Joe Victim: A Thriller

“She’s alive,” he says. “Get some people out here,” he says, and pulls off his security tag and hands it to Hutton. “Quickly,” he adds, and Hutton runs toward the doors.

Schroder looks at the clothes. Melissa showed up in nurse scrubs, then changed into the clothes the naked victim was wearing. Hearse checks for a pulse on the second victim, then puts the side of his face against the man’s chest, then checks for a pulse again. “It’s weak,” he says. “What the hell happened here?”

“This was used in the escape,” Schroder says. Dressed in the nurse scrubs, Melissa would have found it easy to be given a ride. Then she probably pulled a gun on them. She could have ordered the scrubs from any work-uniform shop online. Or she got them from a nurse. If she got them from a nurse, then she might have gotten ID cards to open the doors to the hospital too.

“Help me with the gurney,” Hearse says, and between them they get it onto the ground, Schroder using his only good arm. Then they get the woman loaded onto it. There is blood around her face and her hair is matted in it. Blunt force trauma to the head. Schroder has seen enough of it to diagnose the condition and knows if she survives there can be some serious ongoing problems. The second paramedic has no signs of violence at all. He looks like he’s just fallen asleep. Hearse starts pushing the woman toward the door they came out of. He’s almost there when it’s thrown open and four doctors come running into the parking lot. Two of them take the gurney with Trish, and the other two come back to the ambulance with Hearse and another gurney. The second victim is loaded onto it, then for a moment it’s just Hearse and Schroder.

“You’re looking for the person who did this, aren’t you,” Hearse says.

“Yes.”

Hearse nods. “I can’t do this for you, but you see that plastic drawer up there?” he asks, nodding toward a whole stack of small drawers along the inside of the ambulance. “The one with the green handle?”

“I see it.”

“You’ll find something for your arm in there. It’ll give you a few hours. You won’t feel much, but you won’t feel any pain either.”

He chases after his colleagues and Schroder climbs into the ambulance and opens the drawer with the green handle. There are half a dozen syringes in there—all identical, and all loaded with some type of clear fluid. He uses his teeth to pull off the protective lid, then plunges the needle into his arm. He doesn’t know what’s inside it, but by the time he puts the cap back on the needle and tosses the empty syringe onto the floor, the pain starts to fade. He takes a second syringe and drops it into his pocket. He figures what the hell, and takes a third too. He steps out of the back just as Hutton arrives.

“I’ve canceled the call to AOS,” he says, “but forensics are on their way.”

“Look at that,” Schroder says, pointing to a blood patch on the wall.

“It’s not from the paramedic,” Hutton says. “Doesn’t fit in with the other blood patterns.”

“It’s from Joe. He sat down here and leaned against the wall. There are plenty of blood drops leaving the ambulance, and here too,” he says, pointing at the ground. “Melissa switched vehicles.”

“She probably had one here ready rather than stealing one,” Hutton says.

“Exactly. Quicker and easier,” Schroder says. He looks up around the parking lot. “No cameras,” he says.

Hutton shakes his head. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he says. “It’s part of the upgrade. Cameras are getting installed in all the entranceways, and soon in the parking lot too.”

“Soon doesn’t help us.”

“No, it doesn’t, but the camera at the entrance there might,” Hutton says, and points toward the public entrance. “It’s designed to see people coming and going, but it does point toward the parking lot. Maybe if we’re lucky . . .”

Lucky. He wonders how that word is defined. Joe was lucky because he escaped. Schroder was lucky he got out of the car before it exploded. So that means there has to be a balance. For each piece of good luck there has to be bad luck. That’s the thing about Christchurch. Good luck for Joe and Melissa, bad luck for Rebecca and Jack and for Raphael too.

“Let’s check it out.”

“Listen, Carl—” Hutton starts.

“Hey, look, this is a hospital, and this is a broken arm,” he says, “which means I’m going back in there anyway. You’re going in there too—no reason we can’t both go the same way.”

“Carl—”