Free Torn (Second Sight) by Hazel Hunter Page A

pencil and pointed it at Angela’s kneecap.
    The enormous femoral artery that dived down between the hip and the groin and then into the thigh eventually branched and had to pass through the knee. It was beautiful really–the way everything seemed as though it were meant to be. In his mind’s eye he pictured the jpeg from Grey’s Anatomy . Though the anterior tibial artery was at the back of the knee, he would begin at the front as he always did. It was tradition.

CHAPTER TEN

    Mac felt it in his bones. The Chameleon would be here.  
    The dark SUVs and black and whites screamed into the parking lot, sirens blaring, lights flashing in the growing darkness of evening. The vacant hospital was a lot of territory to cover. With a strange sense of déjà vu, Mac jumped out of the passenger door before the vehicle had come to a full stop. Without missing a step, he checked the helicopter overhead and keyed the mic on his walkie-talkie.
    “All right, everybody,” he said. “You know the drill.”
    They had to know it. This was the third time this week.
    “Hostage Rescue Team first,”   he said, turning slowly in a circle to look at the gathered agents and police officers that surrounded him. “Target the operating rooms identified on the floorplans first. Then work your way up.”  
    Although the owners of Linda Vista had immediately complied with the building plans, always handy for film crews, they knew facility by heart. The operating rooms were all located in the level below ground.
    Mac saw Isabelle standing next to Dixon, both them wearing bullet proof vests like himself.  
    “LAPD secure a perimeter around this facility. No one in or out. Let’s find her!”
    Bodies ran in every direction and the squad cars took off as well. Mac waved Sergeant Dixon and Isabelle over. As with Esme, there was a chance that a reading might provide them an important clue about the Chameleon.  
    “Keep Isabelle behind you,” Mac said to the sergeant. “We’ll follow the HRT.”
    It had to be an operating room.  
    He took a moment to meet Isabelle’s gaze. Her amber eyes were clear, focused, and staring intently into his. With a quick nod, he turned and jogged after the HRT.

    • • • • •

    Linda Vista could have been the setting for a horror movie , thought Isabelle as she trailed behind Sergeant Dixon. Mac was up ahead, barreling down the dark corridor. The shouts of the Hostage Rescue Team echoed from the dirty and broken tiles. She could hear radios squawking and the pounding of boots. The beams of flashlights flitted wildly as though a hundred tiny trains had derailed and were charging forward.
    Though she wanted to be closer and see what was going on, Dixon kept his long arm in front of her.
    “This distance is good,” he said. “We’ll know as soon as they do.”
    The small radio clipped to his belt was full of terse staccato reports in partial sentences, mostly composed of numbers and letters.
    Suddenly, up ahead, the lights disappeared, moving as a group to the left. A cacophony of raised voices echoed though Isabelle couldn’t make out what they were saying. And then, even as she and Sergeant Dixon closed the distance, an eerie silence followed. Their own footsteps sounded around them, her heels clattering in the empty hallway, the only light that of the sergeant’s flashlight. They were approaching a large doorway that looked as though it once might have held two swinging doors. But just as they arrived, the hostage rescue team exited. Though they turned and continued their progress up the corridor, something in the way they moved was different. They were hunkered lower, not bunched so tightly together, assault rifles held at the ready. And though they moved with purpose, Isabelle realized as they retreated further into the darkness of the long hallway, that they weren’t running. They weren’t in a hurry.
    “ No ,” she muttered.
    Mac’s voice came from the sergeant’s radio just as they