Trail of Secrets(13)
Callie screamed again and clawed at the surgical mask covering the man’s face. It slipped from his mouth, and Callie glimpsed a jagged scar down the right side of his face. The mask slipped farther, and she caught sight of a star tattoo on his neck.
The attacker hunched his shoulders and heaved with enough force to knock Callie from his back. She sailed backward and hit the wall with a loud thud. The man whirled, pulled a gun from his waistband and aimed it at her. Before he could pull the trigger, Marshal White appeared in the doorway, his gun drawn.
“Hold it right there!” he yelled.
The attacker whirled and pulled the trigger. The sound echoed off the walls, and Marshal White slumped to the floor. The shooter lunged for the door, jumped over the marshal’s body and sprinted down the hallway. Callie rushed to the door and caught sight of him as he ran through the exit at the far end of the hallway. Realizing she wouldn’t be able to catch him, she turned back in time to see the two nurses who’d been cowered against the wall outside the other patient’s room straighten up.
One of them pushed to her feet and glanced at her coworker. “I’ll check the marshal and the judge. You call security and get us some help.”
The other one ran to the nurses’ station and picked up the phone while the one who’d spoken knelt next to Marshal White. She looked up at Callie. “What happened?”
“There was a man in scrubs trying to suffocate my uncle. If I hadn’t come back for my purse, he’d be dead now.”
The nurse nodded and called out to the other one. “The marshal needs to get to surgery right away. I’ll check Judge Lattimer.”
Callie stood in the cubicle, unsure what to do as nurses and security guards poured into the unit. She glanced from her uncle to the marshal on the floor before she picked up her purse and sat down in the chair where it had lain.
Around her it seemed as if some kind of ordered chaos erupted. Nurses bent over her uncle, checking his vitals. A gurney appeared beside the marshal, and within minutes he was whisked away to surgery. A security guard stood behind the nurses’ station, barking orders into a mike attached to the lapel of his shirt.
She rubbed her hands over her eyes and shuddered. When was this nightmare going to end? One of the responders glanced up from checking her uncle and jerked her head toward the door. “You need to wait outside until we finish here.”
Callie took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and shook her head. “I’m not moving from here until there’s someone else from the U.S. Marshal’s office at that door. If it wasn’t for me, my uncle would be dead right now.”
The nurse started to respond, but then she just smiled. “I guess you’re right. I wouldn’t want to leave, either. Is there anyone we need to call for you?”
“Detective Seth Dawtry is waiting for me in the E.R. I’d appreciate it if someone would ask him to come up here.”
“I’ll take care of it,” the nurse said.
Callie watched her walk to the nurses’ station before returning her attention to her uncle. The picture of a man with a pillow over her uncle’s face flashed in her mind, and she began to tremble. For the second time since her plane had touched down in Memphis, someone had tried to kill her uncle. After what Seth had told her about Uncle Dan’s cold case, she knew it had to be the reason behind the attempts.
She rose, walked over to the bed and grasped her uncle’s hand. “Uncle Dan, what have you gotten yourself into?”