Page 149 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

“I knew,” he mumbled. “I knew.”

She banked a hard left. Her heart shook at the sight of the NORTHWESTERN sign outside of the emergency room.

“Andy?” Jane panicked. She couldn’t hear him breathing anymore. She held onto his hand. His flesh was like ice. “We’re almost there, my darling. Just hang on.”

His eyelids fluttered open. “Trade—” He choked a cough. “Trade him.”

“Andy, don’t try to speak.” The hospital sign was getting closer. “We’re almost there. Just hang on, my darling. Hang on for just a moment more.”

“Trade all...” Andrew’s eyelids fluttered again. His chin dropped to his chest. Only the whistling sound of air being sucked through his teeth told her that he was still alive.

The hospital.

Jane almost lost control of the wheel when the tires bumped over a curb. The van fishtailed. She somehow managed to screech to a halt in front of the entrance to the ER. Two orderlies were smoking on a nearby bench.

“Help!” Jane jumped out of the van. “Help my brother. Please!”

The men were already off the bench. One ran back into the hospital. The other opened the van door.

“He has—” Jane’s voice caught. “He’s infected with—”

“I gotcha.” The man wrapped his arms around Andrew’s shoulders as he helped him out of the van. “Come on, buddy. We’re gonna take good care of you.”

Jane’s tears, long dried, started to flow again.

“You’re all right,” the man told Andrew. He sounded so kind that she wanted to fall to the ground and kiss his feet. He asked Andrew, “Can you walk? Let’s go to this bench and—”

“Where—” Andrew was looking for Jane.

“I’m right here, my darling.” She put her hand to his face. She pressed her lips to his forehead. His hand reached out. He was touching the round swell of her stomach.

“Trade...” he whispered, “...all of them.”

The other orderly ran back through the door with a gurney. The two men lifted Andrew off his feet. He was so light that they barely had to strain to get him onto the gurney. Andrew turned his head, looking for Jane.

He said, “I love you.”

The men started to roll the gurney inside. Andrew kept his eyes on Jane for as long as he could.

The doors closed.

She watched through the glass as Andrew was rolled into the back of the emergency room. The double doors swung open. Nurses and doctors swarmed around him. The doors closed again, and he was gone.

They’ll catch you.

Jane breathed in the cool night air. No one rushed out of the hospital with a gun, telling her to get down on the ground. None of the nurses were on the phone behind the desk.

She was safe. Andrew was being taken care of. She could leave now. No one knew where she was. No one could find her unless she wanted to be found.

Jane walked back to the van. She closed the passenger’s side door. She climbed back behind the wheel. The engine was still running. She tried to remember everything Andrew had said. Moments before, she had been talking to her brother, and now Jane knew that she would never hear Andrew’s voice ever again.

She put the car in gear.

Jane drove aimlessly, passing the marked parking spaces for the emergency room. Passing the parking deck for the hospital, for the university, for the shopping center at the end of the street.

Canada. The forger.

Jane could create a new life for herself and her child. The two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash was probably still in the back of the van. The small cooler. The Thermos of water. The box of Slim Jims. The blanket. The futon. Toronto was just over eight hours away. Skirt around the top of Indiana, through Michigan, then into Canada. That had been the plan after Nick’s triumphant return from New York. They would stay in the farmhouse for a few weeks during the fallout from the bombings, then drive into Canada, buy more documents from the forger on East Kelly Street, and fly to Switzerland.