Free Torn (Second Sight) by Hazel Hunter

overhead. Unlike virtually everything else at Linda Vista, they worked. There had to have been a film crew here recently. He wondered for a moment which part of the hospital had been used for the pilot of ER . It might have been this very room.
    Delicately, he picked up the scalpel in the middle of the tray.
    “Okay, people,” he said. “Let’s do this.”
    A surgeon never worked alone.

    • • • • •

    Isabelle tugged on the index finger of her glove. The wheelchair had turned up quickly. Just as Dadashian had noted, it wasn’t a common piece of equipment and it hadn’t wandered far from where the Chameleon had left it. Someone had moved it just inside the entrance.
    “Are you sure about this?” Mac said quietly.
    They’d immediately dusted for fingerprints but only found a smudged palm print on one of the textured handles at the back of the chair and a partial thumb print on the other. In the video they’d seen the Chameleon wearing gloves. More than likely, it was the print of someone who’d moved the wheelchair into the building, probably a guard.
    Mac had arranged for them to be alone in a nearby waiting room. Dixon stood at the entrance so they wouldn’t be disturbed. He glanced back over his shoulder at them.
    “Yes,” Isabelle said, tugging the remaining fingers of the glove off.  
    Mac stood next to her, close, his hand on the small of her back as they looked down at the worn and dented wheelchair. An object like this had to bring pain and they both knew it. His hand was warm, his touch soft. As the last of the glove came off, he slipped his arm around her waist. She glanced at his hand on her hip and her own bare hand just inches from his.  
    It would be so easy to read him. It would only take a second. Dixon shifted at the entrance and glanced up and down the hallway. Stop it, Isabelle told herself . You’re not here to read Mac. Concentrate.  
    With a deep, quick breath–she touched the armrest of the wheelchair.
    A bored security guard pushed the chair through the automatic door. Bright lights made her eyes hurt and she winced. Someone yelled ‘action!’ A dozen faces flashed by. People were making speeches. A strong, young Latino man popped a wheelie in the chair and then sped down a wide corridor. Something wasn’t right. Nothing felt real. Isabelle didn’t recognize anything, only the automatic door. More faces–smiling, nervous, crying–popped in and out in rapid succession. What is going on? The outside of the hospital was lit at nighttime. A small, stenciled sign read Linda Vista Hospital. Isabelle let go of the armrest and stepped back, directly into Mac’s arms.
    “I’ve got you,” he said from behind.
    His arms closed around her midriff and she instinctively closed her arms around his, hanging on as the grey vision of the reading gradually cleared. The images in her mind started to slot into place. Quickly, she turned to Mac, her hands finding his shoulders, her eyes straining to see him through the fading grey.
    “Linda Vista Hospital,” she exhaled breathlessly. As Mac’s face slowly swam into view, his deeply green-blue eyes stared into hers. “That’s where this wheelchair is from.”
    “ Linda Vista? ” Dixon asked.
    “Do you know it?” Mac said, jerking his gaze away.
    “Well, sure,” Dixon said. “But it’s not a hospital. Not anymore.” Isabelle took her eyes off Mac’s puzzled face to look at Dixon as well. “It’s abandoned. They use it for film shoots now.”

    • • • • •

    It turned out that the kneecap was full of arteries. Esme had survived–as he had long ago–but that never needed to happen again, now that he was a surgeon.  
    Live and learn , Prentiss thought. Though he’d started to shrug, he stayed in character and kept his shoulders rigid. A surgeon wouldn’t approach the operating table with a shrug. With the rubber of the latex glove nearly sticking to the steel handle of the scalpel, he gripped it like a