In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [110]
The first thing she noticed was the silence. There was no hum of machinery. The machines that kept Ed alive. She saw the unfamiliar doctor and the tubes and catheters spilling their vital liquids onto the white sheets. And the monitor, with an ominous flat green line.
“Oh my God, no, nooo!” she screamed.
The doctor swung around, looked at her.
She saw the gun in his hand, felt her own heart tremble. A giant shudder rippled through her. Ed was dead. This man had killed him. Howling with rage, she launched herself at him. All six feet of her.
Mitch hadn’t expected it. He sank to his knees, staggered to his feet again, and made for the door.
Ed’s eyes were wide open. Mel scrambled up, bent over him, desperately trying to insert the ventilator into the tracheotomy opening.
“Ed, oh, Ed, honey, hold on,” she sobbed. “It’ll be all right, I promise. . . .”
His eyes flicked beyond her, over her shoulder. She caught the warning in them and swung around. The killer was back.
Instinctively, Mel flung herself on top of Ed to protect him. And felt the stinging heat as the bullets entered her.
Returning from his coffee break, Brotski saw the man come running out of Ed’s room. He sprinted after him, excited as a warhorse at the scene of battle. This was what police work was about. The guy was overweight, he couldn’t run so well, and Brotski had his own gun drawn now.
“Stop,” he yelled. “Stop or I’ll shoot.”
It was a mistake to give a killer like Mitch Rogan—a.k.a. Mario de Soto—fair warning. He turned and fired. In the fraction of a second it took for Brotski to know he had been hit and fade into unconsciousness, Mario was gone.
Simultaneously, Camelia stepped out of the elevator, saw Brotski, and ran to him, bypassing the screaming nurse. Through Ed’s open door he saw Mel lying on the floor. Now other people, doctors, nurses, were coming running. He was thrust out of the way as the doctors placed Mel, bleeding badly, onto a gurney. He knelt by Brotski, who looked like a dead man. Camelia felt the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. Poor young kid, poor little bastard.
He watched for a second as they rushed them both to the elevator en route to the O.R. And that part of him that belonged to Mel went with her.
65
Sheer terror sent Mario de Soto stumbling back down those concrete emergency stairs faster than he had ever moved before. He paused for breath on the fourth floor. He had intended to return to his room, go back to bed, tell the doctor in the morning that he had changed his mind, didn’t want to go through with the tests, and leave. No one would have suspected him. He would have been just another difficult patient, one among hundreds in that hospital. But he knew there was no chance of using that alibi now.
He continued on down to the third floor; then the second; the first. He got out at the underground parking lot, dodged through the ranks of cars toward the exit. He tucked the Kahr back into the ankle holster and straightened his clothing. He was still breathing hard as he walked out onto the street, ducking into the shadows as he heard the scream of police sirens. He could see blue lights flashing, saw officers running into the hospital, guns drawn.
Anger burned in him, volatile as jet fuel. He was exploding with rage at Gus Aramanov for bringing him down to this. A cheap killer, hunted on the streets of Manhattan. And anger at Alberto Ricci, who had offered him the promised land, and whom he knew would now deny that he ever knew him. Ricci always came out the winner. But not this time.
He stepped out of the shadows and flagged down a passing cab. “East Sixty-fourth Street,” he said.
Camelia was already running down the emergency stairs, the killer’s only escape route. In the parking lot, he saw the discarded white coat, heard the scream of sirens as help arrived. He crouched, gun in hand, scanning the dimly lit lot.
He had never felt like this about a case before. The need to kill this man devoured him. If Mel was