Eternal (6 page)

E
IGHT

J
ulia staggered into the emergency room, bruised I and bloodied. The hospital was exceptionally busy, at least compared to her visit the night before. Strange, she would have thought nights would be busiest, what with gunshot wounds, brawling drunks, muggings, drug overdoses, and the like. But it was a Saturday, and the place was overflowing with the bloody, broken, itching results of summer fun: a screaming boy with a severed fingertip, two teenage girls in bathing suits scratching arms covered in red splotches, and a group of young men who had clearly been hiking in poison ivy.

Medics rushed a young man on a stretcher moaning unintelligibly through the admitting doors. His torn riding pants and motorcycle jacket were covered in blood. Julia’s dad had always forbidden her to ride Tyler’s motorcycle, though she supposed she could if she wanted, now that she was an adult living on her own. But her dad had scared the desire right out of her, repeating so many times: “Have you ever seen a road-killed squirrel? That’s what motorcycle accident victims look like, only with more bloody gore strewn all over the road.” She took one last look and shuddered.

Julia was slowly making her way up to the admitting desk when, from behind the double doors, she heard someone shout, “Get the crash cart!”

They’re going to get the defibrillator,
Julia said to herself. The thought played over and over in her mind. Her brain fuzzy from the recent trauma, Julia wandered through the double doors. The nurse was busy explaining a form to someone, and every other spare medical professional had rushed in ahead of Julia, so no one stopped her as she limped toward the chaos surrounding the biker. She heard someone shout, “Clear,” heard the familiar surge of electricity, saw the chest rise, and heard the electronic beeping. She turned to look at the monitor.

Electricity!

That’s what had caused the chemical impulses in the cadaver brain, and that’s what had brought Dr. Bertel back. Electricity.
This is important,
she recognized.
But how?

Ignoring the chaos, Julia stood there for several minutes, staring into space, still thinking about electricity, energy, matter, and what made life … life. She wished she could discuss her half-formed thoughts with Dr. Bertel. He had been dead for several minutes. Maybe he now knew something about the connection between energy and life that she had missed. Maybe whatever he experienced when he died freaked him out, and he ran away. Julia wanted to find him and ask. But she had no idea where to start.

“What are you doing in here?” a nurse demanded.

“Excuse me?” Julia said, suddenly aware of her surroundings.

“Are you a patient? Who let you in here?”

“I’m sorry, I just …” What
was
she doing in here? “I’ll leave.”

The nurse shot her a glare, but then her jaw dropped when she noticed Julia’s condition. “Orderly! Get this girl into a hospital bed, now!” Julia obediently followed the orderly into the nearest examination room.

The doctor was putting the final stitch in her forehead when Austin burst through the door.

“Julia, are you all right? I was on an assignment and didn’t hear my phone ring. I just got the voicemail message. What happened?” The concern in Austin’s voice was comforting.

“We’ve got to stop meeting this way,” she said with a smirk. “Or you won’t recognize me at a party without all the blood and gore.”

“Wait, you don’t normally look like this?” Austin quipped. Then he became serious. “Tell me what happened.”

“Well, I went to visit my mother’s grave site, and someone followed me. I tried to run, but he grabbed my leg and started pulling me into the bushes, so I took a rock and hit him on the head with it, and he disappeared, and then I passed out—” Julia’s explanation rushed out in a breath, making her head spin. Austin put his hand on her shoulder to steady her on the exam table, and she immediately relaxed. “Julia,” he said, bending down and looking into her large green eyes, “do you know anyone who would want to do this to you?”

Suddenly, the exam door flew open a second time. Morton Jones rushed in with Tyler following close behind.

“Julia! Are you alright?” Morton pushed Austin out of the way to envelop her in a hug. Julia’s father wasn’t much for sentimentality, so she knew that her voicemail message had struck a nerve. “What happened?”

“I—I went to visit Mom last night. And someone attacked me right at her grave site—”She felt considerably calmer telling it the second time. Tyler, eyeing Austin suspiciously, kissed the top of her head and began to rub her shoulders.

Austin surveyed the scene with a blank expression. Finally, he said, “Thank you, Miss Jones. I’ll write up my report and get back to you soon. I may have some more questions. And please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.” He took her hand to shake it and held it, instead. Julia looked up into his intense blue eyes, which were now unreadable.

“Thank you, Detective Moore,” she said, “for everything.” She felt an inexplicable pull at her heartstrings as he turned and left the room.

“I’m so sorry, babe,” Tyler cooed. “It’s going to be okay. I’m here to protect you.” Julia found his words both comforting and slightly annoying. While she knew Tyler cared about her, he didn’t know what was really going on in her life. Whenever she mentioned anything science-related, his eyes glazed over. He nodded politely, but it was impossible to have a real conversation about it or make him understand how important it was to her. Finally, she had stopped mentioning Research Building Three—and he never asked. Their conversations centered around his basketball team, their high school friends, the latest band that was playing at Shakes, stuff like that. Tyler had no idea what she was up against. And until now, neither did she.

Julia spent the next twelve hours in a dreamless slumber. Her father had driven her back to the apartment and pleaded with her to come home with him. But she had resisted. The air was still too thick with her mother’s memory, and Morton wallowed in it. She couldn’t bear to see her dad that way.

When Julia woke, the sun was already starting to go down behind the hills that surrounded her apartment. She could barely move her stiff arms, legs, and neck, and her entire body ached. She turned on the shower faucet and let the warm water sluice over her battered body. She knew the best thing she could do for herself was to get some more rest. After all, rest was what the ER doctor had ordered. But she was worried about Dr. Bertel; and after her attack last night, she was convinced that something terrible had happened to him. She needed to find some answers, or more precisely, some questions—there was something her brain was trying to figure out, and she didn’t know what it was. She had the feeling that both the questions and the answers were somewhere in the research she and Dr. Bertel had been doing.

Julia drove to Research Building Three and took the elevator to the basement. She was heading to the lab when she saw crime scene tape strung across the door to Bertel’s office. Overwhelmed with curiosity, she bit her lip as she considered climbing under the police tape. She of all people would recognize a clue—she worked with him side by side and knew his office as well as her own apartment. She decided to take a look.

Just as she started to duck under the yellow tape, she saw someone sitting at Dr. Bertel’s desk, scribbling in a small notebook. “Oh!” she yelped and snapped upright.

Austin dropped the notebook, snatched his gun from the desk, and aimed it at Julia. His face brightened when he recognized her, and he lowered the gun. “Julia,” he smiled. “What the hell are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“I was just … I was worried … Dr. Bertel always lets me …”

“Save it, Miss
Police Line Do Not Cross.”
Austin was staring at her chest, laughing.

She looked down. She had been standing under the police tape, and when she had stood up she’d pulled it free. It had landed across her shoulder like a beauty queen sash. She laughed. “You caught me. I was trying to steal the secret to world peace.”

“A valuable endeavor,” he said, as he stood and placed his gun in his shoulder holster. Julia couldn’t help but notice how the holster drew attention to the muscles of his chest and upper arms. This guy obviously did time at the gym. He crossed his arms, making his biceps bulge even more. “You can’t come in here, but let’s talk in the lab.”

He plucked the crime scene tape off her shoulder, reattached the loose end to the doorjamb, and crossed the hall with her. They sat down on a couple of lab stools.

“How are you?” Austin asked. In the quiet of the basement, his warm voice echoed slightly, filling the empty room. The aloofness she had felt from him in the exam room had disappeared, and his presence was once again inviting.

“I’m feeling okay,” she said quietly. “I’m just worried about Dr. Bertel.”

“You heard then?” Austin asked. “Bertel took off early this morning.”

Julia nodded but said nothing.

“Do you have any idea where he went, Julia?” She knew the question was serious, yet she felt a flutter when his voice lingered on her name.

“No. I wish I did know. That’s why I came here, actually. I was hoping I might find some clue as to why he took off … or why someone might have taken him.”

Austin leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. “I was wondering that too. Whether someone might have taken him. No one saw anything suspicious in the ICU last night. But then, no one saw him leave, either.”

“The
ICU?”
Julia said. “How could he walk out of an ICU? Without anyone noticing?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. That room is never left unattended. It’s hospital policy. But the night nurse insisted she saw nothing. She seemed pretty shaken up. That might be because she broke protocol, but …”

“You think someone threatened her and took Bertel away?” Julia asked.

“Possible, but unlikely. If Bertel were carried out, someone in the hospital would’ve noticed. If he were able to walk, he would have put up at least some sort of struggle. But again—”

“—someone would have noticed.”

“I went through his office again today, and there’s no sign that anyone else was there. So the electrocution originally looked like an accident. But when I try to think why he left the hospital so unexpectedly, I’m back to wondering if it was a suicide attempt—granted, a very convoluted suicide attempt. You know, he just happened to leave before they had time to run any tests.”

“You think he was afraid of what the tests would show?”

Austin frowned. “I don’t know. Remember you told me he seemed depressed, only you didn’t think anything of it?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know his wife left him six months ago?”

“No. That was before I started working for him. And we didn’t really talk about personal stuff.” Funny how strong a connection they’d shared without talking about their personal lives. Maybe he had just been lonely, eager for any company at all.

“That explains why you didn’t notice a change in his behavior. The change would have happened before you arrived. But, Julia, did his behavior ever strike you as something more than just depression? Did he act like he wasn’t in complete command of his mental faculties?”

“You mean like he was crazy?”

Austin looked surprised. “No, I mean like he was drinking on the job or using drugs.”

Julia paused. She thought about Tyler’s after-the-game keggers; the druggies at school who used to sneak out and get high during their free period and then come back spacey and laughing at random things; and the one time she had seen her father drunk, after her mom died. “No. No, I don’t think he did anything like that. Dr. Bertel was the squeaky clean type.”

Austin nodded. “What type of research were you two doing?”

She hesitated.

“Julia, I know that no scientist wants to reveal her research until it’s ready. But I can’t make much sense of the notes in his office. Since you know this research better than anybody, I would really appreciate your help—anything that could point us in the right direction. If I can keep any of it from becoming public, I will.”