Page 31 of The Whispering Girls (Detective Katie Scott #14)

TWENTY-NINE

The temperature had dropped since they had been out at Mountain Trail Pass.

The roads were almost deserted as most people were staying inside to wait out the storm, and with no traffic, Katie increased speed as much as she dared.

At the moment, the roads were fairly clear, but if the flurries turned into heavier snow, there was going to be a problem.

Katie turned up the heater and glanced in the rearview mirror, where she could see John following in his white truck.

What she hadn’t seen back at the lodge was Jack’s truck.

She wondered where he’d gone while they’d been talking.

Obviously, being a resident here most of his life, he would know how to keep himself safe. A storm wasn’t any problem for him.

Cisco seemed to know they were going to something official. Instead of whining and turning circles in the back seat, he sat concentrating straight ahead at the road.

“Do you really think we’re walking right into a trap?” said McGaven .

“It’s a possibility,” she said gritting her teeth. Her gut also said so. “We need to be aware.”

“Okay. But the chief seems on the up-and-up to me. Once you take away this weird town and the tight-lipped residents…I think he’s okay.”

Katie didn’t think about it like that, but her partner had a point. “The other side to that equation is…what has he really given us? Haven’t you noticed that it’s just enough information and reports to give the appearance of transparency?”

McGaven remained quiet; he seemed to be lost in thought.

“We need a plan,” she said. She called John from the vehicle’s Bluetooth.

“What’s up?” said John.

“How do you want to handle this?” she said.

“I was thinking that you two enter from the front and I’ll go around to the ambulance entry—and then we’ll meet up.”

Katie thought that seemed a good idea. She looked to her partner.

McGaven nodded.

“What about Cisco?” said John.

“He’ll be fine in the car with the K9 heating system. I have the remote for the door popper…just in case.”

“Copy that,” said John.

The silence was almost deafening between the detectives. Katie didn’t know exactly what McGaven was thinking, but she knew what most cops would be. Stay alive, stay vigilant, assess the situation, have your partner’s back, and get to the chief safely.

Katie saw the entrance to the hospital. It looked so different from the other night.

Since they had closed this smaller medical center due to the ongoing investigation, it was now dark, strangely shadowy, and out of place.

No activity. Normally there would be lighting on the building leading to the emergency entrance, but now it almost resembled an abandoned building.

Katie pulled into the parking lot. She opted not to park up front, but pulled to one side out of the way in a darkened area where the Jeep would still be easily accessible and Cisco would be able to deploy from the car with ease—if the situation came down to that.

“There,” said McGaven. “The chief’s police vehicle.”

Katie studied it in the darkness. “No officers?” She took a minute to set up motion video on the dash cameras facing the side and front entrances. She wasn’t taking any chances. She quickly checked her cell phone and the cameras were working.

McGaven looked at his partner. “You ready?”

“Affirmative.”

“Keep your eyes and head on swivel.”

“I’ve got your back,” she said. “It looks like John had other ideas about where he was parking. I don’t see him,” she said.

“That’s who he is…you won’t see him coming.” McGaven gave a sly smile.

Katie always felt a twinge of uncertainty leaving Cisco alone in the car, but it was better than leaving him at the lodge.

Too many people had access to that. The town was proving to be deeply disturbing.

It was as if the detectives were in some kind of maze, never knowing what was going to happen next.

Katie dismissed her thoughts and put in her tech earplug and attached the microphone to her collar. McGaven did the same. Using their cell phones as walkie-talkies was a risk—they could lose the signal or it could be jammed by an outside source—but it was the best they had.

As Katie checked her firearm, made sure she had another magazine, and attached a flashlight on her gun belt, McGaven did the same. This time Katie also carried another smaller gun in her ankle holster. It may have been overkill, but they were walking into something virtually unknown .

They were both quiet as they prepped themselves. Even Cisco was quiet. It was as if they all knew something was about to go down.

“You know we don’t have to do this,” she said. “It’s just us and John…no backup if it goes sideways. We could call and wait for the county sheriff’s department to arrive first.”

“It’s our duty as police officers, on or off duty, to act if someone needs help no matter what—especially when it’s one of us.”

Katie nodded. There was no way she was going to leave the chief in distress, or anyone else for that matter. “Copy that.”

The detectives got out of the car and shut the doors, barely making a sound.

They headed to the front entrance where there were double glass doors. Normally a red neon “open” sign would be brightening the door area, but there was nothing tonight. It was as if they had cut the electricity completely.

Katie gently pushed the door and, to her surprise, it opened. That made her pause. There was no reasonable explanation for that unless it had been Chief Cooper who had unlocked and entered through that door.

Katie turned to her partner.

He nodded.

She pulled her weapon and entered first. Her boots made a soft whisper on the smooth floor. She replayed when they had come through here to visit the chief. There was a reception area straight ahead and turning right led you down a long hallway with doors on both sides.

Katie decided not to talk if she could help it, so she made a gesture with her hand that she was going down the hallway.

McGaven nodded and kept pace six feet behind his partner.

Katie stopped and listened. Her heart was racing.

Her right hand slightly shook, holding her Glock.

No, she thought, anticipating her anxiety and military flashbacks returning.

She stared ahead, expecting to see some light and not just the reflection from hospital equipment, carts, and outlines of the nurses’ stations.

It was quiet too without any sound of the indoor air system or equipment.

If Katie didn’t know better, she would have thought she had gone deaf.

With very little light coming in from outside, it was difficult to tell if you were indoors or out.

The air was stuffy and surprisingly warm.

Katie didn’t turn to look at McGaven, but she knew he was close.

Moving forward, her instinct seemed to tell her to go straight to the hospital room the chief had been recovering in.

Pulling the flashlight from her belt, Katie switched it on and kept the beam low.

It was enough to illuminate the area and give surrounding items shape.

The area was just the same, except the bed had been changed and remade with perfect corners.

There was no indication of anyone having been there recently.

“What do you think?” whispered McGaven.

“I’m not sure.”

“We don’t know if the chief is here.”

“What if he’s hurt or had another heart incident?”

They left the room and began to systematically try each door off the corridor, including storage closets, offices, and patient rooms. There was nothing.

Katie could feel her frustration rising. She turned to McGaven. “We don’t know for sure if the chief was calling from here, even though his police vehicle is here,” she said. Cold shivers and prickly bumps attacked her spine, but her face felt flushed and hot.

“Wait,” he said. Using his cell phone, he was able to partially pinpoint where the chief’s call originated from. It wasn’t exact, but gave a fairly accurate reading. He looked up. “The chief was actually calling from the area near the cabin.”

“What? The cabin I rented?” she said. “Why? ”

McGaven looked concerned and his face appeared to turn white.

“Gav?”

He didn’t say anything or acknowledge her.

There was a light tapping sound up ahead and it started to echo around them.

“Is that John?” said Katie.

McGaven sent John a text message.

The detectives were relieved to hear a chime back meaning that John was still in the hospital.

Katie leaned close to McGaven and said, “Let’s finish the search to see if anything has changed. I don’t want to run around like we’re on a scavenger hunt.”

McGaven nodded.

Katie decided to search on the left, leaving McGaven to examine the right.

She crept along looking to see if anything appeared out of place.

There were some indications of the cleanup from the other night.

Moving more into the interior, wheelchairs, carts, and rolling equipment for IV bags and a kidney machine were out of place and skewed.

There were canisters of all sizes and heights in one spot.

The detectives had a difficult time not running into various things in their way.

Everything was telling Katie they needed to get out, but her cop instincts told her they also needed to find out what was going on. Even though things looked messy, there didn’t seem to have been an altercation or anything out of the ordinary since the murders.

So why was the front door unlocked, showing no signs of a break-in?

Where was the chief?

Why did the chief have them come to the hospital?

These questions and more swirled through her mind, but she moved forward quickly to where the emergency entrance was located, waiting to run into John .

The darkness ahead felt endless. Finally they were close enough to see outlines. John appeared like a ghost emerging from the darkness, a warrior apparition by the way he walked.

There was the sound of something hitting metal again, but it seemed louder.

Katie stopped. She thought she smelled something out of place. Maybe some type of cleaning fluid. Maybe the crew had cleaned or sanitized an area? Or maybe?—

Several gunshots fired at the group, pinging off the equipment and taking out sections of the walls.

Katie and McGaven immediately hit the floor, while John dove over a nurses’ station, disappearing over the other side.

Katie immediately wondered if someone had come into the medical facility looking for drugs. But as she took cover behind one of carts, she realized she was completely wrong. There had been no warnings. No sounds or sights that anyone was there besides them.

It was a trap— for them .

Katie looked to McGaven, who had hidden himself; most likely trying to assess the situation.

There were no sounds in the facility. No more bullets. No movement.

Katie ran several scenarios in her mind, but nothing seemed to surface that was credible. If the person wanted to kill them, they would have already done so. No one would have witnessed it.

She could feel the cold floor and could still smell some type of disinfectant. There was a hissing sound…

Two more shots fired over their heads, hitting the ceiling tiles and causing pieces to shower down on them. Whoever was shooting wasn’t aiming for them.

McGaven and John returned fire.

Katie remained in her position so she could go over everything through her mind. Contemplating. Running situations. Going through all possible setups and ambushes. Why the hospital setting?

The hissing continued, as did the pungent smell.

She kept running through ideas and factors…

Cleaning materials…

Hospital chemicals…

Nitrous oxide…

Anesthetic gases…

Oxygen…

Ethyl alcohol…

And…

Gunfire rounds…

“We need to get out now!” she yelled. “Now!” Her heart skipped several beats. Katie began to crawl back to where they had come from. She turned and could see McGaven and John following her lead. “Now!”

One… Two… Gunshots…

Katie stood up and began to run. She heard footsteps behind her right before the last gunshot rang out at the same time as the explosion.