Zero at the Bone (11 page)

“I don’t want you ta know.”

“Why?”

D suddenly turned the high beams of those blazing eyes full on him. “’Cause I don’t wanna wreck that world ya live in, where folks are good and help each other out and you fix people’s faces that’s got hurt, and where ya step up and stand and fight when ya seen wrong bein’ done, where ya take care a some man who was sent ta kill ya, and I don’t want ya ta know how it ain’t like that, not really, and ’cause I don’t want ya touched by me and my kind and the world I know so’s you can go back ta yer life jus’ the way you are right now.”

Jack stared, transfixed. That was the most D had spoken at one time, and it was the first time he’d heard that kind of emotion from him. D looked away, and then put his mug aside. “I’m goin’ ta get some sleep.” Jack just watched him go into one of the bedrooms, the afghan still clutched around him, and shut the door behind him.

He slumped down on the couch, one hand over his eyes.
Jesus fucking Christ, what
have I gotten myself into?

D STRUGGLED awake through layers of heavy fog, and that in itself was alarming. He usually snapped awake, directly to full alertness, a leftover skill from the Army that had saved his ass on more than one occasion. Jack was shaking him.

No, he ain’t shakin’ you, you jus’ shakin’
, he realized. He was wrapped in an afghan and sweat was pouring off him, but he was shaking. His shoulder was on fire and he felt hollowed out, mind and body. He’d been sick a few times in his life, but nothing like this.

This felt like burning alive, liquefying and pouring himself out of his pores.

He struggled to sit up, then got his feet on the floor, but stumbled and fell with his feet tangled in the afghan. He heard quick footsteps, then the bedroom door opened and there were arms lifting him back to the bed. “What the hell are you doing?” It was a blow to D’s carefully cultivated independence and detachment to realize how glad he was to hear Jack’s voice. He had to restrain himself from clutching at him.

He just felt so strong and calm and healthy and D had little experience with feeling needy. “Woke up… shaky,” he managed.

Zero at the Bone | 45

“Christ, you’re burning up,” Jack said, pushing him back onto the bed and turning on the bedside lamp. He pulled D’s shirt aside to look at the wound; D could tell by Jack’s tight face that it didn’t look good. He sat on the edge of the bed, much closer than D would ordinarily have tolerated, but he felt so low that he didn’t care. “D, I have to get some more medicine for you.”

“How?”

Jack sighed. “I’ll drive into Carson City and sneak into a hospital.” D opened his eyes and focused on Jack’s face. He sure as hell looked serious. “Jack, I was kiddin’ when I said that.”

“I’ll buy some scrubs from a medical-supply store, a lab coat, take my stethoscope, and walk in like I belong. Isn’t that how they say you get by? Walk around like you belong?”

“Yeah, guess so… but….”

“I can do it. I have to do it.”

“No, it’s too risky. You get caught… brothers might find ya….” Jack leaned a little closer and fixed him with a determined stare. “D, I am not going to do nothing while you die of sepsis or some kind of staph infection. I know what I’m doing. I’ll be quick, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“You ain’t goin’ now, are ya?”

“No, I can’t. I’d be more easily noticed at night, when there’s less staff around. I’ll go in the morning.” He had two fingers on D’s wrist, taking his pulse. “I wish I could go now, though. You’re getting worse by the minute.”

“I’m okay.”

“Cut out that impervious-ruthless-killer act. When’s the last time you were seriously ill?”

“Don’t think I ain’t never been.”

“Well, it’s a great equalizer. It makes everyone feel vulnerable, from the weepiest soccer mom to the toughest drill sergeant. You’re not so tough that you’re immune, you know.”

D grunted and scooted away a little, like maybe that’d make him forget about the bolts of panic that ran through him at the thought of Jack going out. “Don’t need no hand-holdin’, doc.”

Jack chuckled. “You say that now, sure.” He got up and went into the living room, coming back with his bag and a glass of water. “Sit up,” he said, and D was humiliated to find that he needed help doing this. “Here, take these,” Jack said, holding out his hand.

“What are they?”

“Just aspirin, dumbass,” Jack said, with a playful smirk that D didn’t really understand. “Help with the fever and the chills. And drink this entire glass of water. I don’t want you dehydrated on top of everything else.” D took the aspirin and drained the glass as fast as he could. “All right, let’s get you into bed. Come on, get undressed.” D looked up at him. “Ya mind?”

“Oh. Sorry. My brain gets into doctor mode where I forget that people have modesty. I’ll get you some more water; you get undressed and get in bed.” Jack left the room and D struggled out of his clothes, a task made more difficult by the pain in his shoulder and the uselessness of his left arm. He managed to strip down to his boxers and climb into the bed, which felt soft and inviting. He settled back against the pillows with a sigh, feeling marginally better, but still like he’d gotten a real close acquaintance with the front end of a truck.

46 | Jane Seville

Jack came back in with a glass of water and a bowl of something. “Drink this, and I want you to try and eat something.”

D’s stomach cramped up at the thought. “Cain’t eat nothin’.”

“Then at least drink.”

D took the glass and got a few sips down. Jack took the glass and examined his shoulder again. “I have to change this dressing. It’s going to hurt.”

“Okay,” D said.

He was right. It hurt.

Jack looked a little ill himself as he disposed of the old bandage. He wiped D’s face with a cool washcloth. “Sorry,” he said.

“Nuh… don’t….”
What was he going to say?
He was drifting away. He felt weightless and the room was coming apart, floating apart in pieces. He could hear Jack saying his name, but it wasn’t his name, just one stupid letter, the least you could get away with and still call it a name.
Wanna hear you say my real name someday, Jack
. The thought floated through his mind, moorless and slick so he couldn’t hang on to it.
Might
be that yer the person I could tell why it ain’t mine no more.

JACK watched as D drifted into semi-consciousness. He took his temperature again. 101.

Higher than before. And that was with aspirin in him. He had to get some stronger antibiotics, and fast, before the infection spread and made him even sicker. He hated that he now had to wait until morning.

He took D’s laptop out into the kitchen and set it up at the small table, hoping he could pick up a network. He was pleased to discover that at some point, Warren had wired this place up, so he was good to go. He found the location of Carson-Tahoe Hospital and copied down the directions from MapQuest, and did the same for a uniform store where he could buy scrubs. Their Web site said that they could even embroider his name on a lab coat while he waited, which would lend a touch of believability to his disguise. Was it really a disguise? He was a doctor, after all.

D was right about one thing. He couldn’t walk into the ER and grab a couple of handfuls of drugs and tetanus toxoid. Emergency rooms had pretty good security these days. But if this hospital was anything like the ones he’d worked at, there would be little to no security at the employee health center. One nurse on duty, who would have plenty of antibiotics and probably tetanus vaccine in her office. All he had to do was wait for her to go to lunch or something. He even found the floor plan of the hospital online and located the employee health center. He sat and studied the floor plan until he had it pretty well committed to memory. It’d be hard to look like he belonged there if he was wandering around with a lost look on his face.

You could just run, you know. D’s in no condition to give chase, and he won’t have
a car. Drive to Reno and call the Marshals. Have them put you back in protective
custody. This man’s dangerous. He’s said there are people after him apart from the ones
after you. The last thing you need is a traveling companion who makes you an even
bigger target. Get away from him. Far away.

Jack got up and went back into D’s room. He was sleeping, not entirely peacefully.

Jack crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge, looking down at his unlikely ally with a head full of troubled thoughts. In sleep, the bedrock guardedness that D wore like a second skin was gone, and he looked vulnerable, human and frail. Jack put the back of Zero at the Bone | 47

his hand to D’s forehead again. Still hot. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t leave D. Not now. He’d saved Jack’s life at least three times. He might be a vicious killer, but Jack couldn’t bring himself to judge him. There had to be something that had driven him to it, because Jack had looked but he hadn’t seen the kind of coldness or cruelty that he had to believe would be there for a man who’d truly chosen to make his living by killing others.

It was his turn to do the rescuing, and he’d do it, by God.

D shifted in his sleep, a quiet groan escaping him. “D?” Jack said, wishing he knew the man’s real name. “You all right?”

He seemed to be dreaming. Something frightening, or upsetting, by the looks of things. “Unnhhh… no,” he moaned. “Juh… Juh….” For one alarmed moment, Jack wondered if D was about to say his name. “Jill…,” he finished. “Juh… Jill….” Jill? Who’s Jill? Does he have a wife? Or a child? The notion of D having a family didn’t quite fit in his mind.
Maybe he left some family behind somewhere. Maybe he’s got
an ex-wife who left him and took the kids.
Jack had no evidence of this, of course, but it seemed logical that a man in the hired-killer business might pay a steep price if people close to him learned what he did for a living.

“It’s okay,” Jack said, trying to be soothing. He hesitated, then reached out and took D’s hand. It was large and strong, callused between the fingers and thumb. “Shhhh,” he said, making meaningless noises of comfort. “You’re going to be fine, D.”

“Jill….”

“We’ll find her again. Just try and relax.”

D nodded. “Yeah… gotta find her….”

“We’ll find her. I promise.”

“Lemme go….” D drew his hand away and rolled on his side, away from Jack. He stayed where he was, watching as D fell into a deeper sleep, and then moved to the easy chair in one corner. He sat there, watching his patient, until he fell asleep himself.

48 | Jane Seville

JUST past ten o’clock in the morning, a surgeon who didn’t exist walked into Carson-Tahoe Hospital. He wore blue surgical scrubs and a white lab coat; his name, Dr. John Templeton, was stitched in blue over the pocket. A stethoscope hung around his neck and he was flipping pages on a clipboard as he walked, just another surgeon reviewing a chart before a procedure, or a consultation, or grand rounds.

No one paid him the slightest bit of attention, except for the nurse at the desk who saw him walk by, wondered who the handsome new doctor was, and promptly forgot about him the moment he was out of sight.

Jack had thought that the act would be hard to keep up, that his nerves would make him awkward and obvious, but this environment was reassuring. It ought to have been; he’d done this a million times when it wasn’t an act. He’d spent the past five years walking hospital corridors in scrubs, looking at clipboards and not paying attention to where he was going, a stethoscope around his neck. This wasn’t awkward; it was familiar. Hospitals were all the same, and he knew the lives of these nurses and PAs and interns and attendings as well as if he were a resident here.

He watched as a patient on a gurney was wheeled by in a big hurry. He wondered what was wrong with the patient. He wondered if he could help.
Maybe I could just pop
down to the ER and lend a hand. Intubate a head trauma… maybe assess some surgical
candidates… even just stitch up a couple of scratches, anything….

He resumed his course toward the employee health center.
Get a grip, Jack. D

needs you to not fuck this up. Focus.
He thought of his feverish patient alone in the cabin, and steeled himself to continue. When he’d left, D had been sleeping fitfully, his temperature spiking higher and his wound suppurating. He had to do this quick, and the hospital was not the only stop he had to make before he returned.

He walked straight into the employee health office. Just like the one at Johns Hopkins, it was an ordinary-looking office with a reception desk and a couple of exam tables, plus a cot. The nurse, a middle-aged woman with fire-engine red hair, smiled broadly at him as he entered. “Hello!” she said.

“Hi,” Jack said. “I’m Dr. Templeton.”

“Are you new, Doctor? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

“No, I’m from Reno. I’m just here consulting on a case. Listen, I had some bad sushi last night. Do you have any compazine?”

“Sure!” the nurse said. She looked glad to be having an actual visitor. “Are you having any cramping? Have you thrown up? Diarrhea?” Zero at the Bone | 49