Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) (36 page)

But instead of making fun of him, Nurse Bouchard nodded, smiling sadly.

“I felt the same way the day before my husband Gerald died. All day long, I just kept cleaning the house…going through the mail…calling up all my kids. Just to figure out what in the hell I was forgetting about.”

The secretary from Mt. Sinai came back on the line then, but just long enough to announce another goose egg from her end.

“Thank you anyway,” Sam said, before hanging up.

For a few seconds, he just sat there quietly, making awkward eye contact with the old nurse. He knew she hadn’t told him her story so that he’d feel sorry for her, and yet there was something about the moment that made him want to apologize for treating her as less than a person. Just because she didn’t wear her fears and emotions on her sleeve, it didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling them. Actually, in a way, Nurse Bouchard reminded him a little bit of Viola.

“Can I ask you a question, Nurse Bouchard?”

“Lucinda,” she corrected him, without even missing a beat. “Go ahead.”

“Before your husband passed away, did you ever tell him?” Sam searched for the word to explain what he wanted to know, but he couldn’t quite find the right one. Love seemed too trite. Need seemed too dramatic.

Lucinda shook her head. Her smile was tight, like somehow she already knew what he was trying to ask, and she wished he hadn’t gone there. But then she answered anyway.

“You know, bitchy geriatric nurse that I am, I never fully did.”
Sam felt his ears heating up, and he stared down at his phone in an attempt to hide the shame on his face. The voice mail alert on his phone was blinking, but he hadn’t noticed until just now. Before he could press it, Lucinda covered his hand with hers. It was gentle, not threatening.

“But I showed him how I felt, every damn day he was alive.”

With that, she stood up and sauntered over to the salad bar. Sam was left to stare after her and wonder what she’d meant. Was she telling him to prove how he felt, or hinting that Viola already had?

Pushing the question to the back of the pile—because it was way too complicated for his stress-riddled brain to deal with at the moment—Sam checked his voicemail.

The moment he heard Viola’s voice in his ear, he took off. Running through the hallway and into the stairwell, too afraid to take the elevator because it might cut off part of her message, Sam beat a path toward the parking lot.

As he clumsily dodged his way around patients, visitors and various hospital employees, he felt like he was being split into two separate people—the boyfriend, or whatever he was, who was just floored to hear his girl’s voice, and the doctor who was freaking out over the way she sounded. Not crazy, exactly. But definitely altered. Her words were slurred and confused, like she’d been drugged. He needed to find her. Now.

He called her, and it went straight to voice mail. Either her phone was off, or she was on it. He suspected the former. Statistically, fate couldn’t be that cruel.

It wasn’t until he was behind the wheel of the minivan that he realized: she’d never actually said the name of the hotel she was in. Before starting the engine, he played back the message a second time. No, there were no usable details in what she’d said. Just a lot of really bizarre statements that didn’t add up to peace of mind in Sam’s book.

At one point, he thought he even heard her say something about a stupid song, which made absolutely no sense. But it did give him an idea about how to find out where she was.

Pulling up YouTube on his phone, he searched for that terrible “Wake for Me” video, then followed the link at the bottom to Aiden Faux’s website. Of course, the site wouldn’t have his phone number on it, but it would have his…yes, there it was, Calvin Parker Management. He pulled up a second search window and found the manager’s office, which was located in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, when he called the number, there was just an automated answering system with a bunch of unhelpful options. Not one of them would’ve taken him to an actual human being.

Sam hung up the phone, tapping his fingers angrily on the steering wheel as his mind reeled through a series of options, none of them promising.

That was when he realized, there was one trump card he held, but had never actually played.

It was still only seven-thirty in Los Angeles at the moment. Scrolling through his directory for the name Brady, Sam clicked on the second entry.

After about five seconds, a deep, booming voice answered. “This is Keith.”

“Hi, Keith? It’s Sam, Brady’s friend…from school? We met at that thing last year? Anyway, I was wondering if you could do me a really big favor. Could you ask your agent to track down a cell phone number for me? It’s an emergency.”

“Of course,” Brady’s dad said, his signature charm practically oozing through the phone. “Anything for my son’s BFF.”

Sighing with relief, Sam told him the talent manager’s name.

“Thanks, Keith. And…” Sam awkwardly searched for something to say that would come off as complimentary instead of weird. “Great job on last week’s show. It was…great.”

“Hey, thanks a lot. I like to know when I’m staying true to the trade, brother. You kids keep up the good work now, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

A few moments later, Sam’s phone lit up with a text message.
Calvin Parker, seems like a pretty righteous dude
. Below the name, there were two numbers listed: home and cell.

Sam went straight for the cell number, holding his breath as it rang.

“Yell-o.”

“Hello—Calvin Parker?”

“Yeah?”

“My name is Dr. Philips. I work at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in Brooklyn.” He cleared his throat, trying to sound less nervous and more authoritative. “I urgently need to contact one of your clients, regarding some, uh—extremely sensitive test results. He’s not answering his home phone number, and he listed you as one of his emergency contacts.”

“Oh, wow. That sounds serious.”

“It is,” Sam lied. “Would you be willing to give me Aiden Faux’s cell phone number?”

Forty-five minutes later, Sam pulled up in front of the Waldorf Astoria and threw the minivan’s keys to the valet.

Trying his best not to break into a sprint, he approached the front desk. There was a short line of very affluent-looking people waiting to check in, and only one concierge. Usually Sam would’ve politely waited his turn, but this situation was far from usual.

“Excuse me,” he said, pushing his way through the line. “Sorry, but this is an emergency.”

His tone and height seemed to part the tide in front of him, but when he came to the desk, he found himself being stared down—or actually up—by a small, haughty-looking bald man whose gold name tag simply read ‘Stephen: Concierge.’ From the openly disgusted way the guy was eyeing Sam’s track suit and now eleven o’ clock shadow, he didn’t seem to think Sam was deserving of much concierge-ry.

Well, Sam thought, as he drew himself up to his best ‘angry giant’ posture, this smarmy bastard was about to experience the pants-wetting urgency of daytime hospital drama.

“I’m looking for one of my patients,” he said, in his best Dr. Bel-Air voice, as he planted both hands on the desk. “She’s on the lam from a medical LSD study. One of the nurses gave her too strong a dose, and she ran off. If I don’t find her and administer the antidote within the next thirty minutes, she could very well end up dead.”

“Sir,” Stephen said, totally calm, “I don’t think I can….”
“I need to find this patient, STAT!” Sam yelled, hitting the desk with his hand, and undoubtedly upsetting more than a few of the wealthy patrons in the lobby. Sure, Stephen might call the cops, but it would likely make even more of a scene.

“Yes, sir,” the concierge responded, much more coolly. “Of course, I’d be happy to help. But you haven’t yet told me the guest’s name.”

Oh, right. Shit.

Sam cleared his throat. Nice going, Dr. Bel-Air.

“Bellerose,” he said, more quietly. “Viola Bellerose.” Then, “Do you need me to spell it?”

“No, sir,” the concierge said, with a completely straight face. “I’m very familiar with that name.”

***

Sam practically leapt off the elevator as soon as he reached Viola’s floor.

Even though Stephen had given up the room number, Sam wasn’t totally positive that the concierge hadn’t also notified security. He needed to hurry. If all he succeeded in doing was making sure Viola was safe, he’d be happy to let them drag him off in handcuffs—but only after he saw her, alive and well, with his own eyes.

When he got to the right room, Sam knocked loudly at the door.

There was no answer. Instead of waiting, Sam knocked louder. When there was still no answer, he started yelling.

“Viola?” He shouted, leaning heavily against the door. “Viola, I know you’re upset with me, because I didn’t believe you. And I get it. But I do now, I really do. I don’t think you’re crazy.” He lowered his voice slightly, confessing to the wood paneling as if a priest listened behind it. “Actually, I never did. I was just so worried, when you ran away from me. I thought it meant that you didn’t trust me. I realize now that you trusted me more than you ever should’ve. I was the one who broke that trust. And I should’ve trusted you more. I should’ve told you I believed in you, because I do.”

After a few seconds of silence, Sam could’ve sworn he heard movement coming from the other side of the door.

“Viola?” He got loud again, pounding on the door as hard as he could. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Sam looked up and down the hallway on either side of him, but there was no one in sight. If he kept this up though, security guards would be bearing down on him any time now. Hey, if he was going to get dragged off anyway….

“Viola, if you don’t open the door, I am totally prepared to break it down. I’m not leaving until I see that you’re okay. Please. Just open the—“

The door swung open, and Sam practically fell inside. It took some very fancy twisting and sheer coordination to keep from landing on his face. When it slammed shut behind him, he turned, ready to pull Viola safely into his arms, no matter how mad at him she was.

Instead, he found himself face to face with Jacques Gosselin. The guy who was supposed to be in mid-air on his way to Paris. He looked upset. Frantic.

“Oh,
mon Dieu
,” he said, reaching out to grasp Sam’s arm, far too tightly. “You’re here, it’s a miracle!”

Miracle? Sam was genuinely confused. It seemed more like a gigantic misunderstanding.

“I thought you were in Paris.”

“I was on my way to the airport, when dear Viola called me,” Jacques explained, in his same breathless, overly dramatic voice. “She asked me to meet her, and said she wanted to apologize. That she was wrong.”

With Sam’s arm still clutched in his sweaty hand, the Frenchman started backing into the gigantic and very expensive-looking hotel room, all the time keeping the other hand in his pocket. Sam didn’t have to be a doctor to see that the guy was about three seconds away from having a stroke.

Add to Jacques’ obvious physical signs the fact that he’d said Viola had called him to apologize, and—no. Absolutely not. Apologize for being wrong? Viola? No fucking way.

Sam followed him warily, but only because he needed to know what was going on.

The moment he stepped into the bedroom, and Jacques stepped aside, Sam knew he’d come to the right place. The bedroom was empty, except for some trash and what looked like the remnants of the mini bar, strewn all over the rumpled white sheets.

“What happened?” He gestured to the closed bathroom door. “Is Viola in there? Is she hurt?”

Sam’s mysterious tugging sensation increased, pulling at him so suddenly that he turned and faced Jacques, before moving to open the bathroom door.

The Frenchman was pointing a gun at him. With a sudden, icy cold clarity, Sam realized that it wasn’t stroke symptoms that he saw, but the signs of a desperate man who had finally reached the end of his rope. White-faced and sweating, hands shaking, Jacques Gosselin had the look of someone who had nothing to lose.

There was nothing more dangerous in the world.

Except for a guy who still held onto a thin shred of hope that the woman he loved was alive. A guy whose older brother had been nationally ranked for total offense three years running, and who’d started teaching him the art of the takedown at age five. Without waiting to hear the Frenchman’s undoubtedly compelling excuses for being a soulless, hate-filled motherfucker, Sam rushed him, slamming his left shoulder into Jacques’ chest while his right hand hit the gun from underneath, knocking it up and away.

The gun flew across the room, but Sam didn’t bother to chase it. Instead, he did a quick one-eighty and broke the Frenchman’s nose, then doubled him over and kneed him in the solar plexus hard enough to hear ribs snapping. When Jacques fell to his knees, and then went down on the floor, Sam knew—as a doctor—that he wasn’t getting up any fucking time soon, if ever.

It didn’t really matter right now, because it was time to face whatever was on the other side of that door. Sam reached out to grab the handle and froze—only for a moment. The door was locked. Taking a deep breath and a step back, he kicked the door open to see Viola curled up on a corner of the bathroom floor. She looked so small and helpless, and her eyes were closed. There was blood everywhere.

The way his chest constricted, seeing her like that, it should have brought Sam to his knees. It should have incapacitated him for life. Somehow, it didn’t.

Somehow, he was able to reach deep within himself and tap into a kind of hidden well of calm.

“Viola, can you hear me? You’re going to be okay.”

Kneeling next to her, he rolled her gently onto her back, tilted her head and leaned down to check her breathing. She was breathing, but shallowly. When his face turned to look at hers, there was a tiny, self-satisfied smile on her lips.

“Sam,” she breathed, right before her head lulled to one side, and she lost consciousness.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE