ADRENALINE: New 2013 edition (27 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Mike’s Suburban sped down the on-ramp and merged onto Interstate 283 heading north. The only good thing about driving at this time of night was that traffic was light. He should be able to make good time.
Thank God. I’m especially tired tonight and can’t wait to crawl into bed. That coffee sure hasn’t kicked in yet
.

Something was bothering Mike, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. His tired brain turned over the events of the last hour. He certainly wasn’t thrilled to be on this particular wild goosechase. He was angry with Raskin even though if the circumstances were reversed, he probably would’ve called in his backup too. But that wasn’t what was bugging him.

Maybe I should tell Colleen about the drugs?
Mike felt bad he had kept this secret from her. He had always believed neither of them would ever keep secrets from each other.
Perhaps I should get help? Colleen will understand
. But then thoughts of his children and how they looked up to their strong daddy flooded his mind.
God, I hate being a failure
. He stepped on the accelerator, anxious
to get home.
What will Doug do, I wonder? Turn me in? And what exactly was going on between him and that SICU nurse?
Faint lights in the rearview mirror caught his attention. He made out the characteristic running lights of an eighteen-wheeler in the distance. He decided to tell Colleen. She would support him and help him figure out what to do.
I could call her now
.

He glanced down at his car phone, screen glowing in the dark, and a new thought struck him:
Why didn’t Raskin call me in the car and tell me the lady delivered? Why did he wait until I got to the hospital?
Mike couldn’t think of a good answer and realized this was what had been bugging him. He was disturbed by it, but too tired to muster more than:
I’ll have to keep a close eye on Raskin
.

He yawned and tried to concentrate on the road. He was approaching the construction zone where both directions of traffic were carried on the northbound route. The lanes were separated by cattle chutes—five-foot high, preformed concrete barriers on all sides. They were difficult enough to maneuver through in broad daylight when you were wide-awake.

Driving while tired reminded Mike of an incident when he was in medical school. He had been coming home from the library late one night after a particularly exhausting study session. He had fallen asleep at the wheel on a wooded back road. Luckily, the gravel on the shoulder had crunched noisily under the tires when his car failed to negotiate the curve. He had awoken just in the nick of time to swerve back on the road, avoiding several waiting oak trees.

He had vowed that night never again to ignore the warning signs of sleepiness at the wheel—eyes closing momentarily, car drifting slightly, daydreaming, visions of bed, etc. Thereafter, whenever sleep beckoned, he would roll down the windows, turn the radio way up or try to stop for some coffee or soda. One time on the turnpike, he even pulled over and took a short nap until the wave of irresistible sleep had passed.

But tonight Mike would’ve sworn on a stack of bibles that, yes, he was tired, but nowhere near the dangerous point of sleeping at the wheel. As his head slumped forward and his hands relaxed their grip on the steering wheel, Mike wondered if he heard an air horn in the distance. He groaned but did not open his eyes.

Trucker Marty Johnson bellowed along with Merle Haggard as he nudged his rig up past seventy-five mph. He knew he couldn’t carry a tune, so he made up for it with volume. Marty loved driving at night—not much traffic or many cops—so he could make good time. Of course, he frequently fudged his records, so his time didn’t look too good. Tonight, he had the road all to himself—except for that damned Suburban up ahead. He’d been trying to catch and pass the bastard for the last couple of miles. Just his luck to get stuck behind the guy through the one-lane construction.

There was something wrong with that guy, too. Marty had been watching him swerve all over the road for the last mile. That candy-ass in his fancy SUV is probably going nighty-night. Marty hated SUV’s. His faggoty boss drove one. Whenever he passed one on the highway, he made a point to creep over the line and scare ’em just a bit.

Marty’s irritation soon gave way to anticipation as an idea struck him. After all, Marty knew how to wake people up. He goosed the gas and soon was riding the Suburban’s bumper. He didn’t let the fact that they had entered the cattle chutes bother him. The jerk didn’t even seem to be aware of him. Marty grinned as he gave his air horn a tremendous long blast. “That’ll either wake the dead or give ’em a heart attack,” he said and chuckled.

Much to Marty’s surprise, the two-and-a-half ton Suburban traveling at sixty-five mph continued to inch closer to the center concrete barrier. What the hell was going on? The left front
bumper hit first, a glancing blow that sent the truck careening toward the outer concrete barrier.
Holy shit!

Marty quickly realized his mistake. He took his foot off the gas and applied the brake; he now craved some distance between the two vehicles. As his rig begrudgingly slowed, Marty watched in horrid fascination as the Chevy truck impacted the outer barrier at roughly a 45-degree angle—no glancing blow this time. The passenger side front end crumpled hideously, exploding the right front tire in the process. The truck fishtailed and spun on impact, until the left back end made contact with the center concrete barrier. Having turned almost completely sideways, it continued to skid, quickly bleeding speed as it scraped along both concrete walls. The twisted Suburban came to rest completely blocking the road barely thirty feet away.

Marty jammed on his brakes as hard as he could and hit the horn again, but knew it was hopeless. He had slowed to about forty mph, but didn’t really have a prayer of stopping his twenty-ton baby in time. And the damned barriers prevented him from avoiding the Suburban. “Shit!” His eighteen tires screeched in unison, a horrible racket that was outdone only by the sickening sound of the collision.

As the flames licked over his left hand, Mike’s brain flickered into consciousness. He felt searing pain, smelled the burning rubber, plastic and skin and heard the roaring flames. Slowly his comprehension gelled; he knew he was in his truck and that there had been a horrible accident. He tried to move but only managed to produce waves of pain from the mangled pieces of bone and muscle that had once been his legs. He was hopelessly trapped in his burning truck.

“What happened?” He’d dreamt that he had safely arrived home and was snuggled up in his warm bed. And then it dawned
on him. Mike knew with astounding clarity what had happened. “That son-of-a-bitch! Raskin must’ve drugged me. I was right!”

The flames, encouraged by the strong night breeze, engulfed the whole vehicle. The truck filled with thick smoke, obscuring Mike’s vision and causing him to breathe in short, choking gasps. He groped for his cellular phone, but it was gone. The impact of the collision must have jarred it loose from its floor mounting. His hand closed on some wires, and he followed them a short distance. The phone was wedged under the dash. He couldn’t free the handset from the cradle.
Shit! No voice message
. He doubted the thing even worked. He couldn’t see the keypad but this didn’t matter, as he had long since memorized it anyway. He punched in RCL 04 and was rewarded by normal sounding beeps from the phone. It takes a licking and keeps on ticking. He pushed SEND and heard one last beep. He hoped to God that someone would understand his message. He clutched his gold crucifix and began to pray. The pain of the fire was becoming unbearable. Just then, he heard a noise above the roar of the flames. He looked out the window and thought he could make out the Angel of Death swooping out of the darkness to collect his soul.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Doug Landry drove down the road on his way to work practically in a trance. He had one more call day to get through before the weekend. Deep down somewhere he realized that this weekend would be a crossroads for him. He had never before even considered meeting someone secretly, let alone set the plan into motion. What in the world was he doing? Didn’t Laura and the boys deserve better? Then he saw Jenny standing there, posed in some silky nightgown, smiling seductively, beckoning him. He squeezed his eyes tight and shook his head. If only he could get her out of his mind.

His daydream was penetrated by the news on the radio. “. . . and in local news—this just in—area physician Doctor Michael Carlucci was killed when a tractor trailer collided with his vehicle late last night on Interstate 283, just south of the Hershey exit. Let’s check with Chuck in the Traffax Command Center to see what affect this is having on the morning rush hour commute. Chuck . . .”

Doug almost plowed into the car ahead of him as he listened horrorstruck. He didn’t believe it at first—he thought he’d obviously heard wrong. He switched to the all news station, and his fear was soon confirmed. When he got to work, the nightmare continued.

“Doctor Landry, did you see the paper?” Julie Miller, the group’s secretary asked. Her eyes were red with tears, and her voice quavered badly.

Doug just nodded his head in response; he didn’t trust his own voice. He left her and ran to the surgeon’s lounge, not bothering to change. Morning papers would be found there.

Five or six surgeons were hovering around the coffee pot, most with newspapers in their hands, all talking loudly. Kim Burrows, Omar Ayash, and Bryan Marshall were chatting with the surgeons. The numerous conversations stopped almost immediately when Doug burst through the doorway. All eyes were upon him; they knew that Doug and Mike were close friends. Nobody moved.

“Bad news, Doug,” said Marshall, the first to recover. He walked over and handed Doug the front section of the paper as explanation. “Read this.”

“Doug, I’m so sorry,” said Kim. She reached out and stroked his arm.

“Those truckers are a menace!” Ayash said angrily. He banged his fist in his palm repeatedly. “If I say it once, I say it tousand times.”

Several surgeons offered their condolences, but most became absorbed in suddenly pressing paperwork and telephone calls.