"Get the hell off me!" The 'technician' wrenches his arm loose with a quick, sharp jerk. He takes off, sprinting down the hallway at full speed- at least, until I grab his wrists and shove him up against the wall.
"You-" He's swearing, and so am I, and I slam his head against the wall. He yowls, letting out small, whining whimpers, then gasps for breath. "Don't touch me! I'll tell you! Don't touch me!"
"What? What will you tell me?" He yelps as I take a tighter grip on his wrists; they almost snap in half, and I can tell they're throbbing painfully.
"I'll tell you, I'll tell you, just get the hell away from me!"
"Tell me what?"
He stops short, his breath suddenly shallow. He heard the rage in my voice as I screamed in his ear, and he sees the fury in my eyes. And I see fear in his.
He gulps, takes a long, shaky breath, then slowly wavers, "I did it. I shot your partner."
"Just like you shot Peter Ruskine?" I lean in closer to him. "Just like you raped and strangled those two college students?" No answer. "I got you convicted, you wanted revenge, you came after me?"
He still doesn't say a word. "Why her?" My voice is raw again, trembling with rage. "Why her and not me?"
For the first time, he smiles-a thin, sharp, vicious smile, like the edge of a knife. His eyes glitter. "I've been watching you. I've seen you with her at that coffee stand for days now. I watched her, too, as she came out of her house-she's very pretty, isn't she? Those college students were just kids, but I was thinking, well, what the hell-"
He screams as I fling him bodily against the wall, slamming his bones against the white tiles. He slumps slightly, recoiling as he sobs and shakes. "What the hell are you doing here?"
He takes a long time to answer, holding his head and trembling, and I'm ready to toss him out the window when he speaks. "I followed them to the hospital-I stole a uniform and an ID pass-I hung around as they worked on her. She looked like she was getting better-so I slipped outside, I found a nurse and I said I needed a needle full of insulin-she gave one to me, I got back inside, I told the doctor it was the barbiturate they were looking for-"
Insulin shock. My throat tightens as I see the scene: the nurse slipping the needle into Eames's arm, her body convulsing, her heart stopping. The doctors trying to revive her... and failing.
"They moved her," he chokes out. "They moved her into another room. I don't know where she is."
After I phone Deakins, after the police officers come and drag the 'technician' off in handcuffs as I read him his rights, I drift back down the hallway. Another doctor, her blue eyes grave behind her glasses, approaches me briskly. "Detective Goren?"
"That's me..."
"I have news about your partner, Detective... sorry-" She checks her clipboard. "Detective Eames."