Mercy 6 Read Online Free Page B

not just watching.
    She found a cluster of blood cells clinging to the corner of a salt crystal. Moving diagonally just below the occipital, she found another. Following the same line, she slid her view up the periphery and found a third cluster, dried purple, trapped in a sheer on the base of a salt crystal.
    â€œI see a blood line.”
    She knew Claiborne was wagging his head.
    â€œShe found three dried blood-cell clusters on a hospital janitor.
    On a guy who’d been doing repairs all day. And the day before. And the day before that. In fact, you’re just finding a case for Thorpe.
    Blood contact.”
    â€œThe three form a line,” replied Mendenhall. She traced the laser along the line. It wasn’t quite perfect, with one cluster just on the other side of the line. Then she straightened to address Mullich.
    â€œAny two points form a line. But a third point determines, no?”
    Mullich shrugged.
    Claiborne stepped closer to her.
    â€œYou’ve gone myopic, Dr. Mendenhall. You’ve lost the big picture. You want to argue— to Thorpe —that maybe a microscopic blade lanced a janitor while he was on a ladder? Or that an intense burst of air went off inside his neck? And what about the others?”
    He motioned to the other bodies. “A serial killer with a light saber is loose in the hospital?”
    Mendenhall passed the scope to the tech. She sighed and pressed the back of her sleeve to her brow. She badly wanted to rub her eyes with her fingers.
    â€œThe, what did you call it? Posturing?” said Mullich, his mask thickening his accent. “She saw that.” He pointed back to the lighted displays.
    Mendenhall looked down at her gloved hands, empty. She didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t really say that she had seen posturing in Dozier. We see what we are. She saw what she was.
    She was a dream-deprived trauma specialist, one who had never escaped the ER, forever moonlighting to pay off loans that no longer existed. She didn’t even want to go home. She wanted the hospital to open, to let in more, to let in the outside.
    â€œCan infection cause posturing?” asked Mullich. He was looking at the tech. She answered only with lifted eyes. Her eyes held still, almost black above the dark blue mask.
    â€œMaybe a sudden bloom against the brain stem,” Claiborne answered. “Something like that, I could imagine.”
    â€œImagine?” Mullich pulled his mask down.
    â€œBetter than I can imagine a Jedi in a hospital.”
    Mendenhall was still bowed. “I’ll go rest,” she told Claiborne.
    â€œI’ll come back down if you want.”
    Claiborne let his mask fall away with a simple stroke behind his neck. His expression opened to her. “If I do a bunch of digital scans before Thorpe’s work, he’ll send people down. I like it down here like this. Quiet.” He pointed back to the displays. “You led me to that. We have that to show Thorpe. To put him on his heels a bit.”
    He waved toward the other bodies and the empty bed. “You gave me something to look for in them. Later. Soon, but later.”
7.
    Mendenhall returned to her cubicle. She fussed with papers and journals, squared them, then struck them all, swiping outward with both hands. Atop the resulting mess lay the most recent issues of Tennis Magazine and Golf Digest . She recognized the tennis player but not the golfer. She wouldn’t have guessed that he was an athlete. Despite the airbrushing, she noticed a basal cell on the edge of his left temple. He should come see her. The subscriptions were gifts from her mentor, who knew well enough to have them mailed to the ER, where they would have some chance of being noticed.
    She had played tennis in college. Maybe the golf was supposed to be her future—her present.
    She put the magazines on a stack of previous issues on the floor, all unread save for the letters-to-the-editor