The 5th Horseman

Chapter 139

IT WAS THE START of the midnight-to-8:00 shift at Peachtree General, the largest hospital in the metropolitan Atlanta area.

The nurse stepped into a single room in the crowded cardiac wing and approached a patient who was lying restless and awake in the dark. She turned on the lamp at her bedside.

“How’re you doing tonight, sweetheart?”

“Just like I told you yesterday. I’m depressed as hell,” said Mrs. Melinda Cane. She was a middle-aged white woman with gold hair extensions, looking at Botox or a face-lift pretty soon. “With Frankie dead and gone, and my kids living God knows where, I might as well be dead myself.” She twisted her heavy gold wedding band as if that might bring her husband back.

“Look around,” she continued. “See any flowers in the room? Any happy helium ballons? No one cares about me.”

“Now, I don’t want you to be so worried,” said the nurse. “I’ve brought you something to help you sleep through the night.”

“Luz, keep me company while I drift off,” said Mrs. Cane.

“Tell you what,” Luz said. “Take your meds. I’ll see to my other patients and come back.”

Melinda Cane smiled, took the cup of pills, the glass of water, and, being a good girl for Luz, swallowed all her medicine.

The Night Walker tucked the blankets up to the woman’s chin, thinking how much she liked her new identity. Wondering at how easy it had been to get all that new ID for only $175. Not that anyone ever did much of a background check on a nurse.

She walked down the hall with her rolling cart, stopping in every room, checking beds, dispensing medication, saying good night. Then she returned to Melinda Cane’s room.

She closed the door behind her and walked out of the shadows to the bed just as the patient began to gasp for breath.

Melinda Cane reached out to her, patting the air frantically with her hands.

“Something’s wrong, Luz,” she wheezed. “Help me. I can’t breathe. Please help me!”

The Night Walker took the woman’s hand and squeezed it gently. “It’s all right, lovey. Luz is right here with you.”

Melinda Cane strained desperately for air, the cords of her neck standing out, her hands clutching at the blue flannel blankets as the opiate paralyzed her central nervous system.

She looked up at the nurse with disbelief, tried to pull her hand away, to reach for the call button beside the bed.

The Night Walker moved the call button to the nightstand, but she stayed with Mrs. Cane the whole time, winding the lady’s blond ringlets around her fingers.

She steeled herself for the spasms when they came, and in just a few moments, Melinda Cane was still.

Luz Santiago had also been Marie St. Germaine, and before that, Yamilde Ruiz, and way before that, she’d been born and raised LaRaine Johnson of Pensacola, Florida.

It was truly a gift to have this power over life and death, and also to be invisible to everyone.

In a few minutes, the Night Walker straightened the woman’s body in her bed, arranged the bedding.

Then she reached into her pocket and took out a small black doll. She’d hidden the buttons there, inside the rough woolen strands.

She took the buttons out from between the threads of the doll, put one on each of the dead woman’s eyes. The caduceus, serpents around a winged staff, symbol of the medical profession.

“Good night, princess,” she said. “Good night.”

The Night Walker stepped out into the hallway — and saw the police waiting there for her. A half dozen officers, at least.

She even recognized one of them, the lieutenant from California.

The tap on her shoulder from behind surprised her even more than the police waiting in the hallway. She turned to see Melinda Cane. Melinda was very much alive, and she was holding a gun.

“Put your hands in the air, Luz. Or whatever your name is. You’re under arrest for attempted murder. I’m Detective Cane.” Then the Atlanta Homicide detective smiled. “You probably remember Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer from San Francisco. She’s the one who nailed you to the wall.”