The Last Widow (Will Trent 9)

Beau said, “Most critical first.”

“I’m fucking critical. I got a knife half an inch from my junk.”

Beau glanced at Carter’s injury. “You strapped it down too tight, bro. You don’t fix a vagina by making the hole bigger.”

Dash chuckled, but said, “Let’s keep the locker room talk at bay around the ladies.”

He found the remote and turned on the television.

Sara gawked at the footage. A news helicopter was flying over the bomb site. Hot tears burned her eyes. The campus and hospital grounds were barely recognizable. She had spent seven years of her life training there, helping people, learning how to be a good doctor.

“Nice.” Dash turned up the volume. A woman was standing at a podium dressed in an Atlanta police uniform. The banner said the news conference had been pre-recorded.

“. . . all agencies searching for the kidnapped woman . . .”

“That’s you,” Dash said. “Local doctor.”

Sara tuned him out, listening to the officer. “I can confirm there were two devices timed approximately—”

Dash muted the volume.

Sara’s eyes searched the scroll at the bottom. Eighteen confirmed dead. Forty-one wounded. Two Dekalb Co. police officers, one Fulton Co. sheriff’s deputy and two security guards among murdered.

“What a handsome devil,” Dash said.

The police had released CCTV footage from the hospital. The images showed several different angles on Dash, but even Sara, who had spent the last few hours with him, did not recognize Dash as the man on the screen. He had been vigilant about keeping his hat pulled down and his head low. Carter had not been as careful, but he’d gotten lucky. The close-up of his face had pixelated. A third set of images showed Hurley dragging Michelle down the stairs.

Dash mumbled, “Rest your soul, brother.”

Sara kept herself still. Dash still thought that Hurley was dead. Carter and Vale had doubled down on their lie about what had really happened after the car accident. You didn’t hide information from the boss unless you knew the boss was going to be pissed off if he knew the truth. They weren’t feeling guilty for abandoning one of their brothers. They were worried that Dash would punish them for leaving a witness.

Which begged the question: How could Sara use this information against them?

“Dr. Earnshaw?” Beau had a stethoscope waiting for her.

Sara pulled her eyes away from the television. The scroll at the bottom of the set was what had her attention.

Two ATL firemen and three ATL police officers injured. Two Dekalb Co. police officers, one Fulton Co. sheriff’s deputy and two security guards among murdered.

They were being very specific in the description. Will’s rank was special agent. Should Sara take it as a good sign that he was not on the injured list?

Beau said, “I don’t have a Pleur-Evac.”

Sara drank from the water bottle. She tried to pull herself back into the moment. In medical school, they had drilled into her that taking the oath to practice meant that you treated whoever needed your help. You put politics and personal beliefs aside. You fixed the body, not the patient.

Sara worked to summon that young, eager student who had fervently believed this was possible.

She handed the water bottle to Dash. “I need three of these. Duct tape. Tubing. I have to create a water seal, so cork would be better. The other two bottles will regulate the pressure and collect the blood from his chest. If you have a drill, the bit needs to be slightly smaller in circumference to the tubes.”

Dash opened the door and relayed the request to one of the men.

Sara caught Michelle’s eye. The woman worked at the CDC. At the very least, she had a veterinary degree if not a medical degree.

“Steady,” Beau told Vale, using a pair of scissors to cut away his shirt. Vale’s chest was heaving. He was in a full-on panic as Sara approached the bed. Dry coughs shook his body.

Sara snapped on a pair of nitrile gloves. Clipped the stethoscope around her neck. She found a pair of safety goggles and a surgical mask.

She told Beau, “If you have it, two mgs of Versed, then one mg every five minutes as needed.”

“That won’t depress his breathing?”

“It might, but I can’t have him moving around.”

“I’ll keep some adrenaline on hand.” Beau went back to the medical kit. In addition to Versed he had packets of pre-loaded syringes. She recognized the distinctive 10 inside an open burgundy square. Five individual doses of ten milligrams of morphine.

Sara could use them to knock out the men in the room.

She could use them all on herself.

“Versed on board.” Beau injected the drug into the IV port.

Sara tore herself away from the promise of the morphine. She knelt on the floor beside Vale.

Beside the body.

More of Beau’s handiwork was evident. The gunshot wound had been patched with a Halo Chest Seal, an occlusive bandage that was basically a sticky version of Saran Wrap. This was good, but the Russell Chest Seal she’d seen in the kit would’ve been better.

Beau knew some things, but he didn’t know everything.

Sara palpated the patient’s ribs, feeling the pointed shards of displaced fractures. Counting down from his nipple, the bullet had entered between the seventh and eighth rib. His skin was taut. The pleural cavity had filled with air. She used her stethoscope. Breath sounds were absent on the right side. The thorax was hyperresonant. The jugular vein showed distention.

Vale coughed, wincing at the pain.

She looked up at Beau. He was monitoring Vale’s blood pressure. The adrenaline syringe was nearby just in case.

Sara listened to the chest again, moving the stethoscope around. She checked bowel sounds. She pressed into the abdomen. None of this was necessary. She wanted time to study the hem of Beau’s untucked shirt. The edge below the last button showed a crescent-shaped tear.

Not just a tear. A repetitive use mark, the sort of thing she used to identify John Does in the morgue. Carpenters tended to have little notches worn in their front teeth from holding nails in their mouths. Warehouse workers had extremely well-developed calves, no matter the width of their waists. UPS drivers had callouses on their ring fingers because that was where they were trained to keep their key rings when they got out of their trucks.

And bartenders oftentimes used the tails of their shirts to open bottles.

This wasn’t a random motel or fishing lodge. They had stopped here for Beau. He most likely worked at the bar across the street.

Sara finished the fake part of the exam. She told Beau, “Tension pneumothorax.”

He nodded once, but she could tell he understood that this wasn’t the only issue. The symptoms of the collapsed lung presented the most visible sign of injury, but there was a bullet inside this man’s chest. Judging by the cracked ribs, the projectile had ricocheted around before settling. The heart was always the primary concern with a chest wound, but in truth, every area of the chest was a concern. Nerves, arteries, veins, lungs, thorax.

Sara was not a cardiothoracic surgeon. She could make him more comfortable, but he would need someone far more skilled and with very precise equipment to repair the damage inside his body.

Beau must have known this. Still, he offered Sara an IV catheter from the transfusion pack.

Sara found the midpoint of the clavicle. Beau swabbed the area clean. She inserted the catheter perpendicular to the skin, just under the clavicle.

The hiss of air coming out of the hollow needle was like a balloon being deflated.

Vale’s chest rose with a deep breath. He gasped. His eyes opened. He blinked.

Every man in the room seemed to breathe easier alongside him.

Carter said, “Okay now, fix me.”

Sara looked to Beau for his input. She had to remind herself that he was not her nurse. He was a bad man. He was of his own volition using his skills to patch up other bad men.

Sara came clean with Dash: “I can keep Vale comfortable, but his surgical needs are beyond my capabilities.”

Dash rubbed his jaw with his fingers.

Sara had to look away. Will did the same thing when he was upset.

Beau said, “She’s giving it to you straight. If you’re not going to take him to a hospital, the chest tube will delay the inevitable.”

Dash asked, “He’s going to die?”

“Jesus Christ!” Carter’s tone was somewhere between pleading and belligerent. “Why are you wasting time on him when my scrotum could be fucking dying?”

Dash kept rubbing his jaw, considering. “All right. Get the knife out of his leg.”

Beau returned to the medical kit.

Sara struggled against her revulsion. Treating Vale was one thing. The man was terrified, floating in and out of consciousness. But every time Carter opened his mouth—whether it was to threaten to rape Michelle’s daughter or to tell Sara he was going to fuck the bad attitude out of her mouth—she was reminded of how much she wanted him to die.