Without remorse - Tom Clancy [66]
'Mr Kelly, yesterday afternoon we discovered the body of a young woman who fits the physical description of Miss Madden.' Douglas reached into his coat pocket.
'No!' Rosen said, getting out of his chair.
'Is this she?' Douglas asked, holding the photo before Kelly's face, hoping that his proper grammar would somehow lessen the impact.
'God damnit! ' The surgeon turned the cop around and pushed him against the wall. In the process the photo dropped on the patient's chest.
Kelly's eyes went wide in horror. His body sprang upwards, fighting the restraints. Then he collapsed, his skin pasty white. All in the room turned away but for the nurse, whose eyes were locked on her patient.
'Look, doc, I -' Douglas tried to say.
'Get the hell out of my hospital!' Rosen fairly screamed. 'You can kill somebody with that kind of shock! Why didn't you tell me -'
'He has to identify -'
'I could have done that!'
O'Toole heard the noise as the two grown men scuffled like children in a playground, but John Kelly was her concern, the antibiotic medication still in her hand. She tried to remove the photograph from Kelly's view, but her own eyes were first drawn to the image and then repulsed by it as Kelly's hand seized the print and held it a scant twelve inches from his own wide-open eyes. It was his expression now that occupied her consciousness. Sandy recoiled briefly at what she saw there, but then Kelly's face composed itself and he spoke.
'It's okay, Sam. He has his job to do, too.' Kelly looked down at the photo one last time. Then he closed his eyes and held it up for the nurse to take.
And things settled down for everyone except Nurse O'Toole. She watched Kelly swallow the oversized pill and left the room for the calm of the corridor.
Sandra O'Toole walked back to the nurses' station, remembering what she alone had seen. Kelly's face turning so pale that her first reaction to it was that he must be in shock, then the tumult behind her as she reached for her patient - but then what? It wasn't like the first time at all. Kelly's face had transformed itself. Only an instant, like opening a door into some other place, and she'd seen something she had never imagined. Something very old and feral and ugly. The eyes not wide, but focused on something she could not see. The pallor of his face not that of shock, but of rage. His hands balled briefly into fists of quivering stone. And then his face had changed again. There had been comprehension to replace the blind, killing rage, and what she'd seen next was the most dangerous sight she had ever beheld, though she knew not why. Then the door closed. Kelly's eyes shut, and when he opened them, his face was unnaturally serene. The complete sequence had not taken four seconds, she realized, all of it while Rosen and Douglas had been scuffling against the wall. He'd passed from horror to rage to understanding - then to concealment, but what had come in between comprehension and disguise was the most frightening thing of all.
What had she seen in the face of this man? It took her a moment to answer the question. Death was what she'd seen. Controlled. Planned. Disciplined.
But it was still Death, living in the mind of a man.
'I don't like doing this sort of thing, Mr Kelly,' Douglas said back in the room as he adjusted his coat. The detective and the surgeon traded a look of mutual embarrassment.
'John, are you all right?' Rosen looked him over and took his pulse quickly, surprised to find it nearly normal.
'Yeah.' Kelly nodded. He looked at the detective. "That's her. That's Pam.'
'I'm sorry. I really am,' Douglas said with genuine sincerity, 'but there's no easy way to do this. There never is. Whatever happened, it's over now, and now it's our job to try and identify the people who did it. We need your help to do that.'
'Okay,' Kelly said neutrally. 'Where's Frank? How come he's not here?'
'Не can't have a hand in this,' Sergeant