Bodily Harm (10 page)

THREE TREE POINT
BURIEN, WASHINGTON

“OH MY GOD,” Tina said.

Sloane had just explained the findings of the doctor’s autopsy, which he had read in the car before leaving Mossylog. Mateo Gallegos had been taken to the hospital in a coma and, like Austin McFarland, when initial treatment was ineffective, further blood tests were taken, but too late. The throat swab had come back negative for the flu virus, but the blood cultures confirmed the boy had septicemia, commonly referred to as blood poisoning. The word had nearly leapt off the page when Sloane read it. Could it be coincidence that two boys who presented with symptoms of the flu, both died from a very aggressive bacterial infection seemingly caused by an infectious source somewhere in the body? Sloane didn’t think so. And while Mateo Gallegos did show physical signs of having suffered a puncture wound to his abdomen, likely from having fallen on a rusty nail, the autopsy
had also revealed perforations in his intestinal walls, perforations caused when several powerful magnets attracted one another and pinched the lining, cutting off blood supply to that area.

“Something bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was just a gut reaction that Douvalidis did not do anything wrong.”

They sat in silence, thinking of the consequences.

Tina said, “Well, it doesn’t mean he
wasn’t
negligent, right? I mean shouldn’t he have diagnosed it, or at least had X-rays taken?”

Sloane knew Tina was trying to ease his conscience, but the two-hour drive home had given him time to think through the implications, and it had done nothing to make him feel better. “Douvalidis had no reason to suspect Austin swallowed anything because there were no signs he had choked, and even if he had suspected it, eighty percent of the things a child swallows are excreted. I’m going to have to check, but I’m fairly certain this is not something that has been heavily documented in the literature. These types of magnets are relatively new and untested.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. They’ve buried their son, Tina. Eva said the verdict would be a new start for all of them. How can I make them go back? How could I even bring up the subject again?”

AFTER TINA DRIFTED off to sleep Sloane knew he would not be as fortunate. He sneaked downstairs, made a cup of chamomile tea, and stepped into his office to reconsider the Gallegos file in greater detail. He also took out the newspaper, which he had shoved in his case that morning without reading. He started to set the newspaper aside when a headline caught his attention.

BUILDING MANAGER
BEATEN TO DEATH

Latest Pioneer Square Attack
Has Residents on Edge

The headline was above the fold, the article below it. He flipped over the paper and felt the air rush from his lungs.

Seattle Police went door to door yesterday seeking information in the death of a Pioneer Square building manager. Edgar Paterno, 53, was found beaten to death in his apartment on Jackson Street, in a building he managed. Detectives would release little information, but witnesses said Paterno was discovered by the building owner, who had gone to collect the rent. What the owner found instead was something he described as a “horror.”

“Interesting reading?”

The voice startled him. Not Tina. Not Jake.

Sloane sprung from his chair, heart in his throat. A man stood just inside his office door. Sloane didn’t wait to ask questions or to determine the man’s intent. He took two quick steps and bull-rushed him, but grabbed at air. The man sidestepped him and turned his body, then lowered an elbow into the small of Sloane’s back, driving him to a knee. Grimacing, Sloane rose, turned, and arced a left hook at the man’s head, but with the element of surprise gone the man raised his right arm, blocked the blow and countered, knuckles striking hard against Sloane’s rib cage. The force of the punch, and Sloane’s momentum, sent him crashing off-kilter into the file cabinet and he again fell to his knees. Back
on his feet, fighting to catch his breath, ribs aching, he spun and started for the intruder, but the man now held a gun, aiming a long cylinder screwed onto the end of the barrel directly between Sloane’s eyes, stopping his advance.

He had produced the weapon as fast as a card trick.

“Do you know the problem with being famous, Mr. Sloane? It makes it so easy for someone to find information about you. What you do . . . Where you live . . . Who lives with you.”

Sloane’s side felt as though it had burst into flames, and he fought to regain his breath. The implication that the man had been researching him brought greater alarm, but there was something else more disturbing—a feeling that Sloane knew the man, though he could not immediately recall how.

Sloane contemplated the gun he kept in his upper desk drawer but saw no way to get to it.

“People think using P.O. boxes will keep their address confidential, but there are all those applications out there to the bar association, health clubs, school records, wine clubs, and now they’re all online. Just about anyone motivated to do so can violate the sanctity of our personal privacy.”

Well-muscled, the man had a dark complexion and shoulder-length hair pulled into a ponytail. But that was not the image of the man Sloane continued to try to pull from the recesses of his mind. The image formulating was of a man wearing a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead.

“People don’t think twice about divulging their home addresses and telephone numbers to the school nurse,” the man continued. “You really can’t be too careful with all the crazies around today.”

The image cleared. The diner in Mossylog. The man had entered as Sloane went to Gallegos’s booth and then had sat across from them. Sloane had asked him for sweetener.

The man picked up the paper from Sloane’s desk, considering the article. “Some people just have no respect for the laws of society,” he said.

There was something dark about the man’s demeanor, something perverse and unnatural in the calm he projected. Most men, no matter how brave, no matter how lopsided the odds in their favor, would have shown some reservation, some hint of nerves at an impending encounter. But dressed in a black sweat suit and gloves the man looked like he had just finished a casual jog along the beach. This was no amateur.

Sloane needed to find a way to get the man out of the house, away from Tina and Jake.

“What is it you want?”

“You’re a bright man, Mr. Sloane. I think you know why I’m here.”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

He sighed. “I came for Kyle Horgan’s file.”

“I don’t have it,” Sloane said. “It’s at my office in Seattle.”

The man moved the newspaper to the side and looked down at the file on Sloane’s desk. “Don’t worry, Mr. Sloane, I have no interest in your wife or son. I even waited until you put them both to bed. I was hoping you had gone to sleep. I didn’t expect you to be awake. Insomnia? That explains the chamomile tea. I also avoid caffeine.”

Sloane maintained eye contact though he thought again of the gun. If he was going to die, he was going to do so fighting to stay alive.

“All right, there’s the file. Take it and go,” he said.

“As I said, that had been my intent, but I’m afraid you’ve seen me, and . . . well, I can’t have that in my line of work.”

Sloane raised his hands. “I don’t want my wife and kid to see this. Okay? Let’s go outside.”

“Very noble, Mr. Sloane. As you wish.”

The man motioned with the gun and Sloane started for the door. Footsteps descended the staircase, and it brought a wave of panic.

“David?”

The man diverted his eyes to the sound.

“Tina, run!”

Even as he yelled, Sloane had already turned, stepped, and leapt toward his desk, hearing the gun explode. His thigh burst in searing pain. He cleared the desk and barrel-rolled onto the floor behind it. Somehow he had managed to grab the drawer handle as he fell, pulling it from the desk, its contents spilling about the floor.

“David!”

Sloane fumbled through the debris, grabbed the butt of the gun, and rose from behind the desk. The second bullet hit him in the shoulder, knocking him backward and causing his reflexes to squeeze the trigger, firing twice, though well off aim. From his back he watched in horror as the man’s arm swept toward the staircase. Tina leaned over the side, looking down at them, eyes wide. Sloane struggled to his knees, blood seeping from the wounds in his thigh and right shoulder. His right arm dangled useless at his side. He fought to raise the gun, but his hand no longer held it.

Sloane grabbed the side of the desk, pulling himself to his knees. The man glanced back over his shoulder, and smiled.

“NO!”

Instinct caused Tina to step away from the rail. The bullet shoved her backward against the wall then she fell, arms splayed, her body impacting against the stairs, seeming to bounce, and hit again. At first she did not move, then, slowly, her body slid down, coming to rest on the landing. The man walked to where she lay, standing over her, watching, seeming to delight in the fear and
shock etched on her face. Sloane reached out, but his leg would not move, and he toppled forward, facedown onto the wood floor. He raised his head, watching. Tina spit blood, choking, struggling to breathe.

The man reentered the office, bent to a knee, and placed the barrel of the gun to Sloane’s temple. “Ask for mercy, Mr. Sloane, and I may grant it.”

Sloane grimaced, struggling to speak. His eyes fixated on Tina.

“No jokes? No funny puns?”

He shifted his focus, looking up. “I’m going to kill you . . .” he sputtered.

The man shook his head. “As a lawyer, Mr. Sloane, I think you would agree with me that the current state of the evidence makes the chances of that occurring highly unlikely.” The man glanced back at Tina. “As I said, I did my best to avoid just this kind of scenario. It seems you are not the only one with insomnia. The wrong place at the wrong time, I’m afraid.”

“Mom!” Jake thundered down the stairs to the landing, dropping the phone as he did. It clattered onto the hardwood.

“Jake, run!”

But the boy fell atop his mother, his face a mask of pain and agony. “Mom! Mom!”

“Doesn’t anyone in this house sleep?” The man stood from his crouch.

Sloane grabbed the man’s boot, but he had no strength, and it pulled free of his grip. Sloane sat up, reaching out, watching as the man took aim at the back of Jake’s head.

“No.”

A siren wailed, close.

The man turned his head to the sound, then to the phone on the ground. He picked it up, considering the last dialed number. “Nine-one-one. Smart boy.”

He replaced the gun inside his jacket and stepped back into the office, seemingly undisturbed by the now howling sirens or the flash of lights reflecting on the office windows. He retrieved Kyle Horgan’s file, flipping through it.

Voices sounded outside.

Closing the file, he slipped it under his arm, and looked again at Sloane. Then he glided out the French doors, past Jake and Tina, and blended back into the darkness.

HIS FEET SLIPPED in the trail of blood seeping from his wounds, but somehow he found the strength, pulling with the fingers of his one good hand, pushing with his one leg, inches at a time, his only focus reaching her. Nearing, he grabbed for the banister, but the blood caused his hand to slip from the rail, leaving a red smear on the white paint. He struggled forward another inch, gripped the wooden pole, and pulled himself the final distance.

Jake lay over his mother’s body, sobbing.

Banging on the door reverberated throughout the house.

Jake raised his head, his face streaked with his mother’s blood.

“Dead bolt,” Sloane said, gasping for air. “Go.”

Jake rose and ran from the room.

Sloane bit back the pain and pulled himself next to her. Tina lay with her head on the bottom stair, eyes open. Her chest fluttered as it rose and fell.

“Tina?”

He lifted himself so she could see his face but her eyes stared absently, pupils dilated.

“Tina?”

Mouth open, she began to moan, a haunting, staccato sound.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m right here.”

Her chest rose, each breath becoming more shallow.

“No,” he cried. “Tina. Please. Don’t leave me. Stay with me.”

Her limbs stiffened, her chest trembled, rapid breaths, eyes wide.

“Tina! Tina! No. Don’t go. Please. Please. Don’t go.”

He heard the sound of people rushing into the house, toward them.

She blinked, and for a moment her pupils fixated on him.

“Stay with me,” he said. “Stay with me.”

HIGHLINE COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
BURIEN, WASHINGTON

LIGHTS BLURRED OVERHEAD, blinding him and creating halos of light around the faces hovering above him.

“Forty-seven-year-old male. Gunshot wounds to the right leg and right shoulder, likely forty caliber. Extensive blood loss at scene. Patient is awake. No loss of consciousness.”

A different voice. “Pressure’s eighty over fifty. Heart rate a hundred and ten, respirations twenty-five with oxygen saturation of ninety-two percent.”

“Get a dopamine drip started, run it open. Prepare to intubate.”

“Dr. Tressel is in the OR.”

A mask pinched Sloane’s face. Needles punctured his arms. Tubes led to bags hanging overhead. He heard the sound of his own breathing, but he could not speak, could not ask anyone the one thing that mattered.

Where is she?

He had promised he would stay with her. He had promised he would not let her go.

“He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“His pressure is dropping.”

He felt cold. He had never felt so cold.

“On my call. Go.”

The overhead light brightened, blinding. He felt hands lifting him up before placing him back down. Others cut the clothing from his body.

“Do we have X-rays yet?”

Hands touched his chest and abdomen. He felt the cold on his back. “Patient has gunshot wound entrance site in right upper shoulder and right midthigh. Log roll him.”