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32
MISHA
The soundof my phone ringing woke me out of a fitful sleep. I’d been tossing and turning as it was, so when I swiped it off the nightstand, my heart skipped a beat, hoping and dreading to see Marek’s name on the caller ID. Sadly, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t anyone in my contacts, which irritated me even more.
“Privet?” I grumbled, rubbing sleep from my eye.
“Um, hi,” a female said. “Is this Michael Cher-nee. Chair-nigh—”
“Yes,” I cut in. “What do you want?”
“My name is Krista. I’m a nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I’m sorry for calling so late, but we had a patient brought in a little while ago without any ID on him. We found your business card in his pocket, so we were hoping you might be able to identify him for us?”
“Is this person dead?”
“Uh, no. No. He’s stable now but he’s sedated so we can’t ask him anything.”
“What does he look like?” If I could avoid a trip to the hospital for some stranger then I was certainly going to try. It’s not like I rationed my business cards. Half of the city probably had them for one reason or another.
“Maybe 5’10? Slim build. Caucasian. Brown hair. He’s got an M tattooed on the back of his right shoulder, if that helps.”
My eyes flew open and my heart rate tripled.
“I’ll be right there,” I said, hanging up and bolting out of bed.
* * *
I approachedthe nurse’s station in the emergency department and cleared my throat, though it did nothing to dislodge the lump wedged deep inside. “Excuse me. Do you know where Krista is?”
The woman nodded and hailed a passing nurse. “Krista! Someone to see you.”
The nurse looked up and blinked, tucking her tablet under her arm. “Can I help you?”
“You called me a little while ago, about identifying a patient?”
“Oh. Yes! Michael.” She gave me a polite smile and tossed her head to the side, indicating I should walk with her. “You made good time.”
“How is he?”
“Stable, like I said. It would be helpful to know what he took, so we know what we’re dealing with. Do you know what kind of drugs he uses?”
“He doesn’t use any.”
She shot me a look but refrained from comment as she opened the door and gestured for me to go in.
On top of my worry, I was even more rankled. Marekdidn’tuse. A dealer, yes. But a user? No! He didn’t even smoke anymore. Something else must have happened. It must have been some kind of mix-up or he’d accidentally been exposed to something, like fentanyl.
I held my breath, stepping into his room.
As she said on the phone, he appeared stable—but sedate. An IV drip hung next to him and he’d been intubated. A plastic hose was taped in place, the machine whirring and puffing quietly next to him. All sorts of other clips and wires monitored his oxygen levels, his heart rate. It was him, but it wasn’t… It was a shell of him. Just like earlier when I’d sent him home with Anton, with that fucking look in his eyes. He was there but hewasn’t,and this was the result of my incompetence. Iknewsomething was wrong but I let him go, because my obligation to Sergei had outweighed my dedication to Marek.
“What happened?” I asked, sorting through a dozen scenarios in my head, trying to make sense of it all.
Shrugging, she snagged a little dropper bottle from the counter and handed it to me. There was no label or etching on the clear glass, nothing at all to indicate what it was. “Other than your business card, this was the only thing he had on him. Ambulance was called to one of the hotels on Michigan Avenue for a report of a male not breathing. When they got him here, we intubated him and started fluids to flush whatever it is out of his system. He should be good to go by morning.”
I studied the bottle in my hand before unscrewing it. I tentatively sniffed at the remnants of the clear liquid but it was completely odorless. Touching my finger to the rim, I dabbed it against my tongue, nose wrinkling instantly.
“G,” I said, handing the bottle back. “It’s a party drug.”
