“And this is Nancy, who assists as long as you press enough cash into her hand,” O'Groghan continued.
“I can't deny it but I'm not the monster you two are,” she said to both men.
“What operation?” Lozen asked.
“Organs,” O'Groghan said, uncharacteristically revealing to this young girl the nature of his business.
“You're taking my sister's organs?”
“Worth more than their weight in gold.” Despite himself, O'Groghan sounded boastful. He glanced at his T-shirt, pulled an invisible piece of lint from the shoulder, looked again for signs of Honey Rider, and continued, “Very, very good business I started a few years ago.”
“You'll kill her,” Lozen said, pulling again against O'Groghan's grip. “For money you'll kill her?”
“But your sister is going to save so many lives. Give sight to someone. Get someone else off dialysis. Save little Johnny waiting for a heart. You should be proud,” O'Groghan said.
“Don't mock her, O'Groghan,” Nancy said from the table.
“You can't do that!” Lozen cried.
“We're about to start,” von Broughton said. “As soon as Nancy administers the pentobarbital. You have not started the pentobarbital yet, nurse?”
“No, doctor,” Nancy said, falling easily back into her role as nurse.
“Well, if it's okay with our financier, I'd like to get started as soon as we learn what to do with this intruder.”
“No!” Lozen cried and pulled violently against O'Groghan's grip. He stood as a pillar.
“Wow,” O'Groghan said. “Just like her sister. I'm impressed, but she better not get my shirt bloody.”
“Take me! Take my organs! They're better anyway!” Lozen stopped and looked at Nancy imploringly.
A silence fell on the room.
“What do you mean, they're better?” von Broughton, who had moved to the autopsy table, asked.
“Better. They're better. Elizabeth was sick. Sick when she was a girl.”
“Sick?” Dr. von Broughton asked.
O'Groghan looked at him and said, “Should I care if she was sick? Her organs are still there, right?”
“Yes you should care, Mr. O'Groghan. Depending on the sickness, her organs may display signs. Tuberculosis is detectable in removed lungs. If she had hepatitis C that caused cirrhosis, even if cured her liver is scarred. Try to sell those. You won't,” von Broughton said.
O'Groghan jerked Lozen's left arm again and again Lozen cried out in pain. “What disease? What did she have?”
“I don't know. I was younger than she was. She was a runner but had to quit, had to stay out of school for months. Something bad.”
“Something?” von Broughton asked.
“Some kind of fever is what I remember. Just take mine. I never got it. Never got sick,” Lozen said.
“An intriguing idea,” von Broughton said.
“Can you do it?” O'Groghan asked.
“Of course I can do it,” von Broughton said. “I can do all those others, I can do this one.”
“Someone's coming here in less than six hours for another cooler. Can you do it by then?”
“Probably, but it'll be close. Definitely not the eyes, though. I'll need at least 30 minutes more for the eyes. When I say I need six hours, I need six hours.”
“Alright, doctor. We'll reset the clock and you get your full six hours. Same money, though,” O'Groghan said. He turned to Nancy and said, “Same money.”
Nancy nodded in reply. She reached up and placed her hand on Elizabeth's ankle. Although viscerally she wanted to run from the basement and save this new girl too, at least she was saving the one on the table, Nancy thought. What is in this girl's eyes that affected me so? But $8,000 is $8,000 so let's knock this one out before I get attached to her too, Nancy thought.
“Same money, but let's get this one under before I change my mind,” she said.
“That's why you're my favorite nurseth on eartheth, Nancy. Always flexible. Always professional,” von Broughton said. He walked to the cabinet, retrieved a syringe, loaded it with desflurane, plus a little more for good measure, and said, “Let's get it on.”
Realizing she had, hopefully, just saved Elizabeth's life, Lozen's body relaxed. A satisfied peace, a contentment that all her affairs were in order and her life had fulfilled its purpose, soaked into her. Lozen became La Pieta but was no longer marble. She was not hard and cold as before. Shimmers rose and swirled above the autopsy table until they merged into each other, spread horizontally in a thin line along the ceiling, passed the operating table lights, hit the walls, and spread downward. Something in the ether spoke to Lozen. Denver. Elizabeth is in Denver and is not going to die. Her body became soft and warm and she slumped to the floor, done.
Chapter 32
The voices of Dr. von Broughton and O'Groghan's wheezing driver Eddie pulled Elizabeth from her desflurane sleep several hours later. Although awake, she couldn't seem to pull her eyelids open. The first several words were a muddle, as if spoken miles away and directed into the living room through a pipe. But after a few minutes, the words worked their way into her conscious mind.
“I'll have to check with my boss. You said six hours and that was six hours ago.” Wheeze wheeze.
“Twenty minutes, Eddie, and you get the eyes. You stop me now, no eyes. Your call. Call your boss if you must, mon ami.”
“Should I get him?”
“I don't really care if you get him. Just tell me soon.”
“Let me get him.”
Elizabeth managed, through great effort, to lift her eyelids slightly and she watched, through the blur of her eye lashes, Eddie pass through the living room. In the drug-addled recesses of her mind she wondered what happened to Chase, whose place she had taken on the couch. Deeper still, a thought cried, “Dead, I hope. Dead.” But despite her wish, in her chest she felt his presence out there somewhere. Gone from the house and moving away.
Eddie passed out the front door and Elizabeth let the weight of her eyelids pull her eyes closed again. What seemed to Elizabeth seconds later, the front door opened.
“You said six hours.”
Despite the drug lingering in her veins, Elizabeth felt her muscles tighten at the sound of this new voice. The man with the tight white T-shirt. O'Groghan. Her conscious mind's meandering journey to the surface was jerked into a straight line by the cold, cruel sound of it. She opened her eyes and watched him walk into the kitchen, followed by a gaunt figure in his 50s. Eddie.
“I know what I said, Paddy. Didn't quite make it. Everything's out and I'm almost done with the eyes. Twenty minutes and they're yours. You'll want them. Perfect condition.”
“You got your twenty minutes,” O'Groghan said.
“Good decision. You won't regret it,” Dr. von Broughton said as he entered the stairway leading to the basement. O'Groghan followed closely behind and Elizabeth relaxed.
I've got to get out of here, she thought to herself clearly, but how? Chase is gone, probably in that car in the garage. This guy O'Groghan is probably parked out front. The doctor's or nurse's car? I can't count on them leaving the keys in any of them. She flexed her ankles and lifted her legs off the couch to test them. Not ready to run.
As these thoughts worked their way through Elizabeth's mind, more clearly as each minute passed, she listened to the muffled voices of Dr. von Broughton and Nancy talk to each other in clipped sentences.
“Clips.”
“Yes.”
“Bag.”
“Wait. OK.”
“Hold.”
“Yes.”
“Wider.”
“Sorry.”
She heard a silence, then Dr. von Broughton say, “Je suis fini! Less than 20 minutes and perfect condition.”
“Alright, Dr. von Broughton. You're good at what you do. I give you that. We done, then?”
“We are d
one, Paddy. Fini! Nancy, you take the cooler. I've got to button things up here.”
Elizabeth heard two sets of footsteps ascend the stairway, then a scraping across the granite tiles. Without lifting her head, she watched a big white cooler slide out of the basement door and onto the kitchen floor.
Elizabeth swung her legs onto the floor and stood up. As soon as she did so, she spotted a set of keys on the large island topped with dark green granite. She ran into the kitchen and grabbed them just as Nancy emerged.
Nancy glanced behind her, into the stairwell, and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Just let me go,” Elizabeth said. She glanced quickly at the cooler near Nancy's feet. Lying on top, in a haphazard pile, were a red cotton shirt and brown drawstring pants.
Nancy, standing now at the top of the stairs, opened her mouth to speak but was pushed aside by the 6'2” muscular frame, covered by a perfectly white T-shirt, of O'Groghan.
“Why should we let you go?” he asked coldly.
Elizabeth looked wildly around the kitchen for a weapon, a knife, a pan, a cutting board, anything to throw at this evil presence. O'Groghan reached over Nancy's head, who ducked and recoiled from his arm.
“This what you're looking for?” O'Groghan asked as he plucked a stainless steel frying pan from above the island and tossed it in her direction. She sidestepped toward the sink and the pan rattled to the floor. She glanced behind her and saw, for the first time, her gun lying carelessly on the granite counter top. She looped the key ring over the pinkie and ring fingers of her left hand and picked the gun up with both hands.
“Where's my sister, you bastard? Those are her clothes,” Elizabeth said, pointing the gun at O'Groghan and gesturing with her head to the cooler. The dangling keys rattled as her hands shook. “I know she's here.”
O'Groghan's mouth opened, his head tilted back, and he released a loud, genuine laugh. Confusion mixed with fear on Elizabeth's face at the sound of it. A third set of footsteps ascended the stairs and von Broughton appeared.
“What fun am I missing?” he said.
“She wants to know where her sister is,” O'Groghan said.
“Very good. Very good. Yes, where is your sister?” von Broughton said.
“Those are her clothes. I knew she was coming here. Knew it. I want to see her,” she said to both men.
“You want to see her?” O'Groghan asked.
“Yes. Show her to me.”
“I'm afraid the operating room jester has played another minstrel,” von Broughton said with a smile.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Elizabeth asked as she swung the gun in his direction.
“You want me to show you your sister?” O'Groghan said. “Here is your sister.” He bent over, lifted the cooler lid, and tilted it forward so Elizabeth could see inside.
Her mouth opened and her eyes teared as she looked at the several freezer bags inside, each holding a reddish-brown lump. Terror filled every corner of her. She looked at O'Groghan's face. She closed her mouth, then opened it again to speak. She could not find the words. The gun at the end of her arms shook even more violently and she pulled the trigger.
Chapter 33
The bullet struck the basement door and slammed it against the wall. It bounced off the wall and came to rest in its original position. The three people in the kitchen with Elizabeth had very different reactions when the gun went off. Von Broughton ducked, ran into the living room, hid behind the wall next to the couch, and peeked out with an amused expression. O'Groghan flinched slightly but otherwise his body language and expression remained unchanged. Nancy stood stone still in shock, then stepped to the back door and grabbed its handle.
“Helluva way to run a hospital,” von Broughton said from behind the wall as she moved.
“This way, honey,” Nancy said. Elizabeth was drawn to the voice, like a moth to a light in darkness, and she took several involuntary steps toward it. When Elizabeth reached the door, Nancy looked directly into O'Groghan's eyes and said, to Elizabeth, “Those keys you have, honey? They are to O'Groghan's ride in front. You point that gun of yours at the skinny guy waiting inside and he'll move for you.”
O'Groghan returned Nancy's stare, his jaw tight and his eyes cold and hard.
Elizabeth also looked to O'Groghan but spoke to Nancy. “Why are you helping me?”
“That's your sister in that cooler there. The rest of her is downstairs but you shouldn't go to look. You don't wanna see it.”
“But why help me now?”
“They pay me good, they really do. But it's not right what they were gonna do to you, what they did to your sister,” Nancy said, still staring into O'Groghan's eyes. “What we did. What I did. Not right. I was gonna do that to you and I would have. For that 8K. I would have done that to you for $8,000 cash. No, I didn't do it to you. But I did do it to your sister and she didn't deserve it anymore than you did. No, Elizabeth honey. I'm done. I'm done with this dirty business. I'm done cutting girls open for money. And I'm gonna save one girl from the knife now so you need to run, honey. Run as fast as you can.” Still staring into O'Groghan's eyes, she pushed the door open.
Elizabeth stepped through it into the back yard. The sun had just passed behind the snow capped peaks but the bright twilight lingered. Behind her, as she ran, Elizabeth heard Nancy yell “NO!” then she heard a loud THUD against the kitchen wall. The window over the sink overlooking the back yard rattled in its frame. As she ran behind the garage and opened the metal gate leading to the front of the house, Elizabeth heard a second THUD and the window rattle again.
With each long stride, her legs became stronger. She gripped the gun tightly in her right hand and ran down the side of the garage. As she passed the Range Rover she heard the metal gate slam against the fence. She turned to her left and saw O'Groghan passing through it. She shifted the gun into her left hand and the keys fell to the ground. She pointed the gun at him, pulled the trigger twice, and kept running. He ducked his head down as the bullets whistled by him but he did not slow.
Eddie was standing outside the Ford Expedition, the cigarette he had been smoking on the ground near his feet.
“Stop that bitch, Eddie!” O'Groghan yelled. Eddie moved onto the grass to block Elizabeth's path but she raised the gun at him and fired two more wild shots. Eddie dropped to the ground as one of the two bullets pierced the windshield. He pressed the side of his head into the grass as Elizabeth ran by.
“Get up, you worthless...” O'Groghan said to Eddie as he also passed. Eddie stood himself up deliberately, took two or three steps after O'Groghan and stopped. What's the point, he asked himself. Elizabeth and O'Groghan were already several houses away and moving fast. Juast as Elizabeth was cutting across the lawn of the corner house, von Broughton opened the front door. Eddie looked over at him.
“This cannot be good for business,” von Broughton said as he watched Elizabeth, followed by O'Groghan, disappear from view.
What Eddie or von Broughton couldn't see was that Elizabeth was pulling away from O'Groghan. With each naturally long, smooth stride she took, Elizabeth widened the gap between them. At the house on the next corner, she cut across the lawn toward Santa Fe Boulevard. When O'Groghan reached the same lawn several seconds later, he put his hands on his knees and hung his head, panting furiously.
Elizabeth easily reached Elk View Boulevard. The road was crowded with cars and trucks, all speeding toward their individual destinations, oblivious of the young woman running toward them in the twilight. She slowed to a stop at the guard rail, sat down on it, spun around quickly, and took to her feet again along the paved shoulder. As she did so, O'Groghan stood up, hitched his shoulders and continued running at a jog.
Elizabeth stopped and turned back just in time to see O'Groghan step over the guard rail, about 50 yards down the road. As he did so, she pointed the gun at him and pull the trigger twice. Only the first
pull produced a bullet. The gun was empty. She tossed it off the road and stepped across the white line and onto the road, jogging to her right but looking over her left shoulder at oncoming cars, anxiously willing a gap to appear in the traffic. Several cars sped past until two driving shoulder to shoulder hummed by her. She dashed into the gap left in their wake, crossed both lanes in a few strides, and jumped onto the grassy median.
O'Groghan, still about 50 yards away, tried to wade in to the traffic but was repeatedly pushed back by the oncoming cars.
Elizabeth paused in the grass and watched. She watched the cars speed by. She watched the grass at her feet swirl in their deflected air. She watched the fading sunrays shimmer behind the snow capped mountain peaks. They curved over the peaks and illuminated her.
O'Groghan jogged along the shoulder, still looking for traffic to open, but closing the distance between himself and Elizabeth.
A hum rose from her throat and she watched the sunrays shimmer in reply. Her feet began tapping the ground and the sunrays throbbed to their rhythm. She spun in a slow circle and the sunrays swirled with her. Her humming merged into words, sung softly at first but gradually growing louder. She continued to tap the ground with her feet and spin, and then her hands raised up and floated through the air. They spun around her in the opposite direction and a glow outlined her skin.
When O'Groghan was directly across from her, separated only by the moving cars, she willed a gap to appear. O'Groghan stepped into it as far as the center line when the glow around Elizabeth grew in intensity, then blinked out as the sun dropped fully below the mountains and darkness dropped onto them. Suddenly Elizabeth, the traffic, O'Groghan, were enveloped in a moonless, silent dark.
Invisible now, O'Groghan was struck at full speed by a pickup truck and thrown into the air. His flailing arms reached, reached for something but found only the air 30 feet above the road. When he landed, 150 feet away from Elizabeth, momentum and gravity pushed him into a roll until he hit the guardrail. For O'Groghan, there would be no moment of blackness after which he would regain consciousness. He sat against the guardrail, facing back toward the oncoming traffic, cold and dead.
Elizabeth felt the pressure suddenly burst from her. Rushing in to replace it was a new but familiar presence. Napolita. Napolita is near. She is rescued. Elizabeth placed her left hand on her chest and walked toward her sister in the dark.