself."

"Do you know the name of this nurse?"

"Rakoczi."

"What kind of name is that?"

"Beats me."

"Does this Rakoczi know you suspect her?"

"I imagine," Jack said. "She's steered clear of me during Laurie's resuscitation. She was in Laurie's room when I got to Laurie and found her moribund." Jack went on to briefly describe the scene as he remembered it.

"Well, she'll be the first person I want to talk to," Lou said. "I'll be there as soon as possible, which will realistically be about a half hour. Meanwhile, I'll call the local precinct and have a couple of uniformed officers over there to stand outside the cardiac care unit door, in case you have to go to the can or something."

"Sounds like a good plan."

"Have you been up all night?"

"I have," Jack admitted.

"All right, hang in there, and I'll see you shortly."

Jack was about to hang up when he heard Lou add, "One other thing. Don't be a hero, okay! Just stay put."

"Don't worry," Jack said. "After what I've been through already, I'm having trouble breathing in and out. I'm staying right here."

Jack disconnected, put his phone away, and closed his eyes again. He felt a certain relief after having talked with Lou Soldano. The burden of the criminality of what had happened to Laurie and the other victims in Laurie's series was off his shoulders. For Jack, it was a little like passing the baton in a relay race, meaning his contribution was over. What he didn't know was how much he was going to regret not following his own advice.