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  “Do you know if he was involved with drugs?” the cop continued.

  “No, not that I know of,” Greg said. “My wife never mentioned anything about that. The university does a full background check and drug tests on all employees. I know nothing turned up there.”

  The cop repeated his shifting motion and inched his stance toward the head of the bed; Greg’s eyes stayed on him. Aida was directly between them now, and the darkened doorway to the bathroom framed the barrel-chested figure.

  “What can you tell me about your wife’s condition?”

  Nat stood at the foot of the bed, her arms crossed, watching the cop.

  Greg’s gaze darted down to his wife and then to Nat, who shook her head almost imperceptibly, then back to the cop and the monitors. “Well, I’m not a medical doctor, but she’s stable.”

  The cop glanced at monitors. “What does this EEG trace indicate?”

  Greg gave the cop a quizzical look and didn’t answer. A moment later, his cell phone rang, interrupting the silence.

  “Hello? This is Dr. Doxiphus.”

  “Dr. Doxiphus, it’s John Holden, I need to talk to you in person right now. Your lab tech was just killed.”

  “Actually, he was my wife’s lab tech,” Greg replied. The cop had inched closer to the EEG readout, but at Greg’s reply he turned to focus on the phone conversation. “Excuse me,” Greg continued, “but I can’t talk right now. There’s an officer with us in the hospital room, taking our statement. I think he’s nearly done,” Greg said to John and the cop.

  “Is the officer a big pale guy with red buzz-cut hair?” John asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

  “Don’t react to this, but he’s not supposed to be there until tomorrow morning, and he’s supposed to be with a detective, not by himself. Can you find a way to get rid of him and call for help?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Greg managed to say despite the growing constriction in his throat.

  “Good. Do it. Someone just tried to kill me, so it stands to reason that the three of you are in danger too.”

  “Yes, I see,” Greg’s voice quavered as he looked at the floor, subconsciously intending to exclude the cop from the conversation. “I think you’re right. Thank you. Hang on.” He put the phone on the tray table but didn’t end the call. What the hell do I do now?

  When Greg looked back up, the huge redheaded man asked, “What’s going on here, Doctor?” But Greg’s eyes were looking just past the man, into the bathroom. There, stabbing her finger in the air at the cop, was his wife. Her mouth was moving as though she were trying to tell him something, but no sound came out. He looked back down at his wife, in the bed before him, then back to his wife standing in the bathroom door. A short, sharp intake of breath from Nat pulled his attention to his daughter; her eyes were fixed on the bathroom door too. He looked back to the door. Aida was gesticulating frantically as she screamed soundless words at him. This time he caught what she was saying.

  “Greg! Grab Nat and get out! He’s dangerous.”

  In a moment of awakening, Greg understood the look Nat had given the cop, and he understood his own anxiety regarding this man and this situation. He’s a threat. He’s involved in this all somehow. Greg froze. The cop’s stare focused on him while his hand drifted toward his gun belt.

  The radio handset on the cop’s shoulder blared, “Unit 21 to KEA571. I’m at University Hospital ER in response to shots fired on an ambulance. Medic 82 is here. Only minor injuries, though the medic is a little shaken. Requesting additional units, CSI and shift commander on-site. Over.” Greg and Nat flinched, startled at the harsh sound. Greg blinked, and Aida was gone from the bathroom doorway.

  The cop’s hand stopped its motion toward his gun belt and reached for the radio handset. “Unit 54, KEA571. I’m at the hospital now. I’ll meet unit 21 and the ambulance downstairs.” He turned quickly and left the room.

  John’s tiny voice yelled at them from Greg’s phone, like some Lilliputian trying to get Gulliver’s attention. “Dr. Doxiphus! Natalia! Hello!”

  A shaken Gregorio Doxiphus picked up his phone. “I’m here, John. The officer got a call about an ambulance shooting, and I assume that was you. He’s heading to the ER entrance now. You need to be careful.”

  “There’s already another unit here,” John said, “and more on the way. Don’t worry about me. I can avoid him. Listen, I didn’t get a chance to tell you before, and I don’t think you’re gonna believe this, but I saw your wife a few seconds before I was shot at. She was standing in the street off to the right of my vehicle. She told me to get down.”

  Aida, wherever you are. You’re looking out for him too. “Yes, I believe you, John. Natalia and I just saw her too. She was trying to warn us about that officer…no, she’s not awake; she’s lying here in bed.”

  Nat was pacing from the window to the door, checking the hallway for signs of the cop and looking out the window at the parking lot by the ER entrance. “I see John’s ambulance, Dad, and three…no, four police cruisers.”

  “We can see the police cars and your ambulance from Aida’s hospital room,” Greg said.

  “I’m busy with the police right now,” John continued. “I can’t come up there yet, and you shouldn’t leave the room. Stay there, and I’ll come up to you as soon as I can.”

  “Okay, John,” said Greg. “Thank you.”

  ***

  The redheaded police officer stepped out of the elevator onto the first floor. In front of him was a sign printed in large red letters that read emergency with an arrow that pointed to the left. He turned right and headed down the hallway toward the main entrance. Holden’s still alive, and the Doxiphuses know. They fucking know. She must be helping them somehow. He had parked his unit out on the street, avoiding the security cameras that constantly scanned the parking structure. Once he was through the main doors, he turned left and headed down the hill to street level. Red and blue lights strobed, casting flickering shadows in the night, but he was far enough away that he wouldn’t be seen. His cruiser was half a block away.

  He sat in his car for a minute. He had been on countless operations and had seen his share of things going to hell. But never like this, never so quickly. Discipline kicked in. Time to report. He touched his ear. “The medic is still alive, and I’ve been compromised in the eyes of the husband and the daughter…I need extraction.” Shit!

  He started the car and, without lights or siren, pulled away into the night.

  ***

  “…compromised in the eyes of the husband and the daughter…I need extraction.” The voice came from a speaker that was sitting on an ostentatious, hand-carved mahogany desk. This is out of control. The whole damn thing is a liability now, Jerome Gilden thought.

  Gilden muted the speakerphone and turned to his assistant. “We need more control over this situation. We need her moved here.”

  “How do you want to handle that?” the assistant asked.

  In reply, Gilden took out his personal phone and dialed. “Hi, it’s me. Listen, our assets have made a mess of this. You were right…I know…how soon do you think you can get her moved here? Good…okay.” He replaced the phone in his suit jacket pocket.

  “What do you want to do about the asset?” asked the assistant.

  Gilden grabbed a few almonds from a dish on the desk and popped them into his mouth. He chewed for a moment, then said, “Bring him to me.”

  The assistant’s thumbs went flying across the screen of his mobile device. After a few seconds, it vibrated softly with a response.

  “The corner of Vale and Hamilton in thirty minutes.”

  Gilden hit the now-unmuted the phone. “Vale and Hamilton, thirty minutes.” Then he hung up. That tool is losing its edge, he thought as he glared at the speakerphone.

  8 Eternity and a Day

  J ohn Holden sat on a bench outside the ER entrance, trying to fake his way through another police interview. Thankfully, this
was with the older officer from The Jester and not that redheaded man he had the run in with.

  “You’ve had a helluva night—first the stabbing death, and then you get shot at. I just spoke to the shift commander. He’s still at the bar, wrapping up the scene and the paperwork. He told me to get your statement and then take your vehicle in as evidence. Maybe ballistics can get something off the slugs, if they can find them.”

  John looked at the shot-out driver’s-side window of Medic 82. None of the other windows had been broken, so the bullets didn’t make it to the windshield or the passenger side window; they had to be buried somewhere in the interior. Maybe the forensics team could pull something out, though he doubted it. More than likely the slugs were squashed flat against the steel frame of the vehicle.

  “I haven’t seen a night like this since I was in the service,” said John. He held a double layer of four-by-four gauze against the scratches the broken glass had left on his neck. They were superficial, but he couldn’t leave an open wound unattended.

  The officer gave him a knowing look. “Over in the Gulf?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Navy. I did a short tour there, but mostly in Guam and Southeast Asia as a rescue swimmer.”

  “Well, you’re one heroic SOB then, jumping into dangerous waters just to save people.”

  He shrugged in reply. John didn’t like to think of himself that way. It was just a job he had done, and he liked to think there were plenty of others who would do the same.

  The officer returned to the statement. “Lemme read this back to you to make sure I have it straight. You’re proceeding from the crime scene at The Jester to University Hospital. You’re stopped at the corner of Claremont and Thirty-Third, waiting for the light to change, and an unknown assailant walks up on your left-hand blind side and fires three shots.”

  “Yeah, the first one broke out the driver’s-side window. Then he got off two more.”

  “Then you leave the intersection at a high rate of speed toward the ER and radio in. Did you do anything else?” the cop asked.

  “I think I scared the crap out of some college kids and diners at that outdoor café on Claremont.” John felt a brief pang at not telling the whole truth here, but as far as he was concerned, he had people to protect now, and there was a problem inside University City Police. Besides, he felt his phone calls were still a protected form of communication, despite what the NSA might think.

  “I’ll have to send a unit to try and find some witnesses for statements, but I wouldn’t worry about it. Did you get a look at the shooter?”

  “No. He came at me from the blind spot in the mirror.”

  “So if the shooter was approaching from your blind spot, how did you know to duck?” the officer questioned.

  “I dunno,” John stalled, and there was that pang again. “I must have caught him in my peripheral vision, and reflexes kicked in. You know, once in combat…” That sounded like a reasonable story, and it certainly would look better in a police report than the truth. In any case, there was no evidence to the contrary, and he hoped there were no other witnesses to the events at the intersection of Claremont and Thirty-Third.

  A county tow truck had pulled into the hospital parking lot while John and the officer were talking. Medic 82 was pulled in close to the building, and the tow truck couldn’t get around to the front to hook it up. The driver got out of the tow truck and headed toward John, gawking at the shot-out window and glass across the seats. “Hey, are you the one responsible for this mess?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Can you get it turned around for me?”

  “I’m still busy here.” John gestured toward the officer. “The keys are in a magnetic box under the dash. Help yourself.” The driver waved his thanks and headed to Medic 82.

  John dabbed his neck and looked at the gauze. I’ve been worse. “Do you have everything you need? I’d like to get checked out. Maybe rest for a bit,” he lied to the officer for a third time.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” said the officer, flipping through his notes. “We’ll let you know if we find anything. You be careful.” And he headed off.

  John hadn’t seen any sign of the redheaded cop, but being the cautious sort, he scanned the parking lot one last time. Nothing but cruisers, police officers, and one sorry-looking vehicle being hoisted onto the back of the tow truck. Damn good rig, he thought before turning to walk to the emergency room entrance at a fast clip. He had other people to see.

  ***

  “What did John say?” Nat asked her father.

  “He said someone just tried to kill him, and he saw your mother. She was warning him somehow. I’m pretty sure she saved his life.” Greg’s head was reeling as he tried to make sense of all this but knew he was failing miserably. Lack of sleep and stress took their toll on the higher cognitive functions first. “He said he thinks we might all be in danger. He’s tied up with the police right now, but he’ll come up here as soon as he can. We need to stay here with your mother.”

  “Well, yeah, where else would we go?” she said, and then she snapped, mostly at the situation. “What the hell is going on here, Dad? How could we both see Mom in the bathroom when she’s lying right in front of us? And the cop and the nurse, someone trying to kill John, and that tech who lied, and now…” It tumbled out of her, and tears welled in her eyes, her voice choking off in a higher pitch. “He’s dead.”

  Greg went over to her and held her. As strong and independent as Nat was, at this moment she was his little girl again, and she was frightened and hurting. She needed her father, and he needed her.

  “I don’t know, honey. I don’t have any answers,” he said softly through his own tears. She tucked her head against his chest, and he looked at his wife. “But the three of us need to get out of here.”

  A moment later, her tears subsided, and her composure returned as she considered the possibility of danger to them. “Where could we take her?” she asked. “And how would we get her there? She’s…catatonic, Dad.”

  His shoulders slumping, Greg sat down and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said in a long, defeated breath. “Let’s just take this one step at a time. John should be up here soon.”

  ***

  A few minutes later, John stepped out of the elevator on Aida’s floor. He actually did have to stop in the ER, and he was sporting a fresh dressing on his neck over some steri-strips that held a few of his wounds closed. The scratches on his chest had been cleaned and dressed too, but those were nothing serious and only needed Band-Aids. He trotted down the hallway, passed the nurses’ station, and went through the double doors. A few yards ahead, he spotted a campus security guard sitting outside Aida Doxiphus’s room. The guard raised a hand to stop him.

  “Hang on. Are you family?” The guard leveled a stare at him.

  “No, I’m the EMT who brought Dr. Doxiphus in, and—”

  The guard cut him off. “Sorry, son. I can’t let you in there.” He stepped in front of the doorway, blocking John.

  With a click, the door opened, and Greg’s face appeared. “John, we thought we heard you.” He turned to the guard. “It’s all right. I asked him to come.” As a precaution, Greg closed the door behind John. What they had to talk about was only for the four of them.

  “Did the cop come back?” John asked.

  “No, he left when he heard the call for a senior officer and backup to meet you down at the ER,” Nat said. He was hurt worse than he let on, she thought, seeing the bandage on his neck. Thank God he’s okay.

  “I haven’t seen him since I left The Jester.” John untensed a bit at seeing the Doxiphus family safe.

  “The what?” asked Greg.

  “Sorry. The bar where the lab tech got an ice pick through the heart. That’s where I heard the redheaded cop ask the shift commander if he could come over here and get a statement from you, but his commander denied the request and said a detective would come here tomorrow. The cop griped about it, and the commander gave permi
ssion for the cop to ride along with the detective. He was under orders not to come here tonight and not by himself.”

  “So why was he here?” Greg asked, knowing no one had an answer. He sighed. “Tell me about when you saw my wife.”

  “How did I see her?” John said. “I mean, how is that possible?”

  “Just tell us what happened. We have to start with the what before we can figure out the how.” Professor Doxiphus was on more familiar ground now, as long as he thought about this as a puzzle to be solved.

  “I was on my way here from The Jester to pick up my partner. I had just had a run-in with the cop at the bar. He had pretty much threatened me when I told him about the unusual way we’d found Dr. Doxiph…I mean, your wife.”

  “It’s okay. Call her Aida, and you can call me Greg. It gets a little confusing sometimes with two doctors in the house.” Greg gave a little smile; John appreciated the gesture.

  “So I was waiting at a light, and then I just saw her, Aida, standing not six feet off to the front right of the rig at the edge of headlights. She was motioning with both arms for me to get down. I think she was speaking too because I heard a voice saying ‘Get down,’ and then the gunshots came. The voice said ‘Go!’ and I slammed on the gas. I called it in to dispatch, then called you.”

  “How was she dressed?” Greg asked.

  “Just like she was when I found her on the floor in the lab, white lab coat, tan skirt, white blouse.” He had missed that detail before, but with the shock of seeing Aida and being shot at, that was no surprise. “You saw her too? Where? How?”

  “She was there, in the bathroom,” said Nat, pointing. She recounted the incident to John while Greg sat down and let his eyes close and chin droop slightly. John listened to her without interruption. He looked over to where she was pointing once, but still on guard, he swept his head across the room from the windows to the hallway door to Aida and Greg and back again.