Nick of Time (28 page)

Brad's eyes were red, and the blood from his bludgeoned nose dripped from his chin. He looked back outside and spat a crimson spray. “Die an old man,” he said to Scotty, “not a little boy.”

It seemed like an eternity that they stood there, separated by twenty feet, staring at each other. Neither knew what the next move would be. Finally, Scotty pivoted and took off running.

“No!” Brad yelled. “Goddammit, no!” He took two steps forward and centered the gun sights on the fleeing boy. He had time for maybe three shots before he disappeared around the dune. The idiot kid wasn't even trying to zigzag as he ran. It was the simplest shot there was.

Brad tightened his finger. He had to do it. There was no choice.

But he couldn't.

Chapter Twenty-nine

W
hen the electronic hardware on his belt chirped, Carter jumped, startling Deputy Sweet. “What?” she said.

Carter's first instinct was to reach for his cell phone, but by the time it chirped a second time, he realized that it wasn't the phone that he was hearing. It was his pager.

The
pager. The one that he'd carried in silence for so long that he'd often wondered if it even worked anymore. The one that had brought false hope nearly thirty-six hours ago. Even as Carter read the LCD display, he was reaching for his cell phone. He dialed the number from memory, ignoring Darla's inquiry about what was going on.

“New York Heart-Lung Consortium. May I help you?”

Carter couldn't believe the ease with which they answered their phone, as if it were just any other business. “This is Carter Janssen. I received a page from you.” He leaned against the door as he spoke, in part to steady his trembling hand.

“Have you been awaiting word on a donor?” It was the voice of an ageless female, very efficient.

“Yes, ma'am. In fact, we've been waiting for some time. My daughter's name is—”

“Can you hold, please? I'll put you in touch with the person you need to speak to.”

He heard a
click
and then synthesized pop music. This was impossible, he told himself. It couldn't be happening.

“What is it?” Darla inquired yet again. There was real concern in her tone. “You look awful.”

“It's the donor center,” he explained.

Darla gasped, “Oh, my God. Do they have the transplants ready?”

Carter responded with a shrug, not trusting his voice.

He had no idea how long he sat on hold.
Not now,
he prayed.
Please don't let them be ready now.
He needed a week. A day. Donor organs had to be transplanted within hours, and they were so far out of the area—

After a click, a pleasant male voice said, “Hello, this is Dr. Cavanaugh. Is this Mr. Janssen?” It was exactly how he had begun the phone call two days ago.

“Yes, it is.”

“Father of Nicolette Janssen?” The doctor read off his address and phone number from the computer. Had he forgotten that they'd done this same drill last time?

“Yes, it's me.” He heard the frustration in his own voice and made a point to settle himself down.

“All right, and I just need you to answer the question you gave us on the application as a means of verifying your identity over the phone. What was your mother's maiden name?”

“Fox.” Jesus, would he ever get to the point? And while we're at it, where the hell was the groveling apology they owed him?

“Very good,” said Dr. Cavanaugh, and Carter heard papers shuffling on the other end of the line. “I have some very good news for you.”

“Again?” Carter felt dizzy as he pressed his head against the cool glass of the side window.

“A sixteen-year-old boy was killed tonight in an auto accident in Towanda County, blood type AB positive, and his parents have approved him as a heart-lung donor. You need to get Nicolette to the Pitcairn General Hospital as soon as possible so that we may begin the procedure. Congratulations.”

Carter felt the panic blossom in his belly. “How much time do we have?” There had to be a way. There had to be time. He knew in his heart that Nicki had floated back up to the top of the list because the last screwup was no fault of her own. This time, the Janssens had broken all the rules; if it didn't work, she'd fall right back to the end of the line, another eighteen months. A death sentence.

“Well, sooner is always better than later,” Dr. Cavanaugh explained, “but you don't have to panic. It will take an hour or so to harvest the organs, and probably another hour to get them to the hospital, so you've got plenty of time.”

Carter's mind raced through his options. Bilateral heart-lung donors were impossibly rare, once-in-a-lifetime gifts. Literally once-in-a-lifetime. If he were to tell the consortium that—

“Mr. Janssen, are you there?” The silence had triggered a touch of alarm in the doctor's voice.

“I'm here,” Carter said. “What's the longest you can hold on to the organs before there's a problem?”

“As I said, sooner is always best. Is there a problem? If there is, I need to know about it. These organs are precious and the last thing—”

“No, it's not a problem. I just have to pick Nicki up from school and take care of some housekeeping stuff. No real big problems.” Carter closed his eyes as he spoke, feeling terrible about the lie.

Dr. Cavanaugh's voice took on a very sharp edge. “It's Saturday,” he said.

Shit!
This was why Carter never told lies. He sucked at the details.

“Mr. Janssen, if there's a problem, you need to be up front with me. These gifts are far too valuable to play games. Is there a reason why Nicolette can't get to the hospital in the next few hours?”

“Can I have eight hours?” he asked.

“Eight!” The doctor's incredulity came through the earpiece clearly enough to draw a look from Darla, who quickly returned her eyes to the road. “Why on earth would you need eight hours?”

And even that might not be long enough,
he didn't say. In pondering his answer, he lost the opportunity for Dr. Cavanaugh to trust his words.

“Once more, Mr. Janssen,” he said. “I cannot overstate the importance of you being forthcoming with me. I'm on the feather edge of withdrawing my offer and moving to the next name on the list.”

“Please don't do that,” Carter said. “Please.” He decided to try the direct approach. “Okay, here's the truth of it, okay? I don't know where she is, exactly. I'm sure I can find her, but I don't know precisely how long that will take.”

All traces of friendliness evaporated from the doctor's tone. “Were the instructions not clear enough for you, sir? We made it very clear that any form of travel out of the area would jeopardize any gift. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that we'd crossed this bridge two days ago!” Carter yelled, then he found the handle for his temper. Why did doctors presume the right to speak to you as if you were a child? “She was upset and she ran away. If you'd come through with your end of the promise on Thursday, we wouldn't have this problem now, okay? So how about cutting me a break and telling me how much goddamn time I have?”

Carter could hear papers moving on the other end. “I'm going to move to the next name on the list—”

“Oh, God, please don't do that,” Carter begged. “Not now. Not yet. Give me some time. Any time. You owe me that. Hell, just tell me what my criteria are. If I blow it, I blow it, but at least give me a chance here.”

“When can you let me know?” the doctor pressed. “People wait years for donor organs to become available—”

“Like I don't know that?” Carter boomed. “This is my daughter's life we're talking about. We've been waiting nine months ourselves. I'm desperate here. I just need to know how much time I have to work with.”

For fifteen seconds, silence echoed from the other end of the line. Carter wondered if maybe the doctor had hung up on him. When Dr. Cavanaugh spoke, he dealt his words as if they were individual sentences, very slow and very measured. “We need to be in the OR within six hours of the time of harvest,” he said. “Assuming that they've begun the harvest already, that means that I need you here within five hours. But I'll need a commitment from you within the hour to verify that you'll be here.”

“And if we can't make it, where does she go on the list?”

“It's not like that, Mr. Janssen. There are too many factors. Nicolette is in the good position of having a universal-recipient blood type. On the other hand, if the next donor turns up with a rare blood type that is difficult to match, and we have a recipient waiting for that rare blood type, then obviously, we have to lean toward them. It would not be unreasonable to expect another ten- to fifteen-month wait.”

The air rushed out of Carter's lungs. He needed to say something, to negotiate more, but there was nothing left to say. “Okay,” he said. “I'll be back in touch in an hour.”

“If I don't hear from you,” the doctor said, “I will go to the next name on the list, and that decision will be unalterable, you understand?”

“Yes, sir, I do. And—”

“Let's say forty-five minutes, then,” Cavanaugh said. “That's forty-four minutes and sixty seconds. At forty-four sixty-one, the offer is off the table.”

Carter opened his mouth to acknowledge him, but the line was already dead. As he folded the phone closed, he laid his head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes. “On any other day of my life, that would have been the best news possible.”

“Her transplants are ready?”

Carter nodded. “Somewhere in Towanda County, New York, parents are grieving the death of their son in an auto accident, and in the midst of all that grief, they had the decency to offer up his body parts to the living.” He opened his eyes and rocked his head to face the deputy. “How macabre is that?”

“I think it's beautiful,” Darla said.

“And after all the shit that two families have gone through, walking the tightrope between life and death, it's all going to mean nothing because I can't get Nicki there in time for the operation.”

“How long did they give you?”

“I have to call them in forty-five minutes.” He checked his watch. “Make that forty-four.”

“You can't get her there in that amount of time,” Darla said. “Even if your theories are correct, and everything goes right, there's no way you can have her on her way in less than an hour.”

Carter closed his eyes again. “We've got six hours total.”

“That's still not enough time.”

His eyes opened and he lifted his head again. “Just whose side are you on?” he said.

Darla felt uncomfortable knowing that she'd wandered into territory where she did not belong. “Partly on your daughter's side,” she said, but there was no commitment to the words.

Carter scowled. “Only partly?”

Darla shifted in her seat. “Well, mostly, I guess I'm on the side of the parents who are trying to build something good out of tragedy.”

“The donors' parents.”

“Exactly. If you delay, doesn't that lessen the success of the surgery?”

Carter couldn't deny it. “The game is fraught with risk. All I need is one small miracle. Everybody is owed one of those in their lifetime.”

* * *

The crowd in Billy Yards's pool hall was a little thin, given the weather and the time of day. Carter and Darla allowed their eyes to adjust to the darkness before stepping beyond the entryway and the abandoned bouncer's stand. This front room of Billy Yards's was arranged in a large horseshoe, with the main entrance and the bar on the closed end, and the parquet dance floor on the open end. A cluttered stage spoke of a house band, which hadn't yet arrived.

In the late afternoon, it turned out, the real action hummed in a dimly lit room just beyond the dance floor, where half a dozen college-age kids were knocking balls around three of six pool tables. Darla led the way to the back, and as the two of them crossed the threshold, five of the six stopped playing, while one merely noted the cop's presence with a crooked smile. Carter knew without asking that Mr. Cool was the one they were looking for.

“Why, good afternoon, Deputy Sweet,” Peter Banks said. He sank an impossible shot into the side pocket, then moved on to his next.

“We need to talk with you for a minute, Peter,” Darla said.

To Carter's eye, all of Peter's remaining plays were scratch shots, but the kid seemed intent on a combination to sink the four ball. “
We
need to talk to me?” Peter mocked. He lined up the shot. “Who's the suit?”

“Now would be a good time,” Darla said. “Let's keep it friendly, okay?”

With a stroke so smooth that it could have been in slow motion, Peter's stick kissed the cue ball, which in turn kissed the two, which sank the four. He allowed himself a grin. “Have I done something wrong?” he asked. Compared to the nervousness around the room, Peter Banks seemed to be the only innocent party here.

“That's what we need to talk to you about.”

Peter resumed sizing up the table. “Sounds like maybe I need a lawyer,” he said.

“Only the guilty need lawyers,” Darla said, drawing a look from Carter.

Peter laughed. “Oh, is that a fact? I didn't realize that the Court was so specific in the Miranda ruling.” He decided on the one ball into the far corner and lined himself up. “Why don't you just say what's on your mind, Deputy, and I'll decide from there whether or not I should talk with you.”

“It's about the murder at the Quik Mart this afternoon,” she said.

Peter let the words just hang there as he took his shot. Perfect. He looked up again. “And?”

“And we want to talk to you about it.”

Peter came around to their side of the table and offered his hand to Carter. “Peter Banks,” he said.

“Carter Janssen. Mr. Banks, this is really very important.”

Peter made a show of recoiling from his words. “
Mister
Banks? You must be from out of town.”

“New York,” Carter said.

The next shot was a gimme. All Peter had to do was breeze the three ball into the corner. He flubbed it, sending the three into the cushion instead. He held his posture and shook his head. “I suck,” he said to himself. To one of the others in the room he added, “Your turn, Georgie.”