Page 14 of Running Scared
“Course,” she told him, nodding.
“I’ll be back.”
Bailey himself preferred coffee, but there was an espresso machine back there too, which put out extra-large portions on command.Bailey checked the big pocket of his lab coat to make sure his plastic travel mug was there and headed for the crib.
First he checked the computer.Vladehadlogged in, nearly half an hour ago, which didn’t make any sense because why wasn’t he on thefloor,splitting Bailey’s cases with him?Next he went to the vending machines, picked up Sarree’s Monster drink and four giant chocolate bars (to share with Sarree and the other nurses), and set his cup under the espresso machine after he’d programmed in his favorite afternoon buzz with lots of sugar and cream.
While he waited for the machine to gurgle its way into coffee heaven, he peered into the crib from the window, uncomfortably aware that if he caught another couple doing what he and Dean had been doing three months ago, he’d be torn between being a total hypocrite and reporting them, and a total slacker and not.
He really, really hoped everybody in the crib was fully dressed, but still he checked, because seriously, where the hell was Vlade?
Bailey didn’t see anything at first (hooray!Nobody had sex in the crib but Bailey!), but as he shifted his gaze from the darkness of the bunk bed to the oblique angle of the single cot, he could make out…something.The pale flash of light as he moved picked up the features of a face held very still.
It looked like Vlade’s face, but… but the eyes were open.Not moving.
Soverystill.
With a frown, Bailey opened the door, and the light streaming in from the hallway illuminated a scene Bailey had never assessed, not even in the ER.
His doctor’s eyes made the diagnosis immediately, dispassionately.
Adult male, deceased, cause of death most likely exsanguination.Manner of death, stabbing.Viciousstabbing, lacerating the flesh of the chest and stomach but probably starting with a long, deadly gash of the throat.
His human eyes were notnearlyas dispassionate.Holy fuck, the last time I saw something this bad was on a crime drama.
And the horror of thecrime—not of the blood, not of the severity of the attack—was what moved Bailey, of his own volition, toward the bed.
He managed to avoid the pool of blood, a heretofore unnoticed job skill, and after gloving up on reflex, using the box of gloves on the table in the crib, he held two fingers to Vlade’s cooling neck and reinforced what he’d already guessed.
Vlade may have clocked in, but he’d never be working a shift again.
Bailey straightened, his foot disturbing something on the floor next to the pool of blood.As he bent to retrieve the small shiny thing, he heard a ruckus outside the crib door and froze.
“Look, it’s not my fault I left my lucky coin at the scene” came a thickly accented voice.“It was weird doing it in a hospital.Almost like a murder in a church, right?”
His heart, already doing the merengue in his ears, jumped to triple-time timpani in his throat, and he glanced around frantically for a place to hide.Holy fuck.Holyfuck,he was standing in amurder scene,and themurderer was back for his lucky coin!
Without thinking, Bailey clutched the coin in his hand, approached the cot from the end instead of the side where the blood was, and wriggled underneath it, against the wall, hoping this wasn’t where they found his body when Sarree came searching for her Monster.
The door opened, the usual corridor of light blocked by the broadest set of shoulders Bailey had ever seen, or so he guessed from the silhouette thrown by the man’s shadow.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck….”
The man swore gutturally, and Bailey tried to stop breathing.
“Do you see it, Shev?”This voice was sharp and somehow… smaller.Maybe simply higher in register?But it also seemed to fit a man small in station.Without meaning to, Bailey thought about Wallace Shawn, and the way his voice cracked when he yelled at Bob Parr inThe Incredibles.
“Nyet.Is not here.Damn.”
There was an irritated grunt, and the footsteps receded, followed by the slowthunkas the pneumatic door shut.
Bailey stared at his Fitbit and tried to control his breathing for another two minutes.
Two seconds in, just as the killers probably rounded the short little hallway into the main corridor, the espresso machine let out the hiss and scream of scalded coffee and steamed milk.Even through the walls, Bailey heard their voices.
“What was that?”
He pulled out his phone and texted Dean.
