Unseen (3 page)

The footsteps stopped just shy of the bedroom door, maybe five feet away. The man’s shadow preceded him into the room, casting half of Jared’s body into darkness.

Lena turned the hammer around so that the claw was facing out. She heard the pump of a shotgun. The sound had its intended effect. She had to lock her knees so she didn’t fall to the floor.

The shooter paused. His shadow wavered slightly, but didn’t encroach farther into the room.

Lena tensed, counting off the seconds. One, two, three. The man did not enter. He was just standing there.

She tried to put herself in the shooter’s head, figure out what he was thinking. Two cops. Both with guns they hadn’t used. One was on the floor. The other hadn’t moved, hadn’t shot back, hadn’t screamed or jumped out the window or charged him.

Lena’s ears strained in the silence as they both waited.

Finally, the shooter took another step forward—short, tentative. Then another. The tip of the shotgun’s barrel was the first thing Lena saw. Sawed off. The metal was rough-cut, freshly hewn. There was a pause, a slight adjustment as the shooter pivoted to the side. Lena saw that the hand supporting the barrel was tattooed. A black skull and crossbones filled the webbing between the thumb and forefinger.

One last, careful step.

Lena two-handed the hammer and swung it into the man’s face.

The claw sank into his eye socket. She heard the crunch of bone as the sharpened steel splintered a path into his skull. The shotgun went off, blasting a hole in the wall. Lena tried to pull out the hammer for another blow, but the claw was caught in his head. The man staggered, tried to brace himself against the door. His fingers wrapped around her wrist. Blood poured from his eye, ran into his mouth, down his neck.

That was when Lena saw the second man. He was running down the hallway, a Smith & Wesson five-shot in his hand. Lena yanked on the hammer, using it like a handle to jerk the shooter in front of her, to use him as a shield. Three shots popped off in rapid succession; the shooter’s body absorbed each hit. Lena gave him a hard shove backward into the second assailant. Both men stumbled. The S&W skittered across the floor.

Lena scooped up the shotgun. She pulled the trigger, but the shell was jammed. She tried the pump, worked to clear the chamber as the second guy climbed his way up to standing. He lunged
for her, fingers grazing the muzzle of the gun before he fell to one knee.

Jared had grabbed his ankle. He held on tight, his arm shaking from the effort. The man reared back, started to bring down his fist on Jared’s temple.

Lena flipped the shotgun around, grabbed it by the barrel and swung it like a bat at the man’s head. Blood and teeth sprayed as his jaw snapped loose. He crashed to the floor.

“Jared!” Lena screamed, dropping down beside him. “Jared!”

He moaned. Blood dribbled from his mouth. His stare was blank, unseeing.

“It’s okay,” she told him. “It’s okay.”

He coughed. His body shuddered, then a violent seizure took hold.

“Jared!” she screamed. “Jared!” Lena’s vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. She put her hands on each side of his face. “Look at me,” she begged. “Just look at me.”

Movement. She saw it out of the corner of her eye. The second man was inching toward the bed, trying to reach the gun. Half his body was paralyzed. He dragged himself with one arm, a wounded cockroach leaving a trail of blood.

Lena felt her heart stop. Something had changed. The air had shifted. The world had stopped spinning.

She looked down at her husband.

Jared’s body had gone completely slack. His eyelids were closed to a slit. She touched his face, his mouth. Her hand shook so hard that her fingertips tapped against his skin.

Sibyl. Jeffrey. The baby.

Their
baby.

Lena stood up.

She moved like a machine. The hammer was still embedded in the first man’s face. Lena braced her foot on his forehead, wrapped her hands around the handle, and wrenched the claw loose.

The cockroach was still crawling toward the bed. His progress was incremental. Lena took her time, waiting until he was inches away from the gun to drop her knee into his back. She felt his ribs snap under her full weight. Broken teeth spewed from his mouth like chunks of wet sand.

Lena raised the hammer above her head. It came down on the man’s spine with a splintering crack. He screamed, his arms shooting out, his body bucking underneath her. Lena held on, her mind focused, her body rigid with rage. She raised the hammer high above her head and aimed for the back of his skull, but then—suddenly—everything stopped.

The hammer wouldn’t move. It was stuck in the air.

Lena looked behind her. There was a third man. He was tall, with a lanky build and strong hands that kept Lena from delivering the deathblow.

She was too shocked to respond. She knew this man. Knew exactly who he was.

He was dressed like a biker—bandanna around his head, chain hanging from his leather belt. He put a finger to his lips, the same as she had done to Jared moments before. There was a warning in his eyes, and underneath the warning, she saw genuine fear.

Slowly, Lena came back to herself. Her hearing first—the raspy sound of her own labored breathing. Then she felt the shooting pain from her tensed muscles, the singed skin of her palms where she’d grabbed the shotgun. The acrid smell of death flooded into her nose. And just underneath that, she caught the tinge of the open road, the familiar odor of exhaust and oil and sweat that Jared brought home with him every night.

Jared.

The back of his shirt was drenched, glued to his skin. The yellow spots of dried paint had disappeared. They were black now, just like his hair—darkened by blood.

Lena’s body went limp. The fight had drained out of her. She lowered the hammer, let it fall to the floor.

Sirens pierced the air. Two, three, more than she could count.

A hoarse voice called from somewhere outside. “Dude, where you at?”

The sirens got louder. Closer.

Will Trent looked at Lena one last time, then left the room.

H
ospital elevators were notoriously unreliable, but Dr. Sara Linton felt that the ones at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial were particularly creaky. Still, like a gambling addict hitting a slot machine, she punched the button every time on the off chance that the doors would open.

“Come on,” Sara mumbled, staring at the numbers above the doors, willing them to hit seven. She waited, hands tucked into the pockets of her white lab coat as the digital display showed ten, then nine, then stayed at a solid eight.

Sara tapped her foot. She looked at her watch. And then she felt her body fill with dread as she saw Oliver Gittings trotting toward her.

As a pediatric attending in Grady Hospital’s emergency room, Sara was in charge of several students who—despite some evidence to the contrary—assumed that one day they would become doctors. Night shifts were particularly tedious. There was something about the moon that turned their little brains into mush.
Sara often wondered how some of them managed to dress themselves, let alone get into medical school.

Oliver Gittings was one of the better examples. Or worse, as the case tended to be. In the last eight hours, he’d already spilled a urine sample on himself and accidentally sewn a sterile cloth onto the sleeve of his lab coat. At least she hoped it was accidental.

He called, “Dr. Linton—”

“This way,” Sara told him, giving up on the elevator and heading toward the stairs.

“I’m glad I found you.” Oliver ran after her like an eager puppy. “An interesting case came up.”

Oliver thought all of his cases were interesting. She said, “Give me the highlights.”

“Six-year-old girl,” he began, pulling on the exit door twice before realizing that it opened outward. “Mom says the girl woke her up in the middle of the night for some water. They’re going down the stairs. The girl starts to fall. Mom grabs her arm. Something pops. The girl starts screaming. Mom rushes her here.”

Sara took the lead down the stairs. She guessed, “X-ray showed a spiral fracture?”

“Yes. The girl had a bruise on her arm here—”

Sara glanced back to see where he indicated. “So, you suspect abuse. Did you order a skeletal survey?”

“Yes, but radiology is backed up. My shift is almost over. I thought I’d go ahead and call D-FACS to get things moving.”

Sara abruptly stopped her descent. The Division of Family and Children’s Services. She asked, “You want to go ahead and put the kid in the system?”

Oliver shrugged, as if this was nothing. “The girl’s too quiet. Mom’s antsy, irritated. All she wants to know is when they can leave.”

“How long have they been here?”

“I dunno. I think she was triaged around one.”

Sara looked at her watch. “It’s 5:58 in the morning. They’ve been here all night. I’d want to leave, too. What else?”

For the first time, Oliver seemed to doubt himself. “Well, the fracture—”

Sara continued down the stairs. “No specific fracture is pathognomonic to child abuse. You call D-FACS and it’s a legal matter. If this mother is an abuser, you want to make sure she doesn’t get away with it. You need corroborating evidence. Does the girl seem scared of her mother? Does she look you in the eye and answer questions? Are there other bruises? Developmental delays? Continence issues? Is there a history of ER visits? How did she present otherwise?” Oliver didn’t immediately answer. Sara prompted, “Is she healthy? Well nourished?”

“Yes, but—”

“Stop.” Sara wasn’t looking for a discussion. She checked her watch again. “Dr. Connor is taking over for me, but you’ve got all of my numbers. Order the skeletal survey to see if there are any past breaks or fractures. Notify security to keep an eye on the mom. Call the other ERs to see if the girl’s ever been admitted.” Sara moderated her tone, trying to make it clear she was teaching him something, not punishing him. “Oliver, sixty-five percent of child abuse cases are flagged in emergency rooms. If you stay in pediatrics, this is the sort of thing you’re going to be dealing with on a weekly basis. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying you need to know all the facts before you turn this girl’s life upside down. And her mother’s.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He headed down the stairs, hands tucked deep into his coat pockets.

Sara didn’t immediately follow, cognizant that Oliver’s ego was fragile enough without her snapping at his heels. Instead, she sat on the bottom stair and checked her hospital BlackBerry. Sara’s eyes threatened to roll back in her head as she scrolled through the
administrative detritus littering her mailbox. Meetings, conferences, denied requisitions, and new procedures for requisitioning, attending conferences, and scheduling meetings.

She felt around in her other pocket and traded the BlackBerry for her personal phone. This was much better. Her father had emailed a silly joke about snails that he’d heard at the Waffle House. Her mother had forwarded a recipe that was never going to happen. There was a long email from her sister with a picture of Sara’s niece attached. She marked this unread and saved it for later. The next message was a text from Sara’s boyfriend. An hour ago, he’d sent her a photo of his breakfast: six mini chocolate doughnuts, an egg and cheese biscuit, and a large Coke.

Sara didn’t know which one of them was going to have a heart attack first.

The door popped open. Dr. Felix Connor stuck his head into the stairwell. He eyed Sara suspiciously. “Why do you look so happy?”

“Because I can go home now that you’re finally here?”

“Gimme a minute to hit the can.”

Sara dropped the phone back into her pocket as she stood. Oliver wasn’t the only one who wanted to get out of here. Sara had pulled several night shifts in a row courtesy of a stomach flu that was running rampant through the hospital. She was beginning to feel punished for her own good health.

Home. Sleep. Silence. She was already making plans as she walked through the ER. Thanks to her crazy work schedule, Sara had four full days of freedom ahead of her. She could read a book. Take a run with her dogs. Remind her boyfriend why they were together.

This last bit widened her smile considerably. She got some curious looks in return. Not many people were happy to find themselves at Grady, which was the only publicly funded hospital left in Atlanta. The staff tended to take on the hardened demeanor of combat veterans. If practicing medicine was an uphill
battle, working at Grady was on par with Guadalcanal. Stabbings, beatings, poisonings, rapes, shootings, murders, drug overdoses.

And that was just pediatrics.

Sara stopped at the computer by the nurses’ station. She pulled up Oliver’s patient on the monitor. The X-ray clearly showed where the child’s right humerus had been twisted. Either the mom was being truthful about what had happened on the stairs or she was savvy enough to fabricate a believable lie.

Sara looked up, scanning the open-curtain area, which was predictably filled with repeat customers. Several drunks were sleeping off benders. There was a junkie who threatened to kill himself every time he got arrested and an older homeless woman who belonged in a mental hospital but knew how to game the system so she could stay on the streets. Oliver’s little girl was curled up asleep on the last gurney. Her mother was in a chair beside her. She was sleeping, too, but her hand was laced through her daughter’s. She hadn’t yet noticed the security guard standing a few feet away.

Not for the first time, Sara wished that nature had devised a system to alert the rest of the world to people who were abusing children. A scarlet letter. A mark of the beast. Some sign that let decent people know these monsters couldn’t be trusted.

Up until a few years ago, Sara had lived in a small town four hours south of Atlanta. She’d done double duty as the county’s pediatrician and medical examiner. Her father liked to joke that between Sara’s two jobs, she got them coming and going. While this was certainly true, too many times, Sara had been put in the position of witnessing firsthand the awful things people could do to children. The X-rays that showed repeatedly broken bones. The dental records revealing teeth that had rotted from neglect. The skin that was forever marked from burns and beatings.