The Family (The Dominic Grey Novels Book 6) by Layton Green

Author:Layton Green [Green, Layton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sixth Street Press
Published: 2022-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

-17-

* * *

Grey woke to dim fluorescent lighting and a chemical odor that failed to mask the reek of disease and human waste. The smell recalled a vivid childhood memory, when Grey had visited his grandfather in a state-run nursing home in New Jersey. Grey had never forgotten the stench of urine and decaying flesh in his grandfather’s room and in the hallway.

A flimsy white curtain surrounded his cot on three sides. An IV ran from his arm to a pole with a bag of blood hanging from it. He turned his head and noticed a line extending from the IV tower to a bank of medical equipment that looked as if it was made in the 1950s.

A bandage covered the spot on Grey’s forearm where Cezar had bitten him. Grey reached up and felt another bandage on the left side of his neck. A sudden uneasy thought made him look down to ensure there was no binding covering one of his kidneys or another organ.

Besides the two bite wounds, everything else seemed intact. He felt reasonably well-rested, though his throat was parched.

Every now and then a moan of pain broke the silence, he assumed from another patient. Before he could decide what to do, his IV machine emitted a long beep that caused a woman with curly blond hair to push aside the curtain and step into the room. She had intelligent blue eyes, a smattering of freckles, and a mousy chin that imparted a coquettish sort of beauty. Instead of a blouse with a plunging neckline and a moss green leather jacket, her outfit when she had rushed to Grey’s aid on the bridge, she was wearing hospital scrubs and a pair of tennis shoes.

“Good timing,” she said with an Irish accent, checking the medical equipment with a practiced touch. “And good morning.”

Grey sat up. “What time is it?”

“Just after nine. You slept through the night.”

He had a jumbled memory of someone attending to his wounds and attaching the IV to his arm. “Where am I?”

“Not City Hospital. You can relax, Mr. Grey.”

He tensed. “How do you know my name?”

“Because when doctors stumble upon strange men in the middle of the night, bleeding to death on the street, they tend to look for identification when they take them to the hospital. You really should keep an emergency contact in your wallet. Everyone should. At least you had your blood type. That’s smart.”

He started to speak again but his throat felt coated with gravel. He coughed and swallowed to produce saliva. The woman slipped outside the curtain and reappeared with a bottle of water.

Grey drank the entire bottle. “Thanks. You’re a doctor?”

“You had the good fortune of being found by a group of rather snockered members of Doctors Without Borders.” Her face turned grave. “If that hadn’t been the case, you mightn’t have made it. What in the world happened back there? Did that guy have an animal with him? Who was he?”

Grey averted his eyes. “Something like that.”

“I haven’t notified the police yet.

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