Private Affair(82)

“But since Davidson knows Max worked with the Baltimore PD, maybe Davidson realizes this is a dangerous place to hang around.

“We can hope.”

Shane left the waiting area, and Olivia and Jack stayed where they had a view of Max’s room. A couple of times she got up and went down the hall to see how he was doing, but he was sleeping, and she returned to Jack.

***

The Masked Avenger lurked in the hallway, thinking that the hospital was a perfect place for death. People here were sick or injured. You could kill them and nobody would know it hadn’t been God’s plan.

He laughed. He didn’t believe in God, of course. Or the devil, or anything metaphysical beyond the fact of human existence. This was a one-way trip—from birth to death. You weren’t going anywhere but into the ground after you died, and you’d better make the most of your life while you were here. Get all the money you could. Live well. Eliminate people who got in your way. Never regret your decisions. Tip the odds in your favor.

He’d started learning those lessons back in nursery school, playing in the sandbox of all places. His dad had gotten him a little dump truck, and he’d been happily scooping up sand and dumping it out when another kid named Sammy had asked if he could play with the truck. The Avenger had refused, and the kid had gone away. Then a half hour later, a teacher had marched out and hauled him into the office. Sammy had been there, with a scrape on his cheek and a triumphant expression in his eyes. He’d told the teacher that the Avenger had hit him with the dump truck.

It wasn’t true, but when the Avenger had protested, the teacher had said Sammy had the mark on his cheek from the attack.

There had been no way for the Avenger to convince the teacher of his innocence. She’d taken away the truck and barred him from the sandbox for a week. He’d been humiliated and sad and furious. But he’d bided his time. And when he’d had a chance to surreptitiously push Sammy into the path of a kid who was swinging, without getting caught, he’d done it. Sammy had gotten hit in the head and gotten a much bigger injury than the one he’d claimed from the truck attack. And the Avenger had gotten a lesson in justice.

At the age of five, he hadn’t killed the other kid, of course. But he’d understood that hurting people could be an effective policy—as long as you didn’t get caught.

He’d hit the jackpot when he’d seen Archie Hamilton rush out of the police station and jump into his car. The Avenger had followed him down to Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. It seemed that Max Lyon had gotten cut in a knife fight down in the city.

What was he doing in Baltimore?

The Avenger had sneaked into the emergency room and stolen a scrub suit. With one of those caps over his head and a sterile mask over his face when he needed it, it had been easy to blend into the hospital scenery. All you had to do was stride around like you knew where you were going.

Still, the emergency room staff was small. And it hadn’t been possible to get close enough to find out what Lyon was doing in Baltimore. But this gave him a perfect opportunity to kill Lyon.

He’d determined that the guy was staying overnight, then found out what floor he’d be on. But it hadn’t been so easy to get close enough to kill him. Olivia was hanging around, and one of his PI friends was on duty with her.

Fuck.

But maybe he could change plans again. If he couldn’t get Lyon, maybe he could get Olivia.

He hadn’t been thinking this was the best place to abduct her. But it looked like she was settling in for the long haul, which gave him time to leave, make some preparations, and come back.

***

The next time Olivia went down the hall to check on Max, his eyes opened when she walked in, and he smiled at her.

“How are you?” she asked as she came into the room, feeling a little awkward.

“Much better.”

“Are you just saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear?”

“No. The blood transfusion and the sleep did me a lot of good,” Max said.

“What about the pain?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. I think I can get out of here tomorrow.”

“Maybe your doctor should make that decision.”

“We’ll see.” He was staring at her. “I know what would make me feel a lot better.”

“What?”

“Come lie down with me.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m not dangerous.”

“I didn’t think you were. But it must be against hospital rules,” Olivia protested.

“Let’s stop playing by the rules.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant now or in general, but she longed to be close to him.