The nurse left

The nurse left work at five o'clock. I, however, arrived at the same hospital, same parking lot, shortly after; I was in the back of an ambulance, bleeding profusely, with broken ribs and punctured lungs, being held down by three or four large emergency workers who, to their credit, were doing the best they could to save my life. The nurse, a man of average build and sandy hair, looked up briefly as he crossed the lot; I could tell he was grateful to be off work, have nothing to do with this incoming call; and, in the afternoon light, I recognized that he was the man I had been tracking down for a week and a half.

The workers scrambled inside the cramped ambulance to get the tools they needed to keep me conscious until I could be seen by an emergency room doctor. They spoke quickly, and I, not from this small town in Louisiana, had a hard time understanding their accents as I drifted off into unconsciousness. I had recognized the nurse because I was a police detective, taking time off my job in Arizona to track down a man who had fled with my sick father's identity and credit cards; I remembered clearly the day when, poring over his finances, we found a slow and steady drain from this man who moved across country, first to Florida, then here to Louisiana. It was in Florida where I first saw his picture, and that's why I had recognized him; I jerked in surprise, and that was bad for me, as now the emergency workers were struggling to save my life.

The nurse turned his back and walked off, head down, into the back of the parking lot. Months later, I was to learn that this was his last day at work; he'd quit and walked out that day, somehow knowing he was being tailed, that I was on my way to catch him, even that very day. A week and a half, through Florida, to this small town, and now I was about to nab him, but, backing out of the driveway of my motel, my car was smashed into by a police car, sirens not on, but speeding through town nonetheless. And it turned out that they, too, were tailing him, in their own way; they were on to him and his crimes, in Arizona, Florida and here; they were responding to a call he himself had made, knowing that they would all be over on the west side, while he was on the east, gathering his things and making off; and, because they suspected that it was a false call, they were communicating with each other, the various police of this small town, trading notes as they sped through the town, not noticing a small car backing out of a motel parking lot. My fatal flaw was this: the reason I didn't know what they were doing, what they knew, or where they were going, was that I was on vacation. I'd ended up here entirely on my own, following my own case, working on it myself, and I wasn't inclined to work with anyone else in the process. Now, I was paying the price. Drifting off, I knew that I had seen my man, but, now physically unable to stop him, I was being held down in the back of the ambulance, about to drift into a coma that was to last another two weeks, after which he'd be long gone, of course.