Part 37 (1/2)
Wham was the sound, then a loud thud, and a man's agonized shout.
Suddenly Jill was gasping for oxygen, her chest heaving, her body bucking up and down, her autonomic system kicking into gear, the organism trying to survive before its brain could process what had happened.
Victoria was standing at her feet with a two-by-four, and Donator wasn't on top of her anymore.
Jill gasped for breath, sputtering, trying to come back, wanting so much to stay alive. She rolled her head to the side, choking and coughing.
Donator lay still on the floor beside her, face up. Dead. His eyes stared fixedly at the exposed rafters. His mouth was open, his lips a shocked circle. His arms lay at his sides. Blood poured from a gaping wound in his temple, pooling on the concrete floor around his head, like an infernal halo.
”Jill? Jill?” Victoria dropped the two-by-four and rushed to her side.
Jill could feel her heartbeat pounding, her gasps wracking her body, and her lungs beginning to function. Her throat hurt so much, and she tried to speak, but couldn't.
Victoria bent over, gathered her into her arms, and hugged her close. Jill looked up into Victoria's eyes, which shone with a tenderness they'd never held before.
”Are you okay?” Victoria asked, with a weepy smile. ”Are you hurt?”
Jill shook her head. She managed a smile. She couldn't say a word, but she knew what she thought, in her heart.
I was hurt, before this very moment. I've been hurting since the last time I saw you.
But I'm fine, now.
Chapter Sixty-five.
Jill was only vaguely aware of everything that happened next as she faded in and out of consciousness, in and out of pain, in almost continuous motion. There were police, ambulances, then being strapped into a gurney with EMTs looking down at her with concern. They attached her to monitors, an IV bag, and at one point she cleared her aching throat enough to ask what she had to know: ”Can you call, about Rahul?”
”This is no time to worry about the office,” the EMT answered, then they were hustling her out of the ambulance and to the ER nurses in their patterned scrubs, all of them looking down at her with even more concern as they whisked her inside through the automatic doors.
Jill kept saying, ”Call somebody, please. Please, call about Rahul.”
But they didn't listen, either.
Chapter Sixty-six.
Jill sat up in the hospital bed, st.i.tched, bandaged, medicated, and finally safe, in the company of real, ID-producing FBI agents, Special Agent Anthony Harrison and Special Agent Gordon Kavicka. The bullet wound to her shoulder wasn't deep, sutured with only a local anesthetic, and some pain meds had made her comfortable enough to meet with the FBI. The two special agents sat in chairs at the foot of her bed, dressed in dark suits, with striped ties and short haircuts. Victoria sat next to Jill on the bed in her torn jacket, and the cut on her cheek had been b.u.t.terfly-bandaged.
”Can anybody tell me what just happened?” Jill asked, her throat aching. ”Who was Donator, where is Cohz, and did somebody reach my office to ask about my patient, Rahul Choudhury?”
Victoria added, ”Also, was my father murdered, and what did Brian have to do with it, if anything? Is he really undercover with the FBI, or were they lying to us?”
”Hold on, one question at a time.” Special Agent Harrison raised a hand, his expression grim. He was a tall, lean man with smallish brown eyes, deep crow's feet, and a prominent cleft chin. ”Dr. Farrow, we have a call in to your office, and we'll let you know about your patient as soon as they call back. Now, as for what happened, I'll answer as many of your questions as I can, on a need-to-know basis.”
Jill felt taken aback. ”We need to know everything. We were almost killed.”
”Let us finish our jobs, then we'll explain everything. You have found your way into an ongoing federal investigation. We're within hours of making major arrests and indictments, and we cannot jeopardize anything. An investigation as large and important as this one requires countless man hours, budget dollars, and hard work.”
Jill didn't interrupt him to say how much he sounded like the fake FBI agents.
”For now, we'll tell you only the information you need to know, and we expect you to treat the matter in complete confidence. Beyond this circle, we depend upon you to say nothing to any friends or neighbors, and explain your injuries by saying that you were in a car accident. Dr. Farrow, your fiance, when he arrives, must also keep it confidential.”
”He will.” Jill hadn't spoken to Sam, but evidently the FBI had.
Victoria leaned over. ”Special Agent Harrison, can you please tell me about Brian? Is he out of surgery, and is he one of you or not?”
Special Agent Harrison cleared his throat. ”Brian works with us. He's awake, and we expect a full recovery.”
”Thank G.o.d.” Victoria brightened, and Jill touched her shoulder.
”There's good news.”
Victoria nodded. ”But who is he, really? Is he even a lawyer?”
”I can't answer that, yet.”
Jill thought back to the ER room, with the fake FBI agents. ”Cohz and Donator knew he was undercover. How did they know?”
”I can't answer that, at this time.”
”So who were Donator and Cohz and why did they try to kill us?”
”I can't answer that, either.”
”Don't we have a need to know that?” Jill tried to keep her temper, but it wasn't easy. ”What if Agent Cohz, or whoever he was, comes back to try to kill us? Or did you catch him?”
Special Agent Harrison hesitated. ”Dr. Farrow, the man who told you he was Special Agent Cohz is dead.”
”What? How?” Jill asked, shocked. ”The EpiPen wouldn't have killed him, even in the carotid. It's only epinephrine.”
”Apparently, he had a heart condition, and it caused a heart attack.”
”Oh no.” Jill flashed on the scene in the car. ”I didn't know, he was so young. It wasn't supposed to kill him.”
”We've already discussed this with the local authorities, and you won't be charged, of course. Either of you. It was self-defense.”
Jill felt stunned. ”But I'm a doctor.”
”He would have killed you both without a second thought.”
”Maybe, but that doesn't make it right, for me. I took an oath.” Jill felt a wave of guilt, and Victoria took her hand.