Alex Cross, Run (Alex Cross 20)

Two paramedics were perched on either side. One of them had a blood-pressure cuff on my arm. The other was radioing my vitals, presumably to whatever hospital we were headed toward. Georgetown, maybe.

“He stuck me. . . .”

“Just relax.”

“He . . .

”

I felt like Jell-O all over, except for a twitch in my hands. My head was still swimming. What the hell was this? I knew cognitively that something was terribly wrong, but somehow I couldn’t quite feel that way. It was like a euphoric state more than anything, with the fear and dread somewhere way in the background. I felt like I was watching the movie of my own emergency more than I was actually in it.

My eyes rolled. A paramedic lifted one of my lids to have a look.

“He’s nodding out,” the guy said.

That was the last I heard.

CHAPTER

58

THE NEXT TIME I WOKE UP, I WAS IN THE HOSPITAL. A FLUORESCENT BOX fixture was shining down on me. Instead of walls there was a blue curtain pulled around whatever examination room or cubicle they’d stuck me in.

Huizenga was still there. Bree now, too, I realized.

“Hey there,” she said, squeezing my hand. “How do you feel?”

I was still groggy, and floating on the last of some kind of cloud. I smiled, in spite of everything else. It was all a little blurry.

“How long have you been here?” I asked her.

“A couple of hours. It’s six o’clock.”

“What happened?”

“They found opiates in your bloodstream,” Huizenga said to me. “Mostly OCs.”

“Mostly?”

“A little morphine.”

“Ah.” I let my head fall back on the pillow. “I knew I recognized something.”

I’d been through my share of scrapes before—been given my share of morphine, too. The last time was when I’d been shot, tracking a case up to Vermont several years earlier.

Now, everything started coming back in pieces. I remembered the crime scene in Georgetown. The security company. Guidice—

I sat up all at once and threw off the thin blanket they had over me.

“Where’s Guidice?” I said. “Is he in custody?”

“Whoa,” Bree said. “Slow down, Alex. Take it easy.”

“Where is he?” I repeated.

“I think they still have him over at the department,” Huizenga told me. “But no. He’s not arrested.”

“What are you talking about? I was in the middle of putting the cuffs on him when he stuck me.”