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Synopsis
The doctor is in...deadly danger.
Dr. Randall Beck is an eccentric psychiatrist with a terminal disease. This makes him fearless, which comes in handy when a patient is murdered before his eyes--a patient with an unspeakable secret.
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LIGHTNING-FAST STORIES BY JAMES PATTERSON
LIGHTNING-FAST STORIES BY JAMES PATTERSON
- Novels you can devour in a few hours
- Impossible to stop reading
- All original content from James Patterson
Release date: September 5, 2017
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Print pages: 144
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Dead Man Running
James Patterson
Chapter 1
Dr. Randall Beck sat in his office and looked across the coffee table at his patient.
Todd Graham was a big man who looked small. He hunched on the overstuffed couch, arms curled in tightly to himself. He looked cold. He looked scared.
You’d never know that a few months earlier, Graham had been one of the top men on the Metro PD’s Emergency Response Team—the Washington, DC, police SWAT team. He had broken down countless doors, been shot in the line of duty, and had seen some of the worst humanity had to offer in hostage situations, drug raids, and murder scenes.
But then he’d been called to a small apartment building in the Southeast, the quadrant of DC known as the worst area in the city. He and his squad thought they were going to take down a crack house.
Instead, they found bodies. Nine of them. Someone had killed all the members of an extended family for a grudge or some deal gone wrong. Graham was the first one into the room. He saw a child curled into the arms of her mother, the same gunshot wound through both of their chests.
Graham could handle danger to himself. What he couldn’t handle was the thought of being helpless to stop it from happening to someone else.
Since then, Graham had been on administrative leave. He’d lost weight. He didn’t sleep. He drank too much.
After medication and regular therapy failed, he’d been sent to see Beck.
Everything in Beck’s office was soft and beige, designed to soothe and calm, the visual equivalent of white noise. Beck’s patients were people who’d had enough chaos in their lives already.
Beck was considered the counselor of last resort for people suffering from severe post-traumatic stress and burnout. His patients included paramedics who’d pulled charred corpses out of plane crashes; doctors who’d volunteered in war zones, patching up children dismembered by bombs; hospice workers who faced a 100 percent mortality rate in their patients; and Special Forces soldiers who spent months in combat, ruthlessly killing to keep the rest of the world safe.
Beck noticed that the one thing all these people had in common was they were used to saving the world, but they had a much harder time saving themselves.
Graham had spent most of their sessions just sitting on Beck’s couch. Quiet. Staring. Today was no different.
“Do you want to talk?” Beck asked, after a long silence.
Graham shrugged. “What’s the point?” he asked Beck. “What’s the point of any of it?”
“You don’t think there’s any point to living?”
Graham shrugged again. He sat back, as he had in their other sessions, finished talking for the day. He seemed to think he could just wait Beck out.
Beck decided he was done waiting. He reached into a bag at the side of his chair and pulled out a Glock 9mm.
Graham was instantly alert.
Beck placed the pistol on the table between them.
“Okay,” he said. “You really want to die? Pick up the gun. Get it over with.”
Graham stared at him, wide-eyed. “You’re crazy.”
Beck shrugged. “I’m a licensed psychiatrist.”
“You’re still crazy.”
Beck sighed deeply. “You don’t want to do it yourself? Well. I’m here to help.” Beck picked up the Glock and racked the slide back, jacking a shell into the chamber. He pointed it at Graham, his hand steady.
“Now. Do you want to die?” Beck asked, looking down the barrel at his patient.
Graham was out of his chair in a split second. He knocked the gun aside and landed on Beck with his full weight, toppling the chair over. He and Beck struggled for a moment as Graham tried to get his hands on the gun.
They rolled across the floor together. Graham came up on top, the Glock in one hand. He pointed it at Beck, kneeling on top of him.
For a second, they were frozen like that.
Then Beck looked up at Graham, bleeding from the corner of his mouth where a stray elbow had hit him.
And he smiled.
“You fought,” he said, grinning.
Graham looked confused. Then angry. “Are you crazy?” he shouted. “Of course I fought you! You pointed a gun at me!”
He got off Beck and let him up, but didn’t take the gun off him. Beck didn’t seem at all worried.
“Dummy bullets,” Beck said. “Wouldn’t fire even if I pulled the trigger.”
Graham eyed Beck suspiciously, then checked the Glock’s clip. If anything, it made him even more angry. “I didn’t know that!” he shouted.
Beck didn’t stop smiling. “That’s right. You didn’t. And you fought me. For the first time since you walked into this office, you did something. You woke up,” he said. “Looks like you’re not quite ready to die after all.”
Graham stared at him, shocked.
Beck stood up and straightened his clothes. He wiped the blood from his mouth with a tissue, and then took his chair again. He gestured to the couch. Slowly, Graham set the gun and the clip back on the table. Then he sat down, too.
“Excellent,” Beck said. “Shall we get started, then?”
Chapter 2
“You pulled a gun on him?”
Dr. Susan Carpenter was, like Beck, a psychiatrist. She was highly trained, widely respected, and thoroughly professional. She’d seen a wide range of patients with deeply disturbing problems, ranging from trauma to schizophrenia to complete psychotic breaks with reality. There were people who came to her convinced that space lizards were about to take over the planet, and others who were certain that the contestants on Survivor were plotting against them.
In other words, she’d heard a lot of crazy stuff without blinking. And still, she looked like she was on the verge of having Beck taken to a padded cell.
“Dummy bullets,” Beck said. “I couldn’t have hurt him if I wanted to.”
“He didn’t know that,” Susan snapped at him.
“Of course not. It would have defeated the purpose. He had to find a reason to live. I gave him one.”
Susan took a deep breath and got herself under control. “Or you could have broken his trust completely. Or triggered a violent episode. Or convinced him that he really ought to commit suicide. Did you ever think of that?”
“Of course,” Beck replied. “I decided to take the chance.”
“You risked your patient’s life.”
“No. I judged him capable of pulling himself out of his depression, given the right motivation. I looked at his history. This is a cop who once charged a man armed with an AK-47 and took him down barehanded. He has been through the door on multiple drug raids. He needed a threat to bring him back to life.”
“You could have done the same thing by talking to him. You could have reminded him of his experiences—”
“I don’t have that kind of time.”
Susan’s expression softened. There it was. Sooner or later, their sessions always came back to this. It was inevitable.
Beck was dying.
“Do you think your condition is affecting your judgment?” she asked.
Beck made a rude noise. “Condition. Call it what it is. I’ve got a brain tumor. And yes, it’s still killing me. No, it’s not affecting my judgment. I haven’t started drooling or playing with myself in public.”
A month earlier, Beck had been walking to his car when the sidewalk suddenly came up out of nowhere and hit him in the face. He was knocked senseless, and someone passing by on the street called 911. The paramedics took him to the emergency room at Georgetown, where the attending physician knew Beck from several cases he’d consulted on. Beck said he felt fine, he was just a little dizzy, but the doctor insisted on an MRI and a PET scan.
And that’s when they found the tumor. It was a very rare type of glioblastoma that had clearly been growing for some time, undetected. It was nestled deep in Beck’s brainstem, near the parts that regulated his heartbeat and breathing.
Beck saw several specialists. They all said the same thing. Chemo wouldn’t work, because the drugs couldn’t cross the blood–brain barrier. Radiation was too dangerous because the tumor was so close to the critical structures nearby. Which is also why there was no way to reach the tumor with surgery.
The tumor would go on growing, slowly but surely. He’d remain relatively healthy until he wasn’t anymore. He might fall down, and he might have seizures. He might have severe personality changes, memory loss, or delusions. He might lose the ability to walk. Or he might not.
But eventually, the tumor would overwhelm his brain, crushing the parts of it that kept him alive, and he would die.
They had given him anywhere from three months to a year.
Friends suggested that he take a trip around the world, see lions on safari, or just drink margaritas on the beach until it was his time. Beck went bac. . .
Dr. Randall Beck sat in his office and looked across the coffee table at his patient.
Todd Graham was a big man who looked small. He hunched on the overstuffed couch, arms curled in tightly to himself. He looked cold. He looked scared.
You’d never know that a few months earlier, Graham had been one of the top men on the Metro PD’s Emergency Response Team—the Washington, DC, police SWAT team. He had broken down countless doors, been shot in the line of duty, and had seen some of the worst humanity had to offer in hostage situations, drug raids, and murder scenes.
But then he’d been called to a small apartment building in the Southeast, the quadrant of DC known as the worst area in the city. He and his squad thought they were going to take down a crack house.
Instead, they found bodies. Nine of them. Someone had killed all the members of an extended family for a grudge or some deal gone wrong. Graham was the first one into the room. He saw a child curled into the arms of her mother, the same gunshot wound through both of their chests.
Graham could handle danger to himself. What he couldn’t handle was the thought of being helpless to stop it from happening to someone else.
Since then, Graham had been on administrative leave. He’d lost weight. He didn’t sleep. He drank too much.
After medication and regular therapy failed, he’d been sent to see Beck.
Everything in Beck’s office was soft and beige, designed to soothe and calm, the visual equivalent of white noise. Beck’s patients were people who’d had enough chaos in their lives already.
Beck was considered the counselor of last resort for people suffering from severe post-traumatic stress and burnout. His patients included paramedics who’d pulled charred corpses out of plane crashes; doctors who’d volunteered in war zones, patching up children dismembered by bombs; hospice workers who faced a 100 percent mortality rate in their patients; and Special Forces soldiers who spent months in combat, ruthlessly killing to keep the rest of the world safe.
Beck noticed that the one thing all these people had in common was they were used to saving the world, but they had a much harder time saving themselves.
Graham had spent most of their sessions just sitting on Beck’s couch. Quiet. Staring. Today was no different.
“Do you want to talk?” Beck asked, after a long silence.
Graham shrugged. “What’s the point?” he asked Beck. “What’s the point of any of it?”
“You don’t think there’s any point to living?”
Graham shrugged again. He sat back, as he had in their other sessions, finished talking for the day. He seemed to think he could just wait Beck out.
Beck decided he was done waiting. He reached into a bag at the side of his chair and pulled out a Glock 9mm.
Graham was instantly alert.
Beck placed the pistol on the table between them.
“Okay,” he said. “You really want to die? Pick up the gun. Get it over with.”
Graham stared at him, wide-eyed. “You’re crazy.”
Beck shrugged. “I’m a licensed psychiatrist.”
“You’re still crazy.”
Beck sighed deeply. “You don’t want to do it yourself? Well. I’m here to help.” Beck picked up the Glock and racked the slide back, jacking a shell into the chamber. He pointed it at Graham, his hand steady.
“Now. Do you want to die?” Beck asked, looking down the barrel at his patient.
Graham was out of his chair in a split second. He knocked the gun aside and landed on Beck with his full weight, toppling the chair over. He and Beck struggled for a moment as Graham tried to get his hands on the gun.
They rolled across the floor together. Graham came up on top, the Glock in one hand. He pointed it at Beck, kneeling on top of him.
For a second, they were frozen like that.
Then Beck looked up at Graham, bleeding from the corner of his mouth where a stray elbow had hit him.
And he smiled.
“You fought,” he said, grinning.
Graham looked confused. Then angry. “Are you crazy?” he shouted. “Of course I fought you! You pointed a gun at me!”
He got off Beck and let him up, but didn’t take the gun off him. Beck didn’t seem at all worried.
“Dummy bullets,” Beck said. “Wouldn’t fire even if I pulled the trigger.”
Graham eyed Beck suspiciously, then checked the Glock’s clip. If anything, it made him even more angry. “I didn’t know that!” he shouted.
Beck didn’t stop smiling. “That’s right. You didn’t. And you fought me. For the first time since you walked into this office, you did something. You woke up,” he said. “Looks like you’re not quite ready to die after all.”
Graham stared at him, shocked.
Beck stood up and straightened his clothes. He wiped the blood from his mouth with a tissue, and then took his chair again. He gestured to the couch. Slowly, Graham set the gun and the clip back on the table. Then he sat down, too.
“Excellent,” Beck said. “Shall we get started, then?”
Chapter 2
“You pulled a gun on him?”
Dr. Susan Carpenter was, like Beck, a psychiatrist. She was highly trained, widely respected, and thoroughly professional. She’d seen a wide range of patients with deeply disturbing problems, ranging from trauma to schizophrenia to complete psychotic breaks with reality. There were people who came to her convinced that space lizards were about to take over the planet, and others who were certain that the contestants on Survivor were plotting against them.
In other words, she’d heard a lot of crazy stuff without blinking. And still, she looked like she was on the verge of having Beck taken to a padded cell.
“Dummy bullets,” Beck said. “I couldn’t have hurt him if I wanted to.”
“He didn’t know that,” Susan snapped at him.
“Of course not. It would have defeated the purpose. He had to find a reason to live. I gave him one.”
Susan took a deep breath and got herself under control. “Or you could have broken his trust completely. Or triggered a violent episode. Or convinced him that he really ought to commit suicide. Did you ever think of that?”
“Of course,” Beck replied. “I decided to take the chance.”
“You risked your patient’s life.”
“No. I judged him capable of pulling himself out of his depression, given the right motivation. I looked at his history. This is a cop who once charged a man armed with an AK-47 and took him down barehanded. He has been through the door on multiple drug raids. He needed a threat to bring him back to life.”
“You could have done the same thing by talking to him. You could have reminded him of his experiences—”
“I don’t have that kind of time.”
Susan’s expression softened. There it was. Sooner or later, their sessions always came back to this. It was inevitable.
Beck was dying.
“Do you think your condition is affecting your judgment?” she asked.
Beck made a rude noise. “Condition. Call it what it is. I’ve got a brain tumor. And yes, it’s still killing me. No, it’s not affecting my judgment. I haven’t started drooling or playing with myself in public.”
A month earlier, Beck had been walking to his car when the sidewalk suddenly came up out of nowhere and hit him in the face. He was knocked senseless, and someone passing by on the street called 911. The paramedics took him to the emergency room at Georgetown, where the attending physician knew Beck from several cases he’d consulted on. Beck said he felt fine, he was just a little dizzy, but the doctor insisted on an MRI and a PET scan.
And that’s when they found the tumor. It was a very rare type of glioblastoma that had clearly been growing for some time, undetected. It was nestled deep in Beck’s brainstem, near the parts that regulated his heartbeat and breathing.
Beck saw several specialists. They all said the same thing. Chemo wouldn’t work, because the drugs couldn’t cross the blood–brain barrier. Radiation was too dangerous because the tumor was so close to the critical structures nearby. Which is also why there was no way to reach the tumor with surgery.
The tumor would go on growing, slowly but surely. He’d remain relatively healthy until he wasn’t anymore. He might fall down, and he might have seizures. He might have severe personality changes, memory loss, or delusions. He might lose the ability to walk. Or he might not.
But eventually, the tumor would overwhelm his brain, crushing the parts of it that kept him alive, and he would die.
They had given him anywhere from three months to a year.
Friends suggested that he take a trip around the world, see lions on safari, or just drink margaritas on the beach until it was his time. Beck went bac. . .
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