From Scapegoat to Donna novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: East Wing

The fire alarm began as we pulled into the hospital lot.

Orange light flickered in the east wing windows, three floors high.

Tancredi stopped the car sideways across the entrance and was out before it stopped rocking.

"Stay with me," he said.

"I can't. I have patients on that wing."

"Adriana."

"Eleven of them, Tancredi. Step-down beds."

I ran.

Marta met me at the doors with her cap half off and her face black with soot.

"The sprinklers are dead," she said. "Somebody cut the water. The Don's bed was empty at midnight and I have no idea where he's gone."

"We'll find him. Get everyone who can walk into the lot."

The east wing corridor was full of smoke.

It rolled along the ceiling, and I got down on my knees under it and pulled my sleeve over my mouth.

The first room held an old man on oxygen.

I unclipped the tank, tore the sheet off the bed and rolled him in it onto the floor, then dragged him by the shoulders to the corridor.

"Out!" I shouted. "Everyone out!"

Marta and two orderlies took him.

I went back.

The second room held a woman with a chest drain and a daughter who would not let go of her hand.

The third held two boys with broken legs.

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