The Last Victim Read Online Free PDF Page B

could not, expose herself to that kind of life-destroying horror again. She was doing her part in the war against evil by learning all there was to know about the enemy, with the intention of sharing that knowledge with the world so it could be forewarned and, thus, forearmed. She should not be expected to go to battle in the trenches, too. Charlie had to force the next words around the lump forming in her throat. “I’ll do a profile. I’ll—”
    An eruption of shouts out in the hallway was punctuated by a man’s bloodcurdling scream. Even muffled by walls and a steel door, the disturbance cut through her words, riveting the attention of everyone in the office, making Charlie’s heart jump.
    “What the hell?” Bartoli straightened from the desk abruptly. Clanging metal, running footsteps, and more shouts were followed seconds later by a frenzied pounding on Charlie’s closed office door.
    “Dr. Stone! Dr. Stone!” a man yelled through the panel. “Come quick!”
    Such a summons was unprecedented. Alarm flooding her veins, Charlie rushed to jerk open her door. A guard—Parnell, according to his name tag—jiggled from foot to foot with nervous excitement, pointing down the hall the second he set eyes on her. Looking in the direction in which he pointed, Charlie saw that, just on the other sideof the mesh double doors, a cadre of jostling guards had congregated, while more hustled a chain-linked contingent of inmates away. Obviously agitated, the remaining guards seemed to be focused on something on the ground.
    “What’s hap—?” she began, only to have her question cut off as Parnell grabbed her arm and physically pulled her from her office.
    “Warden says you should come now!” He was already in motion, breaking into a run, towing her down the hall with him.
    “Hey, wait a minute!” It was Bartoli, yelling after her from her office, sounding alarmed on her behalf. As if he thought Parnell was kidnapping her or something.
    “It’s all right,” Charlie called back to him, even as she ran with the guard.
    “Dr. Stone! We’ve got a man severely injured here! You’re a medical doctor, you know something about emergency care, right?” Looking around at her as she reached the closed mesh gates, Pugh crouched beside what Charlie realized, from his orange uniform, was an inmate lying on the floor.
    “Yes,” she replied, her eyes on the injured man. As one of the guards hurried to open the double doors to let her through, she was peripherally aware of Bartoli and Crane running up behind her, flashing their badges to get past the guard, negotiating the complicated procedure of passing through the clanging metal cage right along with her. Charlie stayed focused on the scene unfolding in front of her: a little distance beyond the fallen man, guards were dragging another inmate, this one apparently unconscious, toward the intersecting corridor that led to the main part of the building, where the cells, among other things, were located.
    “What happened?” Breathless, she asked the question Parnell had interrupted earlier as she rushed through the last door and dropped to her knees beside Pugh. Adrenaline surged like a double shot of speed as she assessed the victim with the triage mentality of a first responder. With a sense of shock she recognized the injured man as Garland. He lay motionless, sprawled on his back on the concrete floor, blood pumping from his chest. The front of his jumpsuit was already wet, shiny, saturated scarlet. His eyes were closed. His skin was ashen.
    “Mr. Garland,” Charlie called to him urgently even as she pressedtwo fingers to the pulse beneath his ear, while Pugh said, “One of the other inmates stabbed him. Do something .”
    Charlie could feel only a faint, irregular pulse, but it at least meant Garland was still alive. Moving fast, she unzipped his jumpsuit to the chain around his waist and yanked it open to reveal the wound. A muscular, supremely fit man with an