David Morrell - Desperate Measures

“A broken window.”

“You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

Pittman didn’t answer.

“We’re not going to get anywhere if you’re not honest,” Jill said. “I’m taking a big chance by helping you. I know you’re not a policeman. You’re Matthew Pittman, and the police are hunting you.”

The shock of her statement brought Pittman upright.

“No,” Jill said. “Don’t try to sit.”

“How long have you-?”

“Lie back down. How long have I known? Since about thirty seconds after you started talking to me at the hospital.”

“Dear God.” This time when Pittman tried to sit up, Jill put a hand on his chest.

“Stay down. I wasn’t kidding. If the bleeding doesn’t stop, you’ll have to go to a hospital.”

Pittman studied her and nodded. Adrenaline offset his light-headedness. “Matt.”

“What?”

“You called me Matthew. My friends call me Matt.”

“Does that mean I’m supposed to think of you as a friend?”

“Hey, it’s better than thinking of me as an enemy.”

“And you’re not?”

“Would you believe me if I said no?”

“It’s not as if you never lied to me before.”

“Look, I don’t get it. If you knew who I was at the hospital, why didn’t you call the police?”

“What makes you think I didn’t? What if I told you I played along with your charade because I was afraid of you? You might have hurt me if I let on I knew who you really were.”

“ Did you phone the police?”

“You don’t remember me, do you?” Jill asked.

“Remember? Where would we have…?”

“I’m not surprised. You were under a lot of stress. About as much as anybody can take.”

“I still don’t…”

“It’s only in the last six months that I’ve been working in adult intensive care.”

Pittman shook his head in confusion.

“Before that, I worked in the children’s section. I left because I couldn’t stand seeing… I was one of Jeremy’s nurses.”

Pittman felt as if his stomach had turned to ice.

“I was on duty the night Jeremy died,” Jill said. “In fact, I’d been on duty all that week. You’d received permission to sit in a corner of the room and watch over him. Sometimes you’d ask me about the meaning of some of the numbers on his life-support machines. Or you’d get a look at his chart and ask me what some of the terms meant. But you weren’t really seeing me. Your sole attention was toward Jeremy. You had a book with you, and sometimes if everything was quiet, you’d read a page or two, but then you’d raise your eyes and study Jeremy, study his monitors, study Jeremy again. I got the feeling that you were focusing all your will, all your energy and prayers, as if by concentrating, you could transfer your strength to Jeremy and cure him.”

Pittman’s mouth felt suddenly dry. “That’s what I thought. Dumb, huh?”

Jill’s eyes glistened. “No, it was one of the most moving things I’ve ever seen.”

Pittman tried to sit up, groping for the glass of water on the table beside the sofa.

“Here, let me help.” Jill raised the glass to his lips.

“Why do you keep looking at me that way?” Pittman asked.

“I remember,” Jill said, “how you helped take care of Jeremy. Little things. Like dipping a washcloth into ice water and rubbing it over him to try to bring down his fever. He was in a coma by then, but all the while you washed him, you were talking to him as if he could hear every word you said.”

Pittman squinted, painfully remembering. “I was sure he could. I thought if I got deep enough into his mind, he’d respond to what I was telling him and wake up.”

Jill nodded. “And then his feet began curling. The doctor told you to massage them and his legs, to try to keep Jeremy’s muscles limber so they wouldn’t atrophy.”

“Sure.” Pittman felt pressure in his throat. “And when his feet still kept curling, I put his shoes on him for an hour, then took them off, then put them on in another hour. After all, when Jeremy would finally come out of the coma, when his cancer would finally be cured, I wanted him to be able to walk normally.”

Jill’s blue eyes became intense. “I watched you every night of my shift all that week. I couldn’t get over your devotion. In fact, even though I was due for two days off, I asked to stay on the case. I was there when Jeremy went into crisis, when he had his heart attack.”

Pittman had trouble breathing.

“So when I read the newspapers and learned all the murders you were supposed to have committed, I didn’t believe it,” Jill said. “Yes, the newspapers theorized you were so overcome with grief that you were suicidal, that you wanted to take other people with you. But after watching you for a week in intensive care, I knew you were so gentle, you couldn’t possibly inflict pain on anyone. Not deliberately. Perhaps on yourself. But not on anyone else.”

“You must have been surprised when I showed up at the hospital.”

“I couldn’t understand what was going on. If you were suicidal and on a killing rampage, why would you come to the intensive-care ward? Why would you pretend to be a detective and ask about Jonathan Millgate’s last night in the ward? That’s not how a guilty person would act. But it is how a person who’s been trapped would act in order to get answers, to try to prove he didn’t do what the police said he did.”

“I appreciate your trust.”

“Hey, I’m not gullible. But I saw the way you suffered when your son died. I’ve never seen anyone love anybody harder. I thought maybe you had a break coming.”

“So you let me pretend I was a detective.”

“What was I supposed to do, admit I knew who you were? You’d have panicked. Right now, you’d be in jail.”

“Or dead.”

A knock on the door made Pittman flinch. He frowned toward Jill. “Are you expecting anyone?”

Jill looked puzzled. “No.”

“Did you lock the door after I came in?”

“Of course. This is New York.”

Again someone knocked.

Pittman mustered the strength to stand. “Bring my overcoat. Put those bandages under the sink in the kitchen. As soon as I’m out of sight in the closet, open the door, but don’t let on that I’m here.”

The third knock was louder. “Open up. This is the police.”

Jill turned toward Pittman.

“The police,” he said. “Maybe. But maybe not. Don’t tell them I’m here.” Apprehension overcame his unsteadiness. He took the overcoat Jill gave him. “Pretend you were sleeping.”

“But what if it is the police and they find you?”

“Tell them I scared you into lying.”

Someone knocked even harder, rattling the door.

Jill raised her voice. “Just a moment.” She looked at Pittman.

He gently touched her arm. “You have to trust me. Please. Don’t tell them I’m here.”

As he hurried toward the closet, he didn’t let Jill see the.45 he took from his overcoat pocket. Heart pounding, he entered, stood between coats, and closed the door, waiting in darkness, feeling smothered.

After a moment during which he assumed Jill was hiding any further indication that he had come to the apartment, Pittman heard her put the chain on the main door, then unlock the dead bolt. He imagined her opening the door only to the slight limit of the chain, peering through a gap in the doorway.

“Yes? How can I help you?”

“What took you so long?”

“You woke me up. I work nights. I was sleeping.”

“Let us in.”

“Not until I see your ID.”

Startled, Pittman heard a crash, the sound of wood splintering, the door being shoved open, the chain being yanked out of the doorjamb.