Read Online Zero Separation by Philip Donlay - Free Book Online Page A

the small crowd of people waiting at the elevator and opted for the stairs. He took them two at a time until he stepped out onto the highly polished hallway of the third floor. Donovan walked to a nurses’ station, which was strategically located at the intersection of three corridors. The enclosure was fairly large, there looked to be work areas for at least five or six people. One section held an array of monitors, full-size color screens that were filled with graphs and numbers. A single nurse positioned in front of the readouts was writing in a chart.
    â€œExcuse me, I’m looking for Michael Ross.”
    â€œThey just got him settled.” She pointed over her shoulder down the hallway to his left. “Room 310.”
    Donovan walked down the hallway and gently opened the door. Michael was asleep on the narrow bed, his head slightly elevated. His arms were exposed and placed at his side, the sheet was pulledhalfway up his chest. Michael’s head was wrapped as if he wore a white gauze stocking cap; his usually tanned face seemed drained of color. A bundle of wires snaked out from under the blanket and connected to a stack of machines. Donovan was mildly surprised that Susan or Lauren wasn’t in the room, but there was no reason to go look for them. They’d show up soon enough.
    Donovan moved closer, his eyes went to the screen displaying his friend’s heartbeat; the constantly moving line rose and fell as it streamed across the monitor. He spotted the abrasions on Michael’s right hand. Montero had been right. Michael had gotten in at least one good punch before being shot. He pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat, feeling his fatigue.
    â€œI’m sorry I wasn’t out there with you.” Donovan stared at the monitor, as if his words would suddenly register as a blip on the screen, give him some inkling Michael was aware of him. But pulse, respiration, and blood pressure remained constant. Donovan felt helpless. He had the means at his disposal to make nearly anything happen, but he couldn’t fix this, he couldn’t buy his way out of this regardless of how he felt. He hated seeing Michael this way, hated being unable to do anything but sit and watch.
    â€œLook, I know you saw who did this. I tried to get to you in time. If I had, maybe the two of us would have made a difference. Maybe he’d be lying here instead of you. I need to know what happened out there last night. What did you see? This thing has gotten real complicated.” Donovan couldn’t help but think about all the secrets he’d kept from his friends, and how he never wanted to be in put in the position of having to explain all the lies. “It’s all my fault, everything happened years ago, but Lauren and Abigail are going to pay the price if things go wrong—hell, we’re all going to pay a price. If we knew what you saw, then maybe a certain FBI agent would go away and bother someone else.”
    Donovan sat for a while and collected his thoughts. Since he met her all those years ago, Meredith was the one he measured the rights and wrongs against. But since he’d met Lauren, the torchhad been passed. Lauren now held those scales. Yet, over the last few weeks he couldn’t stop thinking about Meredith. Seeing the movie, hearing her voice again, seeing her dead body, everything had welled up inside of him until she somehow seemed very close again.
    When Meredith was still alive, he’d always known that being Robert Huntington was at times a burden, a double-edged sword that had ended up owning him in ways he never understood. She’d shown him ways to find a sort of tranquility and freedom, to feel what he’d never discovered for himself. Robert Huntington had enjoyed unbridled privilege, but it wasn’t until he met Meredith that he became aware of a different path. As Donovan Nash, he’d continued looking for the elusive contentment that Meredith had