On the way to the local police station, Keith became so disoriented that the cops rerouted to a nearby hospital. Levi and Dominic followed in Dominic’s truck—there was no way Levi was letting Keith out of his sight now.
In the ER, they were immediately escorted through the waiting room to a relatively private corner in the back of the department, where Keith was handcuffed to the bed. While the admitting nurse took his vitals, drew blood, and did her best to soothe him, Levi notified both Tina and Michelle Chapman.
The small curtained alcove was a tight fit with all the people crowded inside it, especially when one of those people was Dominic. He’d been quiet and preoccupied ever since they’d left Whalen Field, a slight frown etched into his brow that still persisted. Levi, too distracted by his own concerns, hadn’t asked what was bothering him.
His attention moved from Dominic to Keith, rambling incoherently on the hospital bed, the cotton sheet underneath his head soaked with sweat. Levi was supposed to believe that this was the same person who had meticulously planned and executed five elaborate murders without leaving any solid evidence behind? The cool, calm individual he’d spoken to on the phone, who’d covered their tracks with finesse and playfully teased Dominic and helped save his own life? This was the controlled, intelligent, ruthless serial killer who’d been fucking with Levi’s head for the past week?
Please.
“Keith.” Levi sat on the rolling stool beside the bed when the nurse moved aside and took Keith’s free hand in his. “Look at me. I want to help you, but I need you to tell me—did you kill Loretta Kane? Benjamin Roth?”
Keith looked at him with glazed eyes, uncomprehending. Then he said, “You’re the killer here,” and spat in Levi’s face.
Levi recoiled. Dominic stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re not going to get anything out of him while he’s like this,” he said under his breath.
Rising to his feet, Levi irritably shrugged off Dominic’s hand. He regretted it right away and touched his fingers to Dominic’s wrist in silent apology. Dominic nodded.
“Detective?” the resident said from just outside the curtain. “Could I have a moment?”
Levi joined her, keeping Keith in his peripheral vision.
“You suggested Mr. Chapman’s agitation and delirium is substance-induced. Can you tell me what he might have taken?”
“Not with any certainty. I mean, I know his psychiatrist has him on an antipsychotic, but . . .” Levi gestured to Keith’s restless, moaning body. “Isn’t this the kind of thing you’d use an antipsychotic to treat?”
“To ease his agitation, yes. It’s possible he’s been mixing meds—this could be a bad drug interaction. Is he on any other medications?”
“I have no idea. His wife and sister are on their way; they’ll know a lot more than I do.”
Keith was mumbling to the nurse, saying, “Make it stop, please make it stop,” over and over. She mopped his forehead and spoke to him in low, calming tones. One of the local cops had chosen to stand guard outside, but the other stood next to the bed, staring at Keith with mingled pity and dismay. He was barely more than a kid, no doubt fresh out of the academy.
“Keith also mentioned he’d been having some memory problems,” Levi told the resident. “Losing time, that kind of thing. I found a bottle of ketamine on him. He said he’s used it in the past, but I don’t know that he’s on it right now.”
“Hmm. Ketamine can cause short-term memory loss, and any number of drugs could react really badly with antipsychotics.” She entered the alcove and approached the bed. “Mr. Chapman? I’m Dr. Traeger. We’re going to run some tests, and in the meantime, I’m going to give you a low dose of a medication that will help you calm down—”
“No!” Keith yelled, so loudly that the resident took a startled step back. He fought to sit up. “Fuck you, don’t touch me! Stay the hell away from me, leave me alone—”
He yanked his bound wrist against the handcuff, thrashing violently. This time, the nurse was unable to pacify him, and his struggles only intensified as he tried to free himself.
“We need to get him into safer restraints before he hurts himself,” the resident said.
The nurse was holding Keith’s free arm, and Dominic had grabbed one of his flailing legs. Yet Keith was undeterred, wrenching his arm against the handcuff with ferocious panic as he continued screaming invectives. The cop just stood there and gaped.
“God, he’s going to break his wrist,” said the nurse.
The resident turned back toward the curtain, causing a moment of confusion as she stepped into Levi’s path. Then, to Levi’s horror, the cop fumbled a key off his belt and bent to unlock Keith’s handcuff.
“Don’t!” Levi cried out, dashing forward—but the couple of seconds it took him to maneuver around the stunned resident were two seconds too many to prevent what happened next.
Keith shoved the nurse with frenzied strength, sending her tumbling sideways into Dominic, who released Keith’s foot as he caught her. They crashed into a rolling cart, and only Dominic’s quick reflexes kept them from both going down with it in a shower of medical supplies.
Leaping from the bed, Keith grabbed the cop’s gun from his holster, flung an arm around his neck, and backed up against the wall, dragging the man with him as a shield. He pressed the gun to the cop’s temple.
Levi and Dominic drew their own guns simultaneously. The resident raced out into the department, shouting for security.
This can’t be happening again.
For a moment, all Levi could see was Dale Slater, holding a gun to a little boy and threatening to blow his head off if the cops didn’t let him go. Slater’s desperation, the boy’s terror, Levi’s own aghast realization of what he’d have to do . . . God, this could not be happening to him again.
He glanced sideways. Dominic’s face was blank, his eyes flat and cold in a way Levi had never seen before. His two-handed grip on his gun was rock-solid, even though the position must have been putting a painful strain on his injured shoulder.
“Stand behind me,” Dominic said to the nurse. She slipped behind his back, where her entire body was easily obscured by his sheer mass.
“Keith,” Levi said, “what the hell are you doing?”
“It’s not my fault.” Despite the wild light in his eyes, Keith sounded more coherent now. “None of this is my fault. You’re trying to send me to prison, but I won’t let you. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Innocent people don’t take hostages.”
Running feet pounded up behind Levi, then came to a stop as the security guards took in the situation. The petrified cop looked at Levi, his eyes wide and pleading. He might have been trained to handle something like this, but fear could wipe the mind blank in an instant.
“Let him go,” Levi said. “Please, Keith, this isn’t you. Let me help you. We can figure out what’s going on.”
Keith licked his lips, his eyes jumping from Levi to Dominic to the security guards. There were two bright red spots on his cheeks, the only color in his entire face.
“What’s going on?” he said with a harsh laugh. “What’s going on is that I keep blacking out for no reason. I wake up with blood on my clothes and no idea where I’ve been. My wife and children are afraid of me. I’m afraid of myself.”
Levi took a step forward. Keith tightened his grip on the cop, digging the gun harder into his forehead. The cop let out a ragged moan, and Levi stayed where he was.
“I can help you—”
Mockingly, Keith repeated, “Oh, you can help me? How? By sending me to a doctor who’ll tell me it’s all in my head? Tell me I’m crazy and then give me pills that fuck me up even more?” His hand spasmed on the gun; the cop flinched and whimpered. “No. Everything’s been taken from me, and I don’t even know why. It won’t stop. It’ll never stop.”
Levi heard the distant wail of approaching sirens, the sounds of frightened people rushing around and shouting as the ER was evacuated. Inside their little bubble, however, there was absolute stillness.
“Keith.” Levi had to know, he had to. “Are you the Seven of Spades?”
A strange expression settled on Keith’s face, resolve hardened by desperation. “There’s one way to find out.”
He pressed the gun underneath his own chin and pulled the trigger.
Levi’s shocked cry was drowned out by the cop’s scream of pain. Keith crumpled to the floor; the cop collapsed as well, both hands clutching the ear that had been next to the gun.
Holstering his own gun, Levi ran forward and dropped to his knees beside Keith. He felt for a pulse, even though there was a gaping hole in the back of Keith’s skull and the wall was spattered with blood and brain matter.
He was dimly aware of the pandemonium that had broken out, of Dominic speaking to him in urgent tones, but it was all background noise. Kneeling on the hospital floor, sickened and stunned, he could only think one thing.
Keith Chapman was dead, and the truth had died with him.