The Summer House

Chapter 77

Nineteen minutes later and after screeching the Ford into a space in the parking lot nearest the main entrance, Sanchez barrels his way through the hospital’s complex until he finds the facility’s Trauma ICU.

The place is pleasant-looking enough, with light wood cabinets and white ceilings and soft overhead lights, but Sanchez is in a hurry, not sure how far that Georgia State Patrol officer will go in tracking him down. Entry into the Trauma ICU looks to be controlled by a big guy at an exterior reception desk. When he buzzes in two hospital personnel, Sanchez follows them inside.

At the nearest nurses’ station, he shows his badge, and almost out of breath from running here, he says, “Special Agent Manuel Sanchez, US Army CID. You have a CID agent here, Connie York. Where is she?”

The male nurse is in light-blue scrubs and looks at him with suspicion. After staring at his badge and identification, he says, “She’s in trauma room 2, but I don’t think visitors—”

“Thanks,” Sanchez says, moving on. The place is quiet, but nurses and doctors bustle around him, and down the hallway is a series of sliding-glass doors with handles.

The nurse yells out, “Hey!” but Sanchez ignores him.

There.

Room 2.

He slides the door open, surprising two nurses — one male, the other female — at their work.

The woman says, “Excuse me, who are you?”

He shows his badge and identification. “I’m Special Agent Manuel Sanchez, Army CID. How is she?”

The male nurse slips out, and the woman says, “Have you registered up front?”

“No,” he says.

“You need to.”

Sanchez snaps, “How is she, damn it?”

“Critical,” she says. “Look, you need to—”

“Ma’am, all due respect, you can get the hell out. I’m not going anywhere.”

She leaves and Sanchez steps forward, thinking there’s been a mistake, a serious mistake, because that’s not Connie in that bed, hooked up to IV tubes, wires, and other sensors.

The poor woman there is heavily bandaged about her head, the head mostly shaved, and she’s breathing through a tube stuck down her throat. Her eyes are swollen and her cheeks are puffed out.

It can’t be Connie.

Can’t.

But there’s a whiteboard near her bed, and sure enough, in careful block lettering above her vital signs and the names of the doctors and nurses taking care of her, it states, CONSTANCE YORK.

The door slides open. He turns.

A large man is there, dark hair, wearing black trousers, black sneakers, and a black vest over a light-blue shirt, the vest with bright-yellow letters saying SECURITY. Sanchez looks him over, notes the handcuffs, the expandable baton, and another weapon with a bright-yellow handle, denoting a Taser.

“Sir, you need to leave,” the man says.

“I want to see this woman’s doctor.”

He shakes his head. “You can do that outside, once you register up front at the nurses’ station.”

“I don’t—”

The security officer takes two steps forward. “Sir, I know you’re upset and you’re concerned, but with the way you came in here, the staff and nurses, they’re also upset and concerned. Please, be a gentleman. All right? I bet you’ll be able to come back in just a few minutes. Please don’t make me escalate things, all right?”

Sanchez knows what he means by escalating. Maybe a quick shot from the Taser and then cuffing him on the floor. Then Sanchez will be out of action, and how will that help things?

“All right,” he says. “I’ll leave.”

The security guard smiles, slides the door open. “Thanks so much, sir. You won’t regret it.”

When the Army guy leaves, Bo Leighton can’t believe how much his luck is changing after that disastrous shoot-out at the Waffle House a few hours ago. But God must be riding shotgun, because after getting a good ream-out from his uncle about how he and Ricky screwed up the job, his uncle offered him redemption.

And look here, his second cousin Derek, the son of a bitch actually worked security here at this hospital, and his uniform actually fit, and like most places, if you look as if you belong, you get left alone.

Then his luck really kicked in when he got up to this Trauma ICU unit and found out that this Army agent was making a fuss in the bitch’s room, so that gave him the perfect excuse to casually walk down here and kick the guy out.

But no time to press his luck.

There’s a chair next to the big bed with the wounded agent — Christ, how the hell was she alive with a .45 jacketed round hitting her head? — and all those wires and tubes, and in the chair is a nice white pillow.

Bo walks over, picks up the pillow.

Just a few seconds and then it’ll be right.

And his cousin won’t have died in vain.

Bitch.