John Sandford - Storm prey

"I'm sorry," Crowe said. "Had he ever done anything that, looking back, might make you think that he might have been involved with the pharmacy robbery at the hospital?"

"Addie? No! Not at all. He was… mmm… a timid man, really. This is one reason he liked cocaine, because then he was not so timid. He could go to parties and talk with the girls, you know? But a robbery, I can't believe this."

"How was he financially?"

"He had no money… "

They talked for ten minutes, and Barakat began developing an irrational fear that Cappy would do something insane, like flush a toilet, or appear with a gun, or even creak a floorboard. None of that happened, and the cops trailed off with a few incidental questions, and left, apparently satisfied.

When the car had gone, Barakat walked back to the bedroom, opened the door: nobody. Then Cappy asked, "They gone?" and sat up from a spot on the floor, behind the bed.

"They know nothing. Still, I am uneasy, you know? This woman… if she sees Addie's picture in the newspaper, or on the TV, she may remember another man in the elevator. I do not look like Addie, but there is a similarity."

"So, we take her out."

"If possible. Then, we have only Joe Mack. Joe Mack continues to worry me."

"He's gone, man," Cappy said. "I don't think even Joe is dumb enough to come back here, not after all this."

Barakat followed Cappy to the hospital, up into the ramp, and then past him to the physicians' parking, and into the hospital through a different entrance. Cappy would scout the hallways in his civilian clothes, and then stop by the closet for the scrubs.

Cappy, Barakat thought, could become a problem. He would have to deal with that later, if the police didn't do it first. He doubted that Cappy, from the way he talked, would be taken alive; he was convincing about that, a young man rushing toward death.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Sandy Groetch looked up from the operating table and said, "I'm done."

There was a rustle of talk both in the operating room and up above, in the observation room, as Rick Hanson moved in with his saws. Up above, Weather stood up and headed for the door, led by Virgil and trailed by Lucas.

In the hall outside, Weather said, "We're almost there."

"What was that talk about Ellen?"

"It's her heart again. The last time they dropped the blood pressure to try to reduce the stress on her heart, it got away from them and Ellen almost arrested. But now they've started treating them separately. Now we've got a chance."

"I thought we always had a chance," Virgil said.

"We liked to think so, but the chance was pretty small," Weather said. They got to the stairway and headed down, Virgil leading. "If both of them live, it'll be pretty much of a miracle."

They took her to the scrub room and waited there, in the hall.

Another plastic surgeon, named Tremaine Cooper, was scrubbing when she got there. She joined him, and he asked, "Got any ideas about the fit?"

"Can't tell, but Rick's stayed right on the nominal cut line, as close as I can tell. If he's a little outside it, we're okay. I just hope that he didn't get inside."

A maxio-facial surgeon at the hospital had prepared caps made from a composite material to fit inside the defects in the twins' skulls. Weather and Cooper would fit the caps into the defects, before stretching the expanded scalps over the holes.

Weather added, as they finished scrubbing, "I'll tell you what, Trey. They're gonna want one thing from us, and that won't be neatness. They're gonna want to get the last expanders out, the caps in, and the scalps stitched up, fast as we can do it. They want to get those kids out of here and into the ICU."

"Fast as we can," Tremaine agreed.

"So if you get done before me," Weather said, "don't hesitate to come over and help me out."

"I'll do that," he said.

Weather was faster than Cooper. By making the offer, she diplomatically cleared the way to help him finish, if that were needed.

Inside the OR, they waited while Hanson finished taking out the last bit of the ring of bone. He was sweating profusely, but five or six minutes after they stepped inside, he said, "That's it."

Not unlike drywall repair, Weather thought. Then: Well, yes, it is unlike drywall repair.

Maret: "Okay, everybody, we're doing good, now. Let's move the kids. First thing, check all the lines. We don't want to yank anything out, from clumsiness."

The checks were quick, but not perfunctory. The monitoring, anesthesia, and saline lines going into the children were now separate, but there were a lot of them, and included no-longer-functioning joint lines. The team traced them out, moved a few around, and then Maret said, "Let's make the move. Let's make the move."

Weather was standing in a sterile isolation area, where the non-sterile circulating nurses were not allowed, and had an end-on view of the tables. Hanson, Maret, and one of the anesthesiologists gripped the form-fitting foam cushion on which the twins lay, and carefully, slowly, pulled them apart.

As the cushions moved, the twins slowly, for the first time in their lives, drew apart, an inch at a time, then more quickly, until six feet separated them.

Maret turned to Weather and Cooper: "Quickly, now. Quickly."

Weather had Sara, Cooper had Ellen. She first took out the two expanders, silicone balloons filled with saline solution-a bloody process because the scalp had to be lifted away from the skull. Once the balloons were out, she worked around the edges of the loosened skin, where it was still attached to Sara's skull.

"Ah, shit," Cooper said. She glanced sideways and saw Cooper with blood spattered on his operating glasses. In cutting the scalp away from the skull, he'd cut through a tiny artery, which squirted blood up into his face and glasses. He cauterized it, and the smell of burning blood drifted through the room.

When she thought she was ready, with a little to spare, Weather said, "Cap," and a neurosurgeon moved in with a composite piece marked with tiny orientation grooves. He got it the right way around and placed it in the defect, and Weather saw it almost click into place. The cap would be held down by two tiny stainless-steel screws, and, finally, by the scalp, as it grew back.

The surgeon said, "You do good work, Rick," and, "Drill, please."

Weather stepped back from the table, holding her hands against her stomach to keep from bumping anything non-sterile, and glanced up at the watchers. Only a glance, and then she kept her head resolutely down, for she'd seen, in the glance, the skinhead. Virgil and Lucas had described him, and there was no doubt about it.

"First screw is in," the neurosurgeon said, and behind him, Cooper, working on Ellen, said, "Cap," and a moment later, another neurosurgeon said, "Just like the cap on a Ball jar."

Weather kept her eyes down, thinking. A surgical pen, last used by Hanson, was sitting on an equipment tray. She reached out, picked it up, stepped behind the neurosurgeon, and wrote on the sleeve of her operating gown, "Do not look up. Go in the hallway and tell my husband that the skinhead is in the observation area. Do not hurry."

She said to one of the circulating nurses, whom she'd known for a while, and who knew who Lucas was, "Kristy, could you get me one of the large gauze pads, please?"

The nurse stepped over to a supply cabinet, picked up a pad, slit the packaging without touching the sterile gauze, and brought it over to Weather. Weather held out the arm with the writing on it, still concealed behind the neurosurgeon's back, slowly pulled the gauze pad out of the packaging.

Kristy looked down at the writing on Weather's sleeve, and she almost looked up, but didn't. Her eyes came to Weather's, and she gave a tiny nod. No dummy.