Steven James - The Knight

“Why not?”

Because it might be a trick to get me to leave you alone.

“It’s important. You can drive to my parents’ house afterward. Now, come on.”

She glanced at the bedsheets covering her. “I’m in my pajamas.”

“Grab some clothes. Be quick.” My tone of voice convinced her, and she crawled out of bed. “Where’s your cell?” I asked.

She pointed to the purse on her desk.

I fished out her phone, and while she gathered some clothes I left a voice message for Kurt to get to Bennett’s room ASAP.

“Go in the hall,” she said. “I gotta change.”

“You can change on the way.”

“Um, that would be a no.”

“We’re leaving.” And before she could argue with me anymore, I hustled her to the car.

And I did not drive the legal speed limit on the way to the hospital, but I had a sinking feeling that no matter how fast I drove, I would arrive too late.

The doctors didn’t get to Thomas Bennett in time.

The officer who’d been stationed at the door gave me the news as I pushed past him and burst into his hospital room. Denver’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Eric Bender, who was also the father of Tessa’s friend Dora, stood at the foot of the bed where Thomas Bennett’s body lay. I didn’t recognize the doctor and nurse who stood beside him.

“Pat, I was just going to call you,” Eric said somberly.

I walked to Thomas’s bed. His chest was motionless. His face contorted. It looked like he had died in agony. His eyes were closed. His body, still.

So still.

I felt a rising sting of failure, defeat. Somehow John had gotten to him. How? How!

“Was it his heart?” I asked.

Eric nodded. “Pericardial effusion with necrotizing fasciitis.”

I knew that “pericardial” had to do with the heart, and that an effusion was a release of fluid in the body. I didn’t know what necrotizing fasciitis was. “In layman’s terms.”

“Right. Sorry.” He shook his head as if to rebuke himself. “Necrotizing fasciitis is sometimes called ‘flesh-eating strep.’ It’s an infection. Very dangerous. Spreads rapidly. It looks like someone injected the bacteria into the sac that surrounds his heart.”

“The pericardium,” I said.

“That’s right. It’s not that difficult of a procedure; you just need a long needle, insert it under the xyphoid notch-”

“Early this morning he complained of chest pains,” the other doctor interrupted. “We did an EKG, then an ultrasound, and found fluid and air in the pericardium.”

“Necrotizing fasciitis can only be treated by removing the infected tissue,” Eric explained. “But since it was his heart…” He didn’t need to go on.

I thought about Boccaccio’s story, Gabriotto’s death.

“So basically it was pus, right?” I said. “He died of pus infecting his heart?”

Both doctors and the nurse were quiet for a moment, then Eric said, “That would be an accurate description of what happened.”

A pus-filled abscess bursting near his heart. Exactly like Boc-caccio’s story.

Anger and desperation rolled through me. I looked from Eric to the other doctor. “But they did blood work and a tox screen last night when he got here, right? Why didn’t they catch it?”

“The lab is twelve hours backed up,” Eric said. “Half of it is still being renovated.”

“We were going to finish the tox screen this morning,” the doctor added.

I cursed loud enough for the nurse to respond by pressing a gentle finger to her lips, and I realized she was probably concerned not just about my language but about me waking other patients on the floor. I stepped back from the bed. Tried to calm down. Refocus.

Movement beside the door caught my attention. The police officer I’d seen in the hallway had entered the room and now looked at me nervously.

“Who was in here last night?” I said.

“No one, sir. I swear.” He pointed to the nurse standing beside me. “Not since she came by two hours ago to check his vitals. And I stayed with her the whole time.”

We would interview the hospital staff who’d been treating Thomas Bennett, yes, obviously we would, but I doubted they had anything to do with his death. Somehow John had managed to get to him.

“What about the officer from the earlier shift? The one you relieved?”

He shook his head and pointed again to the nurse, then to the doctor. “He told me they were the only people who’d been in here.”

I tried to relax, to regroup by letting my mind replay the last twenty minutes-after getting Tessa to the car I’d phoned my mother and arranged for Tessa to stay with her “while I met with the people I needed to” at Baptist Memorial. Then we’d arrived at the hospital, and Tessa, who’d managed to change clothes in the backseat, left for my parents’ house.

I’d made two final calls, one to the Bureau’s cybercrime division to see if they could trace the origin of the last call received on my landline, and then, since John had somehow gotten my phone number and I didn’t want to take any chances that he would get to my family, I called dispatch to have a car stationed at my mother’s place.

And now here I was, in the room beside the body of another man I’d failed to save.

My attempt to calm myself down didn’t work. I slammed my hand against the wall, and the four people in the room stared at me quietly.

“I’m all right,” I said.

No, you’re not.

John’s winning.

Eric discreetly nodded for the others to follow him to the hall, but I said, “No. I’m leaving.”

Then I headed to room 228 to check on Kelsey Nash.

I found Kurt standing outside her room, speaking with a police officer.

“She’s OK,” Kurt announced as I joined them. “The doc is in there now.”

I peeked through the doorway.

Kelsey was reclining on the bed, conscious and aware. A slim middle-eastern woman in doctor’s scrubs bent over her while a male nurse checked Kelsey’s vitals. Kurt motioned for the officer beside us to enter the room, and as the man went inside, he left the door partially open. Kurt stepped back so I could monitor what was happening inside the room while we spoke.

“Bennett died of an infection,” I told him.

“I know. I was just up there.”

I shook my head. “It looks like John covered his bases-whether he died from a dog bite or the infection in his heart, Bennett’s death would still match Boccaccio’s story.”

The doctor wrote a few notes on her clipboard, then made a call from the room’s phone.

“Is Thomas’s wife safe?” I asked Kurt.

He nodded. “Protective custody. They’re bringing her over to see the body. We have a female undercover officer at her house and a car down the street. If John shows up looking for Marianne, we’ll be ready for him. Also, we’re looking into any possible connections between the ranch and the mine. Nothing so far.”

As he finished speaking, the doctor joined us in the hallway. “Ms. Nash is stable,” she said. “The lab just called in, and her blood work came back fine. Physically, she’s recovering very well. But mentally, emotionally…” She hesitated. “I don’t know. She hasn’t spoken in almost twenty-four hours. I’m suggesting we put her on suicide watch.”

“Do it,” I said. “Do whatever it takes to help her. She’s our only eyewitness.”

The doctor nodded. “All right. I’ll have her transferred to psych.”

I hated to admit it, but it was true: John had been right about Kelsey too.

She was dying of grief.

After the doctor had left, the officer returned to the hallway, and Kurt gave him specific instructions. “You stay with Ms. Nash every second, even while they’re transferring her to the psych ward.”