Mint On The Pillow
Part Ten - A Dangerous Game
The hospital corridors were even more confusing in the dim, night-time lighting, but Sydney was more concerned with keeping quiet than getting lost as he followed along behind Suzie and Karl.
The pair were dressed in blue porters' uniforms pilfered from the basement laundry where they snuck into the hospital, and Sydney wore a crisp white doctors' coat and an official name badge. The 'porters' pushed a gurney between them, and thankfully they didn't meet anyone on their way to Jarod's room.
Sydney stepped over to the far side of the bed and put his hand on Jarod's forehead.
"Jarod," he whispered, "I promised I wouldn't let them find you... now you have to promise me you'll survive this."
He took the drip-bag feeding into Jarod's wrist off its hook and laid it on his chest. His heart in his mouth, he unhooked the wires from the ECG machine, and the monitor immediately screeched a flat-line tone. He shut off the whine quickly.
Together the three of them positioned themselves around Jarod, and, at Sydney's count, all lifted together, manhandled him onto the waiting gurney and then hurriedly wheeled their patient out into the dim corridors.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Two floors up, Erin the ward sister sat idly at the Psychiatric Unit reception desk, filing her nails with care. This late at night, she had a fairly easy time of it: all her 'crazies' were sound asleep. Of course there was always the chance that poor Mr. DeLaney would wake screaming about the aliens coming for him...
"Excuse me, Nurse... Wright?"
Erin sat up straight, startled, and quickly laid her nail file aside as she looked up to see the doctor in front of her, staring quizzically at her faded name-badge.
"Um, Wight, actually. Can I help you, Doctor?" She glanced past the him to the gurney attended by two anxious-looking young porters. Poor kids, it was always the trainees who pulled the graveyard shift.
"Yes, I need a bed for this patient. He's up from the ICU."
"Why? He gone crazy on you?"
"No, we just need the space down there."
Erin thumbed through her briefing notes from the day-staff, "Well, I'm sorry doctor but any transfers need to be authorised by--"
"It's not a transfer, exactly..." He cut her off. She glared at him suspiciously, her hand instinctively moving to hover over the security call-button. The doctor looked defeated for a moment, then leaned forwards, glancing around him as though the place weren't utterly deserted.
"Look, he'll be dead before morning, and his bed's needed for someone else. I was told to leave him in the corridor, but..."
The nurse saw the struggle in the doctor's kind eyes. She knew exactly how he felt; no one should be left to die in a corridor.
"I just need somewhere to park him. Please?"
She nodded sympathetically. "Number twelve's free." She waved the porters on through as the doctor smiled his thanks and followed.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dawn couldn't be long off now. The sky to the east was already beginning to lighten, Miss Parker noted, the ache in her stomach getting a little sharper with the stress. She stood looking out of the window at the tarmac ribbon stretching away towards the eastern horizon. As a child she had loved the early morning, used to watch the sunrise with her mother and then the two of them would make her father breakfast-in-bed.
Right now, though, the dawn only brought the Centre tag-team closer to their prize, or was that prizes? Miss Parker knew they wanted Jarod captured and her and Sydney shamed, proven to be incompetent or worse: treacherous. This was the first time they'd ever been right.
Her rational side still couldn't believe what she was doing: playing an active role in keeping Jarod on the outside, after devoting years to bringing him in! She should be waiting here with Golden Boy in chains, comatose or not. But all thanks to her damned conscience, she was going to put her own head on the block and lie to Raines. It was ludicrous, the whole scheme, and very likely to fail. Mr. Raines could read people almost as well as Angelo, and he was obviously already suspicious of her.
Here they come, she gulped, the private jet a sudden dark spot from the south-east, circling in for the approach.
Within ten minutes the plane was taxiing up, and Miss Parker steeled herself and strode out onto the runway as the steps dropped.
Mr. Raines was the first one out, scowling all the way down as a black-suited sweeper carried his oxygen tank just behind.
Lyle and Brigitte followed, both with a look of surprise to see her there, waiting for them, but Raines only glared menacingly at her.
"I see Mr. Broots' has kept you informed," he rasped, a sneer of contempt for the little computer-technician lingering on his sallow face, "Well?"
"Well?" Miss Parker echoed, folding her arms in defiance.
"Where's Jarod?" Brigitte spoke up in her always petulant tone, "Or have you and Sydney hidden him away somewhere?" She exchanged a smug glance with Lyle at that.
"Actually, Bridget," she purposefully mispronounced the name as usual, "He's hidden himself away. Probably as far away as possible."
"You're lying," Raines accused, reaching into his pocket and producing the newspaper piece, "There's no way he can even be walking according to this."
"As usual your information is out-of-date. Jarod was here, and he was a professor, but not that professor. Does the article mention any names?"
Raines scanned the page again briefly, frowning. It was Miss Parker's turn to look smug, even if it was entirely feigned.
"Looks like you dragged yourselves all the way out here for nothing."
Raines wasn't falling for it. He turned to his 'pet' sweeper.
"Bring the car around. We're going to the hospital."
- - - - - - - - - -
Miss Parker's heart was pounding in her chest as she followed the posse into Intensive Care. She touched the gun at her side anxiously. She had wanted to shoot Raines any number of times, and Sydney actually had, but she wondered if today was the day she would finally make the Centre's hit-list herself.
Raines stomped up to Jarod's room with surprising speed given his invalidity, and barged in, a gleeful, expectant look on his face. The look fell away as he saw the empty bed, sheets drawn back, all machinery switched off.
"Miss Parker..." he began, his tone almost a growl.
"Mister Raines, in here," A sweeper interrupted him, pointing to the waiting room opposite. They crossed quickly and burst in. Sydney sat in an armchair, leaning across a coffee table and talking in soothing tones to a young man and woman on a sofa.
Sydney jumped to his feet as the door banged open. Suzie and Karl turned to face the intruders, surprise on their tear-streaked faces. Sydney put a calming hand on each of the students' shoulders, then stepped to the door and shooed Raines back out into the corridor.
"Raines," Sydney's tone was hushed, but angry, "For God's sake, have some compassion. They're grieving."
Raines actually looked flustered. "Who are they?"
"They're Jarod's students, from his last pretend as a professor of--"
"Cut the crap, Sydney! Where is Jarod?" Lyle demanded loudly. Sydney turned to Miss Parker, confused.
"I thought you told them..." Parker shrugged her response. "He's not here. As far as we know, he returned to capture the driver who killed Professor Yeoman, but left before we arrived."
Raines' face was flushed with rage, "Somebody better start making sense!"
"Well, if His Wheeziness would care to listen for a moment," Miss Parker's velvety tone was filled with scorn, "As I tried to mention earlier, Jarod was not the one in the accident. His replacement was. Sydney and I came because we thought Jarod might come back to play Florence Nightingale..."
"Which he did," Sydney finished for her, "Apparently he apprehended the drunk-driver, but the Professor was too far gone. He died a few hours ago."
Lyle looked equally furious at all this, and snatched up the chart on the wall outside Jarod's room. Sure enough, the patient's name was Gareth Yeoman, and the word 'DECEASED' was rubber-stamped across the front page.
Raines turned to Brigitte and rasped, "Find out if they're telling the truth." Brigitte nodded and went into the waiting room, Lyle following. Sydney turned to go back in too, but Raines stopped him.
"You two wait out here," he croaked menacingly, and went into the little room.
As soon as they were alone, Miss Parker let her breath out slowly. "You've got some brass ones, Syd. Seems Jarod taught you a thing or two." She peered in at the ongoing interrogation of the students. Suzie had her face buried in Karl's comforting arms, sobbing as the young man told the story in an Oscar-winning performance. Raines, Brigitte and Lyle looked angry, but seemed to believe what the kids said.
Sydney's phone beeped subtly, then, and he answered it.
"Doctor? It's Nurse Wight from Psyche-ward. Your patient just crashed, and we need to know if he has resuss-orders, 'cause if he's dying anyway..."
"Yes! Yes, resuscitate him!" Sydney gasped, then, with great effort recovering his professional tone, he added, "I mean, there are relatives on their way who, ah, requested that--"
"Okay, doctor, we're on it." The nurse confirmed quickly.
As Sydney flipped the phone closed, his face was white with fear. He turned to Miss Parker.
"You have to go to him: two floors up, the Psychiatric Ward."
"What--?" she began, but Sydney grabbed her arm urgently.
"Parker! Listen, you can save him! Only you can!" She looked utterly baffled at this. "You have to tell him your feelings... he will hear you, he'll come back, I know it! Unfinished business, Miss Parker! Do you understand!"
Miss Parker understood. In all the fear of Raines' arrival and their elaborate deception, she'd momentarily forgotten the reason behind it all. Jarod was dying, and in a heartbeat all the feelings that had been choking her since Valentine's night came rushing back, jolting her into action. She looked into Sydney's desperate eyes, nodded and rushed off towards the elevator.
End of Part Ten