Page 67 of Every Last One

Luis shook his head. “No one has come or gone from that room since we all watched them go in there. That is, until now.”

Sandra kept her gaze on the screen.

“What does she think she’s doing?” Kreiger asked.

Sandra was wondering what had happened in that room that allowed Torres the freedom to go to Maddox’s side.

Nurse Torres sat on the floor next to him, and the two had what appeared to be a tender exchange. She then took something from his pocket. A small box?

“He’s proposing,” Sandra said, stunned.

“From the looks of it, she accepted,” Brice said.

But the engagement glow didn’t last for long. Torres got up and grabbed a wheelchair. But instead of loading up Maddox, she pushed it back into the Chapman room.

“What the… I thought she was going to move Maddox,” Neal said.

“This ought to be interesting.” Kreiger crossed his arms and leaned forward, concentrating on the screen.

Nothing happened for several minutes.

When it did, everyone pulled back. Torres was wheeling the gunman out of Chapman’s room. His head was slumped to the side, suggesting he was unconscious. The fact Torres left Maddox suggested the gunman was still alive and a potential threat.

Torres went out of sight of the camera, but Luis was quick about transitioning to another one.

“Any idea where she might be taking him?” Neal looked at Luis.

“Not a clue.”

Meanwhile on the screen, Torres stopped in front of a door and pressed in a code on a keypad. She left the gunman in place while she propped something against the door to keep it open. Then she wheeled the gunman inside and shut the door.

“What is that room?” Kreiger asked.

“A supplies storage room, some stationery, but also medical supplies such as gloves, needles, and bandages. It locks automatically when it’s shut. There is a release switch inside, though, if one knows where to look.”

“Guess the nurse just did our jobs for us and cleared the fourth floor,” Kreiger said.

Sandra feared he might be getting ahead of things. “Just one floor,” she stressed.

“We still have Feeney armed on the second,” Brice pointed out.

“And I haven’t seen her in a while,” Luis said. “She went into a restroom hours ago, and hasn’t come back out.”

“Then we have two of four taken care of,” Kreiger said. “We move in, while someone continues to monitor the live feed to alert us if she comes out. What about the guy on the sixth floor?”

Luis clicked some buttons, but the screen was blacked out.

“What’s going on? Fix it.” Kreiger thrust a pointed finger toward the screen.

Luis brought up older footage, and they discovered the origin of the problem. They watched as the gunman went around and disabled the cameras.

“Yeah, there’s nothing I can do about that,” Luis said.

“We thought this guy was a techie, given how he disabled the hospital’s phone system,” Brice said. “But there’s nothing thattechieabout unplugging the cameras or slicing the wires.”

On the screen, the man had acquired a ladder and was pushing up near the cameras. He was likely lifting the ceiling tiles to get to the wires. But for every two steps he took up the ladder, he stepped back one, until he got all the way up.

“Well, it seems he has a type of compulsion disorder.” Sandra shared what she observed with the others, not sure how to use it with negotiations, though. She couldn’t even get him on the phone.