Code Blues (38 page)

I said, "Dr. Callendar. I'm sorry. I have to
go to the bathroom."

He halted mid-diatribe and glared at me.
"Well, go on, then!"

I escaped to the back hall, pausing to grab
the yellow stick with the key to the emergency resident's room.
Forget the toilet. I had a phone call to make.

I popped into the resident's room and called
Agent Rivera. It rang and rang, and finally an irritated
Frenchwoman answered and told me he wasn't there, could I leave a
message.

I did, stumbling over the French, explaining
my theory on Kurt's murder.

"
Bon
," she said tersely. "I will pass
on the message.
Au
revoir
." She hung up.

I stared at the black plastic receiver. When
would she pass on the message? Tomorrow morning? It might be too
late.

Chapter 24

I punched zero to page Mireille through St.
Joe's locating. "Who?" said the operator.

"Dr. Laroque! She's on family medicine."

"She's not on call."

"I know! I need to speak to her. It's
urgent."

"The resident on call for family medicine is
Dr. Fabien. Would you like to speak to him?"

"No! I need to speak to Dr. Mireille
Laroque!" If only I'd downloaded the entire list of residents'
pagers.

She heaved an enormous sigh. "Well,
okay..."

"Thank you."

Three minutes ticked by while I tried to log
into my email from the break room's ancient computer. Some bright
light had turned off the machine, so I had to boot it up and wait
for Windows to load, before I could log in, click on the Explorer
icon, and slowly, painfully, bring up my webmail and view
Shielagh's messages.

Dr. Callendar must be frothing at the mouth
by now. I couldn't wait any longer. I called locating back. "This
is Dr. Sze. When Dr. Laroque calls back, could you ask her to call
me through the emergency room? I'm on the walk-in side."

"The emergency room?"

"Yes! On the walk-in side. Please!" It was a
miracle anyone managed to get a hold of any individual through St.
Joe's locating.

I called Tori, but there was no answer. I
left a message explaining who I thought the killer was and my fears
Mireille might confront him. I needed to scatter my eggs in as many
baskets as possible.

When I returned to the walk-in side, the med
student was slaving over a note. Dr. Callendar was nowhere in
sight. I grabbed the chart for a sore shoulder and sent him off to
X-ray.

Dr. Callendar reappeared and opened his
mouth, but I struck first. "You know, I met you here on the morning
of July first. You had worked overnight."

He kept his black head bent over his chart.
"Yeah. So?"

"Was there anything unusual about that
night?"

He looked at me then, his brow furrowing.
"You mean, clues that my colleague was being murdered
upstairs?"

I nodded, holding my breath.

"No."

Damn. "Did you see him that night?"

"No. I was working. It was busy. There was a
code pink—" He exhaled impatiently at my blank face—"a neonatal
code on the floor."

I asked if he'd seen the man I now thought
was the murderer.

"No. I understand he was at a party, not
that it's any of your concern."

A party. Interesting, especially considering
the GHB.

He pulled the clipboard right out of my
hand. "Back to business. Tell me about your patient."

For the rest of the night, I was unable to
escape Dr. Callendar; Dr. Dupuis didn't signal me for any
interesting cases. I kept an ear out for Mireille's call back,
wincing every time someone used the phone to answer or place pages.
Come on, Laroque. I paged her twice more directly to the phone line
at the walk-in desk.

I ended up spending seven hours with the Big
C. Cancer patients sometimes call their disease the Big C. Although
it was petty of me, it seemed fitting. My shift was supposed to end
at 11 p.m., but the Big C. said there were still patients to C.

Clearly, I was losing my mind.

When he finally muttered, "You can go now,"
it was almost midnight. Damn Mireille. Should I page her from
home?

The black phone burbled. I lunged, but the
Big C. was closer. "Yeah," he barked. "What? Hang on."

I grabbed it. The receiver was still warm
from his hand. "Hello?"

Thank goodness, it was Mireille. "Quit
paging me."

I turned away from Dr. Callendar, stretching
the cord as long as it would go. "Mireille, I know who it is. I
told the police."

She didn't speak. I heard
the faint, tinny sound of Much Music in the background. Then her
breath whooshed out. "
Tabernac
. Fuck off!" She slammed the
phone down.

Dr. C. stared at me, his lips twisted in
amusement. He'd obviously overheard at least the last part. "Making
new friends?"

I hardly paid attention. She didn't want me
paging her. She hadn't answered me, but she finally did because she
didn't want me to disturb her.

Why did she need to be left alone?

She was confronting the killer.
Imminently.

Where?

Much Music could have been playing anywhere,
but I bet they wanted somewhere quiet. Neutral ground, but out of
the way.

If Mireille was smart, she wouldn't agree to
anywhere too isolated.

The residents' room.

Chapter 25

I ran just as fast as I had for the Code
Blue. Faster, because this time I knew I could save a life.

I nearly collided with Jade Watterson, the
ICU resident, on the stairs. She held her giant plastic coffee mug
above her head. "Whoa!"

I snapped over my shoulder, "I think
Mireille's in trouble. Get help! Residents' room."

I slammed open the doors at the top of the
stairs, skidded around the corner on the freshly-waxed floors, and
punched the code. I turned the knob, but the lock didn't open.
Damn! I punched the code again. This time, the door swung open half
an inch before crashing into a barrier. I spotted someone's arm in
a white coat in the far corner of the room, against the wall.

"Mireille!" I hollered. "Mireille!"

I rapped on the door.

Someone grunted and I heard and felt a thump
through the wood as something crashed against it, sealing it shut
again.

"I can hear you!" I shouted. "Let me
in!"

I banged with one hand while I punched the
code in with the other. The door handle turned, but banged into
something again.

I started bashing the door against the
barrier. I'd break it if I had to. If nothing else, I'd provide a
distraction.

Slam.

SLAM!

The barrier held, but I'd gotten another
half inch.

I slammed the door, yelling and cursing
until my throat grew raw. The door moved another inch.

I screamed in victory. Then I realized that
the door was moving more easily, and someone was talking. A male
voice was saying, "Just a second."

The door swung open. At last, the dark blond
figure in the white coat advanced on the door. A protuberant blue
eye peered at me through the opening slit. "Oh. Hello, Hope."

I heard some thumping and the sprong of a
chair removed from under the doorknob. He drew open the door and
started to block it with his body.

I squeezed by him. "Where is she? What did
you do with her?"

Robin surveyed me mildly. "Who?"

I cast about the room. Fridge, two couches
against two walls, TV, table with cafeteria trays, desk with
computer, phone, ficus tree. Where was she? I ran to the computer
and threw the chair away from the desk, but there was no Mireille.
Just a filing cabinet under the desk with some blue boxes filled
with juice bottles and crumpled paper. The desk chair rolled to the
middle of the room and stopped. Where was she?

I turned on him. He stood on the other side
of the roller chair, his head tipped to one side like I was a
particularly interesting specimen. I said, "Robin. I know it was
you. You're here to meet her. What did you do with her?"

He raised his taffy-coloured eyebrows.
"Who?"

"Mireille. Mireille Laroque! Who else do you
think?"

"Why would I do that?" He smoothed down the
front of his white coat. The pockets seemed to be empty. He wasn't
wearing a tie today, just a cream dress shirt buttoned all the way
to the collar and some '70s brown dress pants. He looked perfectly
presentable. An A+ student murderer.

"Because you killed Kurt and she figured it
out!"

"I did?" His brow
furrowed, turning his eyebrows into a single furry caterpillar. He
looked so
normal
.
But I realized he had placed himself between me and the
door.

I started walking toward the exit. "Yeah.
You did. Pretty smart, Robin. I have to congratulate you." I
skirted between the round table and the wall with the ficus
tree.

He took a step toward me. "Why do you think
that?"

I circled away from him, keeping it casual,
keeping the five-foot diameter table between us. Now I was between
the table and the computer desk. If he kept following me, he'd end
up between the table and the wall, and I could make a break for it.
"Well, I think it must have started with your wife."

"What about her?" But his eyes widened a
millimetre before he forced a laugh.

I kept my tone light. "I guess you don't
know what's going on with her, huh? Did she leave you?"

"
She never left me
!" He grabbed the
table and flipped it at me.

The fake wood-grain tabletop tumbled toward
me. I screamed and threw myself under the computer desk, between
the filing cabinet and the blue boxes. Then I realized it was
exactly the wrong place to be. The overturned table blocked off my
route. I was caught between the table, the wall, and Robin's
legs.

I was breathing hard. Almost panting. My
life could not end this way. It could not.

But I couldn't think of a good way out. I
stared at Robin's neatly polished brown dress shoes. He even
double-knotted his laces.

"You bitch," he said. "You had nothing to do
with this. Why couldn't you just leave it alone?" As his pale hands
reached for me, he said, "This is all your fault."

My first instinct was to block his hands.
Instead, I screamed and dove for his ankles. I wanted to topple
him, pull his feet out from under him, throw him to the ground and
run past him.

Instead, he shook off my grip and kicked me
under the chin, snapping my head back.

Pain. Searing through my head, tearing down
my neck.

For a second, I couldn't focus.

I felt something warm drip down my face,
toward my mouth. Smelled iron. Blood.

He kicked me in the chest. The new pain
exploded in spirals, but it gave me something to bite down on. No.
I would not die like this. I huddled in genuine agony, but as he
paused to smile, his glasses still in place, his chest barely
heaving, I grabbed a recycling bin and launched myself at him.

Instinctively, he shied away.

I tripped on a table leg. Paper went
airborne. A bottle crashed to the floor but didn't break. I landed
on my knees, hitting the bin lid with my chest.

I saw his hands flash. I whimpered, but he
was grabbing the bottle.

"Okay. That's enough, Hope," he said,
returning to that eerily calm voice.

I heard a smash just as I flipped myself
over and scrambled to my feet, grabbing the blue box like a clumsy
shield.

Robin held the jagged remnant of the bottle
up to my face. His hair was damp with sweat. His mouth made a
straight line. "I didn't want to do this."

I brought the box up from underneath,
striking his arms upward. The glass soared and shattered behind
me.

I snarled in triumph, but he smashed the box
out of my hands. It crashed to the floor. Before I could dive for
it, his hands closed around my throat.

Suffocating me.

I tried to tear his hands away. He was
fiendishly strong. His face was flushed. Dimly, I remembered an
Akido move Ginger had showed me, and shoved my arms between his,
trying to break his hold.

He squeezed tighter.

I reared back and kicked him.

He grunted, twisting his hips away. My foot
made solid contact with his thigh.

He gripped only tightened.

The room was ringed with darkness. I
couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe! I made one last, desperate
swipe at his head.

And the world went black.

Chapter 26

Carpet. Flat grey carpet, nubby under my
hands. A woman's voice, screechy with panic.

Blackness.

A long face. Long nose. Round glasses. Green
eyes. Thin mouth, starting to smile.

Dr. Dupuis.

I sagged into the—mattress?—clutching at the
white sheet lying over me. The ceiling was covered in white
acoustic tile. A clear plastic mask sat on my face, augmenting the
sound of my every breath. A heart monitor beeped in my ears.
Stickers on my chest. Wires all around. Something around my left
arm. A soft gray plastic probe on my right index finger. My bed was
surrounded by metal railing on three sides.

I was in resus. It was like being in an
adult-sized crib in a very scary nursery.

I lifted my right hand, stared at the IV
embedded on the back of it, attached to clear plastic tubing.

"You have good veins," said Dr. Dupuis.

It was uncomfortable to bend my wrist. It
made the catheter shift a little, even though it I had what felt
like an entire roll of tape on my arm, securing it. I let my hand
fall back on to the stretcher.