The Dark (A Detective Alice Madison Novel)(88)

The blaze was well contained in the east wing; someone had made sure of that. How much did they know about Vincent Foley? Did they know where his room was?

Madison crossed the reception area—no young woman to smile politely this time—and reached a door to the stairs. The light was blinking green on the magnetic box: when the fire had been discovered, the locks had been released, which was great if you needed to rush out and even better if you were trying to break in. She pushed the door, and she was in the stairway: the emergency lights were on, bathing everything in pale orange. Madison looked up—a quick peek and then back against the wall: no one there.

She flicked the safety latch and unholstered her piece. The sounds from outside were dulled by a series of walls and doors. She heard nothing from the inside of the building except the muted ticking of the lights’ emergency batteries on the stairs.

She had to start from the fourth floor. She climbed the stairs at a run, stopping dead at each corner to make sure the course was clear and then moving on. The higher she climbed, the warmer the air became. She passed the entrance to the second-floor corridor and glanced through the glass door as she went past. No one there.

Her heart was drumming fast as she reached the third floor and peeked. No one there. Madison paused. If Vincent was anywhere, he would be on the fourth floor. If the killers were anywhere, they would be on the fourth floor. She climbed the stairs with her weapon held at eye level and made a swift mental inventory of the contents of her jacket pockets: she had a small flashlight and a penknife—the police radio was back in the car, forgotten on the seat. On her ankle she had her backup piece.

A window shattered on the other side of the building, and Madison froze. She was four steps away from the door to the fourth-floor corridor; the sound had come from the east wing. She wiped her right hand on her jeans and resumed the grip. She tried not to think about the whimsy of shooting paper targets only hours earlier, when in minutes she might have to shoot a human being.

Madison glanced through the window’s reinforced glass; her eyes skimmed the corridor and saw no movement, only the flicker of overhead fluorescent strips trying to come on.

Madison had been there in daylight and was grateful for that tiny bit of luck. She leaned on the door, her gun hand ahead of her, and stepped through it. The doors to the patients’ rooms were wide open, and the floor was littered with the debris of a quick evacuation.

It would have been nice to call out to Vincent; however, that was probably not the best way to go about it. Madison crouched behind a medicine cart, flat against a wall. She reviewed the situation, and it didn’t look promising: Vincent was missing; he could still be on the fourth floor, or he could be anywhere on the grounds. They suspected that Conway’s crew was a four-man unit; it meant two on the outside checking faces and two on the inside checking rooms. At least that’s what she would have done.

Madison stood up: there were four rooms between her and Vincent’s. The first was empty; the bedcovers had been strewn on the floor. The second was also empty. The door of the third was ajar, and she pushed gently with her left hand: it had been left in hurry—a drawer had been half pulled out.

Madison paused by Vincent’s door; it was nearly closed. The search beam of light from the firefighters outside swept the corridor’s ceiling, and the building creaked under the pressure of the fire and the water from the hoses, but in her wing there was only silence.

Madison pushed Vincent’s door open with the tip of one finger and immediately saw the person curled up on the floor by the bed. She dropped to her knees by the unmoving shape.

“Vincent.”

The person faced away from her, and in the gloom she could only see that it was a man wearing scrubs.

“Vincent?”

Madison felt for signs of life and found none. She turned the body delicately and looked into the face of Thomas Reed, Vincent’s nurse. His eyes were open, and his chest was a vast red slick.

Madison resisted the impulse to close his eyes; her fingers went to the place where the carotid pulse should have been to make sure. One shot to the chest had spun him almost under the bed. Under the bed. Madison leaned in and peered. A blanket was bunched up under the springs. Vincent might have slept there, but he wasn’t there now. She heard it too late, a soft footstep in the corridor and the click of the door locking her inside.

Shit.

Madison was on her feet, slamming her shoulder against the door a fraction of a second too late.

Shit.

She squinted through the small window in the door as shadows shifted in the corridor and the search beam made another slow pass. The spike of adrenaline in her chest was a stabbing pain. She grabbed the door handle and turned, knowing that nothing would happen and yet not being able to help herself.