Under The Knife. Tess Gerritsen

pertaining to the obstetrical care of Ms. Jennifer Brook, who was your patient at the time of her death….

      Jennifer Brook. A name he’d hoped to forget.

      A profound weariness came over him—the exhaustion of a man who has discovered he cannot outrun his own shadow. He tried to muster the energy to go home, to slog outside and climb into his car, but he could only sit and stare at the four walls of his office. His sanctuary. His gaze traveled past the framed diplomas, the medical certificates, the photographs. Everywhere there were snapshots of wrinkled newborns, of beaming mothers and fathers. How many babies had he brought into the world? He’d lost count years ago….

      It was a sound in the outer office that finally drew him out of his chair: the click of a door shutting. He rose and went to peer out at the reception area. “Peggy? Are you still here?”

      The waiting room was deserted. Slowly his gaze moved past the flowered couch and chairs, past the magazines neatly stacked on the coffee table, and finally settled on the outer door. It was unlocked.

      Through the silence, he heard the muted clang of metal. It came from one of the exam rooms.

      “Peggy?” Tanaka moved down the hall and glanced into the first room. Flicking on the light, he saw the hard gleam of the stainless-steel sink, the gynecologic table, the supply cabinet. He turned off the light and went to the next room. Again, everything was as it should be: the instruments lined up neatly on the counter, the sink wiped dry, the table stirrups folded up for the night.

      Crossing the hall, he moved toward the third and last exam room. But just as he reached for the light switch, some instinct made him freeze: a sudden awareness of a presence—something malevolent—waiting for him in the darkness.

      In terror, he backed out of the room. Only as he spun around to flee did he realize that the intruder was standing behind him.

      A blade slashed across his neck.

      Tanaka staggered backward into the exam room and toppled an instrument stand. Stumbling to the floor, he found the linoleum was already slick with his blood. Even as he felt his life drain away, a coldly rational pocket of his brain forced him to assess his own wound, to analyze his own chances. Severed artery. Exsanguination within minutes. Have to stop the bleeding…. Numbness was already creeping up his legs.

      So little time. On his hands and knees, he crawled toward the cabinet where the gauze was stored. To his half-senseless mind, the feeble light reflecting off those glass doors became his guiding beacon, his only hope of survival.

      A shadow blotted out the glow from the hall. He knew the intruder was standing in the doorway, watching him. Still he kept moving.

      In his last seconds of consciousness, Tanaka managed to drag himself to his feet and wrench open the cabinet door. Sterile packets rained down from the shelf. Blindly he ripped one apart, withdrew a wad of gauze and clamped it against his neck.

      He didn’t see the attacker’s blade trace its final arc.

      As it plunged deep into his back, Tanaka tried to scream but the only sound that issued from his throat was a sigh. It was the last breath he took before he slid quietly to the floor.

      * * *

      CHARLIE DECKER LAY naked in his small hard bed and he was afraid.

      Through the window he saw the blood-red glow of a neon sign: The Victory Hotel. Except the t was missing from Hotel. And what was left made him think of Hole, which is what the place really was: The Victory Hole, where every triumph, every joy, sank into some dark pit of no return.

      He shut his eyes but the neon seemed to burrow its way through his lids. He turned away from the window and pulled the pillow over his head. The smell of the filthy linen was suffocating. Tossing the pillow aside, he rose and paced over to the window. There he stared down at the street. On the sidewalk below, a stringy-haired blonde in a miniskirt was dickering with a man in a Chevy. Somewhere in the night people laughed and a jukebox was playing “It Don’t Matter Anymore.” A stench rose from the alley, a peculiar mingling of rotting trash and frangipani: the smell of the back streets of paradise. It made him nauseated. But it was too hot to close the window, too hot to sleep, too hot even to breathe.

      He went over to the card table and switched on the lamp. The same newspaper headline stared up at him.

      Honolulu Physician Found Slain.

      He felt the sweat trickle down his chest. He threw the newspaper on the floor. Then he sat down and let his head fall into his hands.

      The music from the distant jukebox faded; the next song started, a thrusting of guitars and drums. A singer growled out: “I want it bad, oh yeah, baby, so bad, so bad….”

      Slowly he raised his head and his gaze settled on the photograph of Jenny. She was smiling; as always, she was smiling. He touched the picture, trying to remember how her face had felt; but the years had dimmed his memory.

      At last he opened his notebook. He turned to a blank page. He began to write.

       This is what they told me:

       “It takes time…

       Time to heal, time to forget.”

       This is what I told them:

       That healing lies not in forgetfulness

       But in remembrance

       Of you.

       The smell of the sea on your skin;

       The small and perfect footprints you leave in the sand.

       In remembrance there are no endings.

       And so you lie there, now and always, by the sea.

       You open your eyes. You touch me.

       The sun is in your fingertips.

       And I am healed.

       I am healed.

       CHAPTER ONE

      WITH A STEADY HAND, Dr. Kate Chesne injected two hundred milligrams of sodium Pentothal into her patient’s intravenous line. As the column of pale yellow liquid drifted lazily through the plastic tubing, Kate murmured, “You should start to feel sleepy soon, Ellen. Close your eyes. Let go….”

      “I don’t feel anything yet.”

      “It will take a minute or so.” Kate squeezed Ellen’s shoulder in a silent gesture of reassurance. The small things were what made a patient feel safe. A touch. A quiet voice. “Let yourself float,” Kate whispered. “Think of the sky…clouds….”

      Ellen gave her a calm and drowsy smile. Beneath the harsh operating-room lights, every freckle, every flaw stood out cruelly on her face. No one, not even Ellen O’Brien, was beautiful on the operating table. “Funny,” she murmured. “I’m not afraid. Not in the least….”

      “You don’t have to be. I’ll take care of everything.”

      “I know. I know you will.” Ellen reached out for Kate’s hand. It was only a touch, a brief mingling of fingers. The warmth of Ellen’s skin against hers was one more reminder that not just a body, but a woman, a friend, was lying on this table.

      The door swung open and the surgeon walked in. Dr. Guy Santini was as big as a bear and he looked faintly ridiculous in his flowered paper cap. “How we doing in here, Kate?”

      “Pentothal’s going in now.”

      Guy moved to the table and squeezed the patient’s hand. “Still with us, Ellen?”

      She smiled. “For better or worse. But on the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”

      Guy laughed. “You’ll get there. But minus your gallbladder.”

      “I