The Eternity Project

17

NEW YORK DOWNTOWN HOSPITAL



Lopez had never been a fan of hospitals, the clinical odour reminding her of the one time when she had been taken into an emergency room as a young girl, way back in the mountains of Guanajuato, Mexico. The experience had not been pleasant.

She sat on a bench alongside Karina, as orderlies, doctors, nurses rushed back and forth between the patients who shuffled or were being wheeled between wards. Karina remained silent, staring at the tired-looking floor tiles with her hands clasped together in her lap. Lopez watched her for a long time, before choosing her words carefully.

‘How long have the two of you been working together?’ she asked.

Karina blinked awake, as though emerging from a daydream, and looked across at Lopez.

‘Just over a year,’ she replied. ‘Donovan hand-picked Tom to work with me.’

‘He controls every aspect of your unit?’ Lopez asked.

‘Sure,’ came the response. ‘We work mostly homicide and each of us is a specialist. I work forensic and trace evidence. Glen handles firearms, Jackson’s attached from vice, Tom usually covers victim and perp’ histories and sometimes profiles. Donovan oversees and reports to the commissioner.’

‘Tight unit,’ Lopez guessed. ‘Good idea in a big city. Should’ve tried it back in DC.’

Karina nodded slowly.

‘It works well to have teams rather than just partners,’ she replied. ‘We have our own strengths and weaknesses, but the total is greater than the sum of its parts. We’ve cracked every case we’ve been handed except one since we formed – that’s better than any other single unit in the city.’

Lopez nodded. ‘Probably in the country,’ she pointed out. ‘There are always unsolved cases. Which one got the better of you?’

‘Homicide in downtown, a gang-slaying between Crips and Surenos. We know who did it but we couldn’t provide enough evidence to place them at the crime. Perpetrator got bail and took off into Mexico. Hasn’t been seen since.’

Lopez took a chance and gave Karina a playful nudge. ‘Should’ve called Warner & Lopez, Inc. They’re amazing, apparently.’

Karina stared at the tiles for a long time. Lopez cursed herself inwardly. Then Karina spoke softly. ‘I heard they were crap.’

Lopez looked at her as a tiny smile flickered briefly across Karina’s lips.

‘Miss Thorne?’

Lopez and Karina bolted upright from the bench as a doctor approached them. A warm smile told them all they needed to know before the doctor even spoke.

‘He’s in recovery,’ she said. ‘You got to him just in time.’

Lopez heard Karina let a sigh of relief spill from her chest as she reached across and hugged her. Karina returned the embrace briefly and then looked at the doctor.

‘Is he okay? Awake?’

‘He’s conscious,’ the doctor replied. ‘Given what he’s attempted, I’d suggest you go and see him now. In my experience, people who have tried to take their own lives feel extremely isolated and often embarrassed. The sooner that notion is taken from him, the sooner he can begin healing.’

Karina nodded, and Lopez guided her toward the nearby ward. A private room had been set aside for Tom, his standing as a police officer and the terrible loss he had endured warranting him special treatment until he was on the road to recovery.

Lopez followed Karina into the room and closed the door behind them.

Tom Ross sat on his reclined bed, his eyes open but drooping with fatigue as he looked at them both.

‘Tom?’ Karina asked in a whisper. ‘You hear me okay?’

Tom Ross stared at Karina for a long moment and then replied with a barely perceptible nod.

‘You’re doing fine,’ Karina said, perching on the side of Tom’s bed and reaching out for his hand. ‘We’ll get through this, okay? I’ve got your back.’

Tom’s dark eyes drifted across to meet hers and, for a long time, he said nothing. Then, as Lopez watched, he spoke in a quiet voice.

‘How did you find me?’ he asked.

‘Came to check up on you,’ Karina replied.

Tom’s eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall, as though he knew she was lying. ‘You’d only just left me.’

‘It had been a couple of hours,’ Karina said, ‘and I was worried about you.’

Tom glanced back at her. ‘Worried I might do something stupid?’

Karina looked at him for a long beat, then nodded.

Tom looked across at Lopez. ‘Who are you?’

‘Working a case with NYPD,’ Lopez replied. ‘In town for a couple of days.’

Tom looked at Lopez as though sizing her up, then looked back at Karina. He sighed softly.

‘It was so easy,’ he whispered. ‘Once I decided to do it. So easy.’

Karina squeezed his hand. ‘That doesn’t mean it was right.’

‘Right for whom?’ Tom challenged her. Karina struggled to find an answer and, when she failed, Tom squeezed her hand back a little. ‘You should have let me go, let me leave. I didn’t want to be here anymore.’

Lopez caught the way Tom used the past tense, as though he had changed his mind since. Karina noticed it, too.

‘Things change with time,’ she replied. ‘It’s all just empty words right now, I know, but, someday, you’ll be able to move on. You’ve just got to take it one day at a time.’

Tom shook his head.

‘It’ll be easier next time,’ he said.

Karina’s features became stern as she leaned toward him. ‘There isn’t going to be a next time, Tom. Okay?’

Tom looked at her. ‘I saw something.’

Lopez felt a chill ripple down her neck and spine as Tom’s softly spoken words drifted through the room around her.

‘Saw something?’ Karina asked. ‘When? What do you mean?’

Tom’s face looked both elated and haunted at the same time, as though he were struggling to decide whether he should speak at all.


‘You have another friend in town,’ he said finally, and looked at Lopez. ‘A tall guy with light brown hair and a Chicago accent.’

Lopez felt another chill tingle across her shoulders and she shivered involuntarily as she replied. ‘Ethan, my partner. How did you know?’

Tom looked at her, his expression serious now. ‘He checked my pulse and told the paramedics I’d been out for no more than five minutes.’

Karina’s jaw dropped as she stared at Tom. ‘You were out cold,’ she protested. ‘Barely alive.’

Lopez stepped closer to the bed. ‘Where were you, Tom?’

The young detective looked at her and smiled faintly.

‘I was hovering above you all, up on the ceiling. I saw everything.’

Karina withdrew her hand from Tom’s, as though his body had shocked her again, her features horrified as she struggled to comprehend what her friend was saying.

‘What else did you see?’ Lopez pressed.

‘After that, I wasn’t in the room.’

‘Where were you?’ Karina asked, overcoming her shock.

Tom shook his head as he replied.

‘It’s hard to describe, I don’t know where I was. It was dark, totally black, but the blackness seemed huge, infinite. I was rising up, could feel myself going up and up, and then there was a light. It was so bright, brighter than the sun but I could look right into it.’

Lopez moved closer to the bed.

‘The tunnel of light,’ she said. ‘You had a near-death experience, Tom.’

Tom looked at her, but he shook his head.

‘Well, if I did, then the experience is highly overrated,’ he replied.

‘What happened?’ Karina asked.

‘I was floating up this tunnel,’ Tom said, ‘and I felt great. I can’t even begin to describe it. It was as though every bad thing I’d ever done or seen or heard of suddenly was just utterly gone. I had no body but I could feel everything, could see everything, and there were people there waiting for me.’

Lopez shivered again.

‘Friends?’ she managed to ask; and then, more cautiously, ‘Family?’

Tom looked at her and his expression of wonderment and joy faded away.

‘They weren’t there,’ he replied, grief returning to stain his features. ‘I could tell somehow that they weren’t there, and then suddenly I could remember what had happened on the bridge, that I’d lost them, and then everything changed.’

‘What changed, Tom?’ Karina pressed.

‘The tunnel of light faded away and I felt the darkness coming back. It was surging up toward me, cold and black and full of something I’ve never felt before.’

There was a moment’s silence, as Tom sought the word he wanted, and then he looked at them both.

‘Hate,’ he said finally. ‘Pure, undiluted, raw hate, more powerful than anything I can describe. I thought it would swallow me whole but it suddenly disappeared just like the tunnel of light did and, I was back in the apartment watching you all try to resuscitate me.’

Tom shook his head as he looked at Karina.

‘I think I saw a little piece of Heaven,’ he continued, ‘and then a tiny fragment of Hell.’