The Tesla Legacy

Chapter 32

Vivian waited outside the entrance to the emergency room at Lenox Hospital. Dirk had recognized Joe Tesla’s name on the radio and had called her. She’d made it to the hospital before the ambulance, a tribute to the vagaries of Manhattan traffic.

She had brought Tatiana Tesla with her, of course. The woman stood right beside her, looking pale but composed. Hollingberry was next to her, holding her hand. Dirk was there, too, since he’d been on bodyguard duty when she’d called. He and Vivian were both scanning the area, looking for threats.

It would have been a lot easier if they could have persuaded Mrs. Tesla to go inside, but she wanted to see Tesla when the ambulance brought him in. Vivian couldn’t blame her for that. It might be the last time she saw her son alive.

“My doing,” Mrs. Tesla said. Red lipstick stood out against her pale face, making the usually sophisticated woman look like a clown.

“You couldn’t have known.” Hollingberry moved as if to take her into his arms, but she sidestepped the gesture, her eyes fixed on the busy street, searching for the ambulance.

“I might as well have given him a bomb.” She pressed her lips together. Vivian made a mental note to follow up on that comment later.

Hollingberry murmured something that sounded reassuring, but Vivian couldn’t quite make it out. Whatever it was, it didn’t have any effect on Mrs. Tesla. Simple words weren’t going to reassure her. Her son had been cracked on the head hard enough to have been knocked unconscious, and that was all they knew.

Vivian felt she should have kept better track of him. Her warning hadn’t been enough. He’d gone wandering off alone in the tunnels. Apparently, his worry about his mother’s well-being didn’t extend to himself.

An ambulance braked in front of them and switched off the siren. It was the second one they’d seen since they arrived. The first had had no siren and carried an old man who’d looked dead.

Mrs. Tesla moved forward a step.

The ambulance doors slammed open. Someone lay flat on a stretcher, but she couldn’t tell if it was Tesla. At the head of the stretcher was Edison. So, the man inside must be Tesla.

It was a good sign that they’d come in with the siren on. Didn’t they turn the siren off if the patient died?

A man and a woman in EMT uniforms slid the stretcher out, unfolded its wheels, and pushed it toward the door.

Tesla’s eyes were closed, and he was completely unconscious, which was probably a good thing. Otherwise, he’d have panicked about being outside. A blood-soaked bandage covered his head, he was strapped to a backboard, and an IV ran into his arm. He looked dead.

Mrs. Tesla was already moving toward the gurney. “My son.”

“You’ll have to move to the waiting area, ma’am.” The EMTs didn’t even look at her as they rushed forward.

“Is he alive?” Mrs. Tesla’s words boomed out toward them. She had the practiced rich voice of someone used to working onstage.

“He came to in the ambulance, answered some questions.” The man by Tesla’s feet gave her a quick smile. “They’ll do the best they can with him inside.”

The dog jumped out of the back of the ambulance and started after them. He held something metal in his mouth that jangled when he walked.

“Edison!” Vivian called, and he stopped.

The two EMTs whooshed through the doors and disappeared inside. She gestured to Dirk, and he followed them. His police badge would let him stay closer to Tesla in the hospital than she could. He couldn’t go into the operating room, but he could stand outside in the hall.

The dog looked between her and the disappearing gurney, a question in his eyes.

“You can’t go in there,” she told him. “Heel.”

The dog trotted over and put his head against her leg. Dried blood was caked on his muzzle, his paws, and his chest. His master’s blood. She positioned herself between the animal and Mrs. Tesla. Tesla’s mother didn’t need to see that.

She leaned down and took the object from his mouth. It was a giant key ring full of dozens of keys. She’d seen it before and knew that Tesla considered it irreplaceable. He used it to get through various locked doors underground. He’d probably used one of the keys to get into the basement of the hotel where he’d been attacked. She clipped it to her belt. “Good boy.”

Mrs. Tesla hadn’t moved from her station by the door, although she had sagged against Hollingberry. She looked as if she’d aged years in the minute since she’d seen her son go by.

The two EMTs came out the door and jumped into their ambulance before Vivian could corner them with her questions.

She called Andres Peterson, Tesla’s dog walker, and arranged for him to come get the dog and keep him until further notice, then walked over to Mrs. Tesla. Edison stayed close.

“Would you like to go inside, ma’am?”

Mrs. Tesla’s dark eyes met hers, and for an instant Vivian saw the fear there, but the woman blinked, and the expression was gone.

“Can we bring the dog in?” Hollingberry asked.

“He’s wearing a service vest. They can’t keep him out,” Vivian answered.

“Why didn’t he save my son?” she asked. “There’s not a mark on the dog.”

Vivian swallowed and told her all that Dirk had been able to find out. “My understanding is that the dog was shut inside of a wardrobe, knocked the door off the hinges, and went for help. He probably saved Mr. Tesla’s life.”

Mrs. Tesla crumpled to her knees and wrapped her hands around Edison. The dog was usually standoffish when he was in his vest, but right now he seemed to need Mrs. Tesla as much as she did him. He leaned into her embrace, then licked the tears off her cheeks.

Vivian looked away, not wanting to intrude on a private moment.