THE NIGHT WALKER MOVED quickly along the corridor, feeling a little queasy about the police in the halls and even some of the waiting rooms, feeling the need to do it anyway.
The need was bigger than anything.
Bigger than safety, bigger than never being caught.
The door to room 268 was closed, the child alone, sleeping deeply under the effect of his meds.
The shadowed figure pushed open the door and saw the boy in his bed. The streetlight was hitting the child, his tanned skin contrasting with the white sheets. The entire bed seemed to float in the eerie darkness.
The Night Walker picked up the stuffed monkey that had fallen onto the floor, put the toy into the hospital bed, and leaned over the side rails, thinking how nice the child smelled. Vanilla pudding and sleep.
Jamie Sweet.
The name suited him. With his long lashes and swollen cupid’s-bow mouth, his arm set in a cast, the five-year-old looked every bit an angel with a broken wing.
Too bad.
There would be no more baseball games for this little boy. He wouldn’t be falling off his bike again, either.
Nothing could change that now.
Jamie Sweet was going to die. It was the boy’s destiny, his fate on this earth.
The Night Walker loaded the syringe, pocketed the empty bottle, and moved closer to the bed, quickly injected morphine into the tube leading from the IV bag into Jamie Sweet’s left arm. The prescription was meant for the 250-pound fireman in room 286—a man with second-degree burns and a broken hand who wasn’t going to get much pain relief tonight.
Minutes passed, the only sounds being the whizzing of traffic in the street below and Jamie Sweet’s soft breathing.
The Night Walker used two fingers to press open the child’s eyelids. His pupils were already reduced to pinpoints, the boy’s breath shallow and erratic, night sweats flushing his cheeks, making his damp curls into tight ringlets against his scalp.
As if he’d heard the intruder’s thoughts, the boy thrashed, arching his back, crying out wordlessly. Then his head tipped back and he exhaled, a little sputter coming from his throat.
He didn’t inhale again.
The killer touched Jamie’s carotid artery, felt for a pulse, then reached into a pocket for the metal buttons. Placed one on each of the child’s eyes, whispering, “Good night, sweet prince. Good night.”
Chapter 114
BRENDA PAGED ME on the intercom.
“Lieutenant, pick up line three. The caller says it’s urgent and you know her, but she won’t identify herself.”
I stabbed the button on the phone and said my name. I recognized Noddie’s voice even though it was cracking and she was snuffling through her tears.
“Lieutenant, he was such a young boy,” Noddie Wilkins said. “He only had a broken bone and he died. He really shouldn’t have died. I heard about it in the coffee room. There were caduceus buttons on his eyes.”
I called Tracchio, got him on the line, told him what I needed and what I was going to do.
Then I swallowed the load of obligatory cover-your-ass crap he dished out: was I sure I knew what I was doing? Did I understand the dire consequences if I got this wrong?
I said, “Yessir, yessir, I understand.”
And I did.
A blind sweep could churn up nothing more than panic: no evidence of wrongdoing, no suspects, no leads of any kind. The outraged calls would come in after that, complaints about my lack of judgment, my bad leadership instincts, and, most of all, the SFPD’s inability to protect the people we serve.
But there wasn’t time enough to come up with a better plan.
Another person had died.