Chapter Seventy-Two
I woke again just as we arrived at the hospital. My head was still in a daze, and woozy.
The EMTs briefed the ER doctor and a nurse they had radioed ahead to. “Patient’s name is Erlich, Jay . . . Lacerations on his hand and arm. Cranial trauma. Blood pressure one sixty over eighty. Heart rate one thirty . . . He’s been drifting in and out of consciousness . . .”
“Okay, sir,” the Latino ER nurse said confidently to me, “we’re going to take care of you now . . .”
They eased me out of the ambulance and onto a gurney. I grabbed the ER doctor by the arm. Even my own voice was a reeling echo. “I’m a doctor. I need a policeman.”
“We’re all aware of that. You can be sure a detective will be here shortly. In the meantime we’re just gonna check you out.”
They wheeled me inside the ER, a nurse stabilizing the IV line alongside. I knew my brain was still swollen from being beaten, and most likely, I had a concussion. And multiple lacerations. Even dazed, I knew they’d be sending in an investigative team when they checked me out. That was standard procedure.
I still didn’t even know what I was doing alive.
Suddenly I flashed to what Dev had said as I blacked out.
About Max.
I had to let Kathy know.
I tried to force myself up, tugging against the binds. “Hold on there, sir.” The ER nurse restrained me. “We’ll have a room set up for you as soon as we can check you out.”
“No, no, you don’t understand . . .”
I was seized by an onrush of panic. My mind was still in a haze. I had no idea how much time had elapsed since Dev had attacked me. He had told me Charlie and Gabby were next. They might even be dead by now. Or any minute, as I lay there.
I grabbed the nurse’s wrist and tried to force myself up. Even words were difficult. “My brother, I need to call him . . .”
“Someone from the detective’s unit is on his way,” the nurse answered me. “They’ll be here soon.”
Soon? Soon wouldn’t work. I need someone now!
I fell back, still numb, and they wheeled me into a hallway in what appeared to be the triage area. “We’re just going to leave you here for a moment while a station opens up. It’ll only be a minute. Then we’ll check you out . . .”
Slowly, I felt my wits beginning to come back to me. My head throbbed and my recollection of the beating was a blur, but I knew I couldn’t wait around for some detective to arrive. And then have to explain the whole thing to him. Dev had said my brother and Gabby were in danger. And I needed to find out about my son. Fear and worry seemed to cut through the haze.
I needed to do something—now.
I saw that I was alone outside a line of curtained treatment rooms. The two EMTs were no longer around. The ER nurse had gone to get an admitting form. A few patients were crowded around the admitting station, clamoring to see a doctor.
I had to get to a phone.
I raised myself up. My head felt about twice its normal size. I was still wearing the clothes I had on when I was beaten, and there was blood dried all over me. Every minute I waited was a minute Charlie and Gabby might be in trouble. My thoughts suddenly flashed to Sherwood—what had happened to him?
But my first priority was to call Kathy about Max.
I pulled myself up to a sitting position, steadying myself on the gurney rails, trying to determine how I was going to explain everything to a new detective.
That was when I knew I had to leave.
Impaired or not, I had to find out about Max. And I had to go to Charlie’s.
I looked around and, for that second, couldn’t spot any of the medical team who had wheeled me in. Or the EMTs. I disengaged the IV, slipping the needle out of my forearm with a sharp sting; grabbed a sheet off the gurney; and dabbed away a spot of blood. A Hispanic mother and son who’d been injured seemed to be occupying the attention of the front desk.
I pushed off the gurney and headed in the direction I had come from, fully expecting to hear someone shouting, “Stop! Stop!” any second, but no one did. I thought about going to the front desk and calling the police, but whether my reasoning was rational or flawed, the voice inside my head kept on telling me I had to get out of there now.
I ran toward the exit.
Eyes Wide Open
Andrew Gross's books
- Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Ancient Echoes
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Bad Games
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy
- Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)
- Blood, Ash, and Bone