nurse standing over him. “Good morning, Dr. Marcus.” He showed a big bright smile. “We’re going on a journey.” The nurse took Marcus’s chart, laid it at the foot of his bed, and began to wheel him into the hallway. He nodded at the constable, who nodded in return.
Fear tore through Marcus’s beaten body. He tried to twist and form words, but it was as if he had a mouthful of cotton. “Wha wah we gowha?”
“Easy there, Dr. Marcus. You’re going on a long ride.” The nurse moved the gurney slowly and methodically, bobbing his head with “Good mornings” to his associates, as he wheeled Marcus down the hall and into the lift. He pushed the button that said LOWER LEVEL, the level where the morgue was located.
Marcus’s mind was a flurry of nightmarish thoughts. His worst fear was about to come true. Franny O’Rourke was going to do him in.
“By the way, Dr. Marcus, your wife filed for divorce. Once she realized all your accounts were frozen, she had the papers drawn up,” the nurse explained in a matter-of-fact way.
Marcus’s neurons were firing rapidly. Even though he was relieved that he would be rid of her, he asked himself, How does the nurse know about that? As they moved farther down the hall, Marcus noticed several gurneys on which lay bodies covered in sheets. His heart started racing when the nurse stopped. The nurse checked the chart of one of the corpses and swapped it with Marcus’s.
“That ought to do it.” The nurse smiled down at him and pulled a large black body bag from a shelf. He disconnected the traction and lowered Marcus’s leg. He slipped the bag under Marcus’s body and pulled it up until it was over his shoulders. Marcus was in a panic. The nurse wrapped the top of the bag around Marcus’s head, reached for the zipper, and zipped him in like a mummy. “Don’t you move or say a word. Or you’re a dead man,” the nurse whispered through the bag.
Marcus held his breath, waiting for the next blow. The nurse proceeded to push Marcus along until they came to the large doors at the end of the hall. A black van that looked like a hearse was waiting.
He felt the gurney being raised and slid into the back of the parked van. Once the van was far enough from the hospital car park, a voice from the front seat addressed him. “Good morning, Dr. Marcus. We are here to inform you that you are a dead man.” Marcus almost pissed. “Officially, that is.” The woman’s voice was clear. She reached around the seat and pulled the zipper down, uncovering his head and face. “You are being transported to a nursing home, where you will recover under the name James Sherman. Once you are able to walk and function, you will remain at said nursing home as a member of the custodial staff for the rest of Mr. Sherman’s life. You will never venture more than a hundred feet from the facility. To make sure you do not, you will be monitored. Do I make myself clear? Grunt once for yes, two for no.”
One grunt. Marcus was hearing the words, but they made no sense. There would be no trial, but he would be under house arrest forever. The more he thought about it, the more confused he got.
“Franny O’Rourke will no longer be a threat to you, and you will no longer be a threat to the rest of the world,” the woman continued. “You suffered a severe beating, lost all your material possessions, and now you will spend the rest of your life helping people.
“As soon as your wife filed the divorce papers, she left town. The press was all over her. Last we heard, she had moved to Belgium and is working as a cocktail waitress.”
Marcus wished he could ask questions. Maybe try to talk again? Then he remembered the warning about making no sound.
“Dr. Marcus, grunt once if you are understanding this.”
Two grunts.
“Then let me go through it again.” The woman painstakingly repeated what she had told him, pausing between sentences. She had to recite some of it several times before Marcus was down to only one grunt.
The vehicle drove for several hours before it arrived at its final destination. It was the nursing home the woman had spoken of.
“Remember, Dr. Marcus is dead. You are James Sherman. Make up whatever story you want about your past, as long