slid the glass open.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you arrive. Are you checking in?’
‘No,’ Jack said. ‘All my bodily functions are working fine at the
moment.’
‘Excuse me?’ the woman questioned.
‘We’re here to see the hospital, not use its services,’ Jack said.
‘We’re doctors.’
‘This isn’t the hospital,’ the woman said. ‘This is the Inn. You can
either go out and come in the front of the building or follow the hall
to your right. The hospital is beyond the double doors.’
‘Thank you,’ Jack said.
‘My pleasure,’ the woman said. She leaned forward and watched as Jack
and the others disappeared around the corner. Perplexed, the woman sat
back and picked up her phone.
Jack led the others through the double doors. Immediately, the
surroundings looked more familiar. The floors were vinyl and the walls
were painted a soothing hospital green. A faint antiseptic smell was
detectable.
‘This is more like it,’ Jack said.
They entered a room whose windows fronted on the square. Between the
windows were a large pair of doors leading to the outside. There were a
few couches and chairs on area rugs forming distinct conversational
groupings, but it was nothing like the lounge they’d initially entered.
But like the lounge, this space had a glass-fronted information
cubbyhole.
Jack again knocked on the glass. Another woman slid open the glass
partition. She was equally as cordial.
‘We have a question,’ Jack said. ‘We’re doctors, and we’d like to know
if there are currently any transplant patients in the hospital?’
‘Yes, of course, there’s one,’ the woman said with a confused look on
her face. ‘Horace Winchester. He’s in 302 and ready to be discharged.’
‘How convenient,’ Jack said. ‘What organ was transplanted?’
‘His liver,’ the woman said. ‘Are you all from the Pittsburgh group?’
‘No, we’re part of the New York group,’ Jack said.
‘I see,’ the woman said, although her expression suggested she didn’t
see at all.
‘Thank you,’ Jack said to the woman as he herded the group toward the
elevators that could be seen to the right.
‘Luck is finally going our way,’ Jack said excitedly. ‘This is going to
make it easy. Maybe all we have to do is get a look at the chart.’
‘As if that’s going to be easy,’ Laurie commented.
‘True,’ Jack said after a moment’s thought. ‘So maybe we should just
drop in on Horace and get the lowdown from the horse’s mouth.’
‘Hey, man,’ Warren said, pulling Jack to a stop. ‘Maybe Natalie and I
should wait down here. We’re not used to being in a hospital, you know
what I’m saying?’
‘I suppose,’ Jack said reluctantly. ‘But I kind of think its important
for us to stick together in case we have to mosey down to the canoe
sooner than we’d like. You know what I’m saying?’
Warren nodded and Jack pressed the elevator call button.
Cameron McIvers was accustomed to false alarms. After all, most of the
time he or the Office of Security was called, it was a false alarm.
Accordingly, as he entered the front door of the Inn, he was not
concerned. But it was his job or one of his deputies’ to check out all
potential problems.
As he crossed to the information desk, Cameron noted that the lounge was
as subdued as usual. The calm scene bolstered his suspicions that this
call would be like all the others.
Cameron tapped on the glass, and it was slid open.
‘Miss Williams,’ Cameron said, while touching the brim of his hat in a
form of salute. Cameron and the rest of the security force wore khaki
uniforms with an Aussie hat when on duty. There was also a leather belt
with shoulder strap. A holstered Beretta was attached to the belt on the
right side and a hand-held two-way radio on the left side.
‘They went that way,’ Corrina Williams said excitedly. She lifted
herself out of her chair to point around the corner.
‘Calm down,’ Cameron said gently. ‘Who exactly are you talking about?’
‘They didn’t give any names,’ Corrina said. ‘There were four of them.
Only one spoke. He said he was a doctor.’
‘Hmmm,’ Cameron voiced. ‘And you’ve never seen them before?’