Every Fifteen Minutes (51 page)

“Dr. Ward, stop!” Perino bellowed. “You have to stop! No, stop!”

Eric turned to see what was going on, but almost fell off the wall. He tried to hug it with useless arms as he watched Perino come running onto the patio, trailing his broken restraints.

“Dr. Ward!” Perino charged at Sam, grimacing in fury, his beefy arms outstretched. “You have to be stopped! This is over, here and now!”

“No, don't! Don't!” Sam raised his hands.

“You're evil, Dr. Ward!” Perino lunged at Sam, grabbed him by the shoulders, wrenched him off his feet, and sent him crashing into the small metal table and chairs where he landed on his back like a broken doll.

Eric watched the explosive violence in horror, his emotions in turmoil. He still couldn't believe that Sam had been trying to kill him. Still he didn't want Perino to murder Sam before his very eyes, but he was powerless to interfere, stop Perino, or even move his limbs.

“You're a bad doctor! You gave me those pills! I feel worse after them, not better!” Perino went after Sam, who scrambled, terrified, to his feet, his head bloodied and his blue eyes wide with fright.

“Don, no!” Sam picked up the metal chair and brandished it at Perino, keeping the raging man at a distance. “Don, don't blame me, blame Dr. Parrish! Dr. Parrish made me give you those pills! He told me to do it! Go get him! That's why I was trying to kill him! For you!”

“I don't believe you! You're a liar!” Perino grabbed the leg of the chair that Sam was holding and whipped it hard, wrenching it from Sam's grasp and throwing it aside. “You lie all the time!”

“No, don't…” Eric watched, terrified, as Sam leaned backwards over the wall. He summoned all of his energy to fight the druggy cloud in his brain and hang onto the wall.

“Don, I'm sorry!” Sam put up his hands, panicking. He kept backing up, edging toward the wall, desperate to save his own life. “I won't do it anymore, I promise! No more pills! I swear!”

“I don't believe you!” Perino cocked his fist and was about to punch Sam, when there was a shout at the door.

“Everybody, freeze!” shouted a security guard, drawing his weapon. “Freeze right there!” Two other security guards rushed onto the patio behind him. Smoke wafted through the open door.

“Don't shoot!” Perino raised his hands, but Sam wobbled backwards, caught dangerously off-balance.

“No! No!” Sam cried out in abject fear, but in the next awful moment, he began to topple over the wall and over the side of the building, his hands grasping and clawing at thin air.

“Dr. Ward!” Perino lunged to grab Sam before he fell, but it was too late.

“No!” Eric felt agonized tears spring to his eyes as Sam tumbled over the side of the building, screaming all the way down.

Then Eric squeezed his eyes shut.

He couldn't bear to see any more.

 

Chapter Sixty-one

Eric lay in a hospital bed in the ED examining room, coming back to his senses thanks to Narcan, an inhalant that directly blocked the effect of morphine, usually given to patients who were overdosing. He had a plastic clip on his finger to monitor his vitals and an IV port on his hand for a saline drip. He was still dressed in his clothes, damp from the sprinklers, and his shirt and hands were covered with Kristine's blood, which hadn't been completely washed away. Kristine was in surgery, and Eric didn't know how she was doing. He sent up a silent prayer for her recovery.

He closed his eyes against the harsh fluorescent lighting, trying to chase from his mind the image of Kristine bleeding on the office floor, her throat a crimson gash. He could hear the police, hospital administrators, and Laurie talking in low tones outside the examining room. Paul was on his way to HGH, having instructed Eric not to speak to the police without him. The chances of that were slim to none, anyway. Eric couldn't tell the police what had happened before he'd had time to process it himself.

Eric let it sink in that Sam had tried to kill Kristine, as well as the fact that Sam had actually been the one who had killed Ren
é
e. On the way down to the ED, Eric had told the police that Sam had admitted that he, and not Max, had murdered Ren
é
e, and they had promised him they'd tell the Radnor Police and Max's attorney. Eric remembered that first night, when he had met Max and his grandmother, and it struck him that he was now in the very same examining room, so matters had come to a full, horrifying circle.

He kept his eyes closed, feeling the loss of Max's grandmother, as well as Ren
é
e and Kristine. It broke his heart to lose Sam, so horribly. So much violence, so much death. He flashed on Perino, trying to save Sam's life at the last minute, which would take a toll on the man's already fragile emotional state. Eric would have to study his file and follow up on Perino's beliefs that Sam had been giving him pills that made him worse, not better. It was completely possible that Sam had manipulated and used Perino the same way that he'd manipulated and used Max.

Eric shuddered, inwardly, to his very marrow. He would be replaying in his mind for a long time how he had put so much trust in Sam, which had been so profoundly misplaced. Eric knew as a psychiatrist that so many of us wore masks, showing one face to the world when our psyche was much different, so he should have known better. He realized he had a mask of his own, perhaps one that he had been wearing too long. The mask of the perfect Chief, who was number two and perennially trying harder. The mask of the perfect father, who protected his daughter too much. The mask of the perfect husband, who simply hadn't been the man his wife wanted, in the end. Maybe it was time to let all the masks drop and to see what was really beneath them. When this was all over, maybe he'd call Arthur and get a refresher course.

Eric felt his eyes film, and although he didn't understand exactly why, he didn't try to analyze his emotions. The only thing he knew for sure was the purity of the love he had for Hannah, and his heart felt light that he had cleared his name, not only for his sake, but for hers. His daughter, her friends, and the other kids at school wouldn't think he had murdered anyone. He could go back to being a psychiatrist and a father, however imperfect. He would still think too highly of people he cared for, like Sam, and maybe even Caitlin. For him, love would always be blind, at least in the beginning. That couldn't be helped, nor should it be. He was a human being, after all.

“Hey.” Laurie peeked around the patterned curtain. “May I come in?”

“Sure.” Eric smiled, happy to see her, and Laurie smiled back, walking over to the bed.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better.”

“The police are waiting until you feel well enough to make a statement, but I told them to cool their jets.”

“Thanks.”

“In the good-news department, it looks like Kristine is going to make it, two transfusions later. We got to her just in time.”

“Great.” Eric felt relief and gratitude wash over him.

“In a final irony, her blood is AB negative, which is rare, and we ran out. Guess who had to give her a bag?” Laurie made a face, screwing up her nose adorably.

“
You
?”

“Yes. Don't think it was easy.”

Eric laughed. It felt good. “How's my unit? A wreck?”

“Getting cleaned up, but everybody's calming down. Amaka's in charge.”

“Thank God. And Perino, how's he?”

“Down the hall, doing fine. His wife isn't happy.”

“I'm sure not.” Eric couldn't think about it now. “Where were my other attendings, during the fire? David and Jack?”

“David passed out trying to put out the fire. Turns out he has asthma. Jack was in Endocrinology, chatting up some nurse.” Laurie picked up his hand lightly, her fingers around his wrist. “Meanwhile, I'm here in a professional capacity, as your ED doc.”

“Are you taking my pulse?”

“Not exactly.” Laurie smiled.

“Then you're holding my hand.”

Laurie smiled, wider. “You kissed me that night at the mall, in the car.”

“That was your imagination. The whole thing, it was a fantasy of yours. It didn't really happen. I didn't run into the mall, either. Who would do something that stupid? Not me, I'm the Chief.”

“You're talkative, you know that?” Laurie leaned over and kissed him on the lips, once, then again, softly.

“Wow,” Eric said, feeling a stirring in his heart that he hadn't felt in a long time.

Laurie straightened up, smiling sweetly. A dark curl fell over her eye, freeing itself from her pencil topknot. “You like my bedside manner?”

“Don't get ahead of yourself.”

“Ha!” Laurie's expression changed, growing serious. “Well, I suppose I should say you were right, and I'm glad of it. You believed in Max a lot more than I did, but he didn't kill that girl. So happy ending, right? Kind of?”

“Kind of.” Eric felt a pain in his chest. “It's just awful that Ren
é
e was murdered, so young, and for such a stupid reason. As if any reason could justify murder.”

“Why did Sam do it, again?”

“He wanted to be me. More accurately, he wanted what he perceived I had. He wanted the applause, and really, he wanted the money.” Eric thought back to what Sam had said on the patio. “I'm going to talk to the powers that be and tell them to investigate Brexler on the Pharmacy Review Board. If that jerk is getting kickbacks from the drug companies and that's how he built that damn Myrtle Beach house, I want him in
jail
. Enough with the gossip. It's criminally actionable and I'm not going to tolerate it anymore.”

“You're a changed man.” Laurie smiled, proudly.

“You're damn right I am.”

“Then I'm with you.” Laurie bent over and kissed him again. “How about dinner tomorrow night, after work? I owe you a gin and tonic.”

“Your place?”

“Perfect.” Laurie smiled at him again, just as the patterned curtain was moved to the side and they both turned to see Paul sticking his head into the examining room, looking from Laurie to Eric with a slowly spreading grin.

“When's the wedding, kids?” Paul asked, in delight.

 

Chapter Sixty-two

Eric spent the next two hours in the conference room on the executive floor, meeting with Captain Newmire, Detective Rhoades, and the assistant district attorney. He'd changed into another set of generic sweats from Paul and had told them everything that had happened, from when he found the omissions in Virginia's medical file to the horrifying fight on the patio. They asked detailed questions, which he answered as completely as possible, subject to objections from Paul, who never let the authorities get anywhere near the issue of confidentiality. Sitting to his left during the questioning was Mike from Legal, and beside him Tom and Brad, all of whom listened quietly and took notes, but asked no questions.

When that was finally over, Eric still had a question. He turned to Detective Rhoades. “Now that you know Max is innocent of Ren
é
e's murder, what happens?”

“It's not quite that easy. We'll follow up on your statement, investigate, and touch base with his lawyer, to see if they will cooperate and give us an interview. Obviously, it isn't enough to rely on what you said, though that's no reflection on your credibility, but rather on the credibility of Sam Ward.”

Eric winced at the mention of Sam's name. It was still so hard to believe that Sam was gone, having died such an awful death, and Eric was still wrapping his mind around the fact that Sam had tried to murder Kristine and sabotaged Perino's health, much less betrayed their friendship. Eric knew it would take some time to sort out his conflicted feelings, but at bottom, he felt raw and aching, the pain of loss and grief.

“Max still has to deal with criminal charges stemming from the hostage-taking at the mall. That will be a matter not for us, but for the Upper Merion Police and Captain Newmire.” Detective Rhoades nodded in Captain Newmire's direction. “Would you like to address that?”

Captain Newmire cleared his throat. “Dr. Parrish, I'll have to discuss it with the assistant district attorney, who will discuss it with the district attorney.”

Eric thought it sounded like law-enforcement buck-passing, but every institution had its own bureaucracy, whether they wore badges or white coats. “Where is Max now?”

“Max is being moved to one of the local mental health facilities for evaluation and treatment.”

“Which facility?” Eric felt Paul kick him under the table, but he was beyond worrying about that anymore.

“I'm unsure, at this juncture.” Detective Rhoades glanced at Captain Newmire, who was already getting up, getting his notes in order, and slipping his ballpoint pen into his pocket. “I think we're finished here, though we'll have to ask you to remain within jurisdiction.”

“What, why?” Eric asked, surprised.

Detective Rhoades frowned. “Just until we've investigated your statement, Dr. Parrish.”

“Fine.” Eric read between the lines, that was just a matter of time.

Paul shook his head. “Don't make me sorry we played ball with you, Detective. I'm not out of ammunition yet and I can still do you damage in the press, especially after today.”

Detective Rhoades stood up heavily, picking up his pad and slipping it inside his sport jacket. “Gentlemen, thank you very much. We'll be in touch.”

Mike sprang to his wingtips. “Officers, let me show you out.”

“Thank you.” Detective Rhoades crossed to the door with Captain Newmire and the assistant district attorney. They said their good-byes, then left, and Eric could hear Dee Dee outside, offering to take them to the elevator.

Mike came back into the room and closed the door behind him. “Eric, we need to talk.”