Incognita

by Kristen Lippert-Martin

  “Okay. What do you need?”

  “I need help finding a way into that hospital.”

  The smile doesn’t falter. She nods. “I think I can do that. I feel like Tam would want me to help you somehow.”

  “Thank you, Tai.” I give her a hug until she starts squirming and telling me I’m crushing her.

  “I should go see if Thomas is awake.”

  Just as I reach the door to the back room, Tai says, “Uh, Angel?”

  She’s looking down at her phone now. “Didn’t you say you went to that fancy party last night? The Met thing?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  She’s scrolling through something on her phone, her eyes getting wider by the second. My heart stops. No, it doesn’t just stop. It vacates my chest and runs out the back door.

  She hands her phone to me. “Check it out.”

  There’s a paused video and it’s kind of blurry, but I recognize the girl in the yellow dress. Cassidy Something. I hit Play and watch as Cassidy flicks her hand back in the direction of the yacht.

  “I knew who she was the moment I saw that tattoo. I mean, who else could it be? People have been looking all over for her, thinking she’s dead or whatever, and apparently she’s just been hanging around, going to fancy parties. . . .”

  We play a bunch of related clips, including a television news interview with a man dressed in a black suit, who’s identified only as a “limousine driver to the rich and famous.” He’s pointing wildly toward the street where Mikey and I had our run-in with the white van and where we ended up hijacking the police cruiser.

  I click on another video, and I recognize the reporter Thomas and I saw on the television in the hospital waiting room.

  “This new information, coming to light just in the last few hours, raises the question of whether the disturbance near Claymore Tower this morning and the earlier incident near the Met Gala are somehow related. Police claim that there is no apparent link between these two incidents, and given the lack of physical evidence, they currently have no plan to investigate them as such. . . .”

  “This day keeps getting weirder,” says Tai.

  “Yeah,” Thomas says, suddenly appearing from the back room. “That’s how it is when you hang with Angel. All weird, all the time.” He gives me a kiss on the head.

  “Thanks, baby,” I say.

  He’s now fully awake but he doesn’t look at all rested. In fact, he looks worse. He’s pale and hollow-eyed.

  “I just had a terrifying dream about Mikey and me going to a fancy party together.”

  I almost laugh, but I can’t quite pull it off. “I wonder what happened to him. I hope he’s all right.” Even after the problems he’s caused us, I can’t help pitying him—wishing we could’ve helped him.

  “Somebody must have picked him up,” Thomas says. “Otherwise he would’ve tracked us down by now. He was pretty intent on keeping tabs on you.”

  “Who’s Mikey?” Tai asks.

  “Let’s see if he turned up on any of these news clips.” Thomas scrolls down through all the videos until he comes to one, dated just an hour ago, that’s titled “Angel Lives?”

  I let out a disgusted noise. “Oh, great. This is just what I need.”

  Thomas plays the video. The “reporter” who’s talking into the microphone and standing near the party yacht looks like he’s just shooting this “interview” on his phone. Watching the shaky video gives me an instant headache, so I just close my eyes and listen instead. The opening sentences skim over the surface of my brain. Nothing sticks until . . .

  “Witnesses say there was a girl at the party in a white dress with wing tattoos on her back. And at one point, do you know who she was hanging out with? Erskine Claymore. If this is the Angel who once targeted Claymore’s building projects, maybe she hasn’t been missing at all. Maybe she’s now getting cozy with Claymore and his money. Can you say ‘sell out’?”

  “Man, I miss the days when people used to pretend that there were still two or three journalism ethics standards left in the world,” Thomas says.

  I shake my head slowly, my jaw set.

  The reporter continues, “Now we’re hearing news that two police officers were left in a downtown warehouse with their hands and feet tied, and their cruiser was recovered uptown. The police are denying that anything has happened and insist that the gunfire reported near the Met Gala and the lockdown near Claymore Tower earlier today are not linked in any way. But right now, the media manhunt is on for the truth.”

  “Yeah, I’d like to go on a manhunt for the truth myself,” Thomas says, closing the browser window.

  The video vanishes, but I can still see that ghostly image of the girl on the screen and the image of me from last night, shaking hands with Erskine Claymore.

  “A manhunt for some anti-Snowball medication will have to do,” I say.

  Chapter 23

  The plan we come up with is terrible. It depends too heavily on good fortune and perhaps a miracle or three. Even if everything happens just as it should—not that we have any of the details worked out—we haven’t got more than the slimmest chance of getting in and out again with the drug Thomas needs.

  Thomas is trying not to smile as he looks at me in my blue scrubs.

  “What?”

  “I was going to make a sexy-nurse comment, but I decided not to,” he says. He gestures down at his blue scrubs. “About myself, I mean.”

  Tai is driving the delivery van. “Mr. Yee will kill me if he knows I took the delivery van after hours, but I owe you some help on this, Angel.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. Which makes me even more grateful for this.”

  Thomas and I are sitting on a couple milk crates in the back of the van, sandwiched between laundry bags full of soiled uniforms—and that soil is blood and some other fluids that don’t smell so great—and a rack of clean, pressed scrubs in individual plastic bags.

  “Thomas, how much time do we have?”

  “About ninety minutes until I’m supposed to show up and give them the data stick.”

  Except for the swishing of plastic, we drive in silence for another five minutes. Then Tai says, “That’s it, there on the corner. That big townhouse.”

  Thomas and I get up to have a look through the windshield.

  He says, “It just looks like your regular, garden-variety six-story mansion.”

  “Yeah,” Tai says. “It’s pretty amazing inside too. I’ve gone in a few times to drop laundry off. Never got past the first floor but everything I could see was gorgeous. Tam told me that she was only allowed to go to the floors where the nursing home patients were. I think she said fourth and fifth floors, but I’m not positive about that.”

  “So are you sure you can get us in there?” Thomas asks.

  “I can use my ID to get into the basement parking lot,” she says. “There’s a big addition on the back of the building you can’t see from here. I’ll drive you around the block so you can get a better look.”

  She takes a left and we sweep past.

  “This whole block is basically part of that building. See? There’s a small hallway that connects the mansion house with the rest of the nursing home.”

  I look at the building, so focused it’s like my eyes are trying to x-ray the place. I wish I felt something, remembered something. I know I’ve been here but nothing is coming to me.

  “Does it seem familiar?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “They put that tall fence up about six months ago, probably because of you, plus they increased their security like crazy. Mr. Yee was really annoyed. They made him submit to a background check if he wanted to keep the contract with them.” She points to the entrance to the parking garage. There’s a security camera pointed down at the gate. “They’re going to figure out pretty quick that we don’t usually deliver uniforms at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, but I can talk my way in. I think. Don’t know if I can come back and get you, though.”

  �
��Getting back out is on me,” I say. “Don’t worry about it. This is not your problem, and I’ve caused you enough trouble as it is.”

  Suddenly Thomas slumps over.

  “Are you okay?”

  I take his hand. It’s shaking again.

  He nods—not convincingly—but I’m instantly distracted by what I see out the window. A black SUV is pulled up to the curb, the engine idling and the lights off. It’s parked right next to the small guard’s booth just inside the high gate on the grounds of the nursing home. I stiffen and motion to Thomas so we can both keep an eye on the vehicle. If we just drive past at a normal speed, the driver shouldn’t notice us . . .

  Two men haul Mikey out of the SUV. He stumbles a little as they push him into the building. The guard shuts the gate behind them.

  I swear under my breath.

  Tai is keeping her eyes on the road, still not sure what we’re looking at. “What?”

  “We just saw our pal Mikey,” Thomas says.

  “He knows where the antidote is,” I remind Thomas. “He knows his way around this building. If we can get to him—free him—maybe he can make this a lot easier for us.”

  “You’re assuming it’s more time-effective to rescue him than to just search on our own,” he says.

  “You and I are very efficient rescuers. Besides, Mikey is full of surprises.” I don’t say this out loud, but part of me thinks we owe Mikey at least one feeble attempt to help his messed-up self.

  Thomas sighs, but I’m not sure if it’s a sigh of agreement or resignation.

  I look away from the window, and suddenly thoughts of Mikey vanish. “Thomas, where did that blood come from?”

  “What blood?”

  “The blood all over the front of your shirt?”

  He looks down at the blood droplets soaked into his scrubs and then touches his nose. I notice small rings of fresh blood around each nostril. He sniffs. “I’m okay. I didn’t even notice.”

  The fact that he didn’t notice blood dripping out of his nose seems like a worse sign than the blood itself. “Tai, we need to get in there now, please.”

  She pulls a U-turn at the next intersection. A moment later, she’s turning into the garage entrance.

  “Ready?” she says.

  I nod.

  Just as we approach the guard booth at the entrance to the parking ramp, she picks up her phone and starts cursing at the top of her lungs, complaining about having to make such a late-night delivery. “Well, you had better pay me overtime because I have better things to do on Saturday nights than make up for your screw-ups . . .” I have no idea how the guard is taking this. Thomas and I are hiding underneath the unpleasantly scented bags of dirty uniforms.

  When the van pulls forward, Thomas whispers to me, “I have to remember to try her method next time.”

  “Next time? Do you plan to have to bluff your way past security guards on a regular basis?”

  “If you’re in my life, and I hope you will be, then I need to prepare for all eventualities.”

  I kiss him. “Likewise.”

  “Here we go, guys,” Tai says over her shoulder as we turn down the winding ramp to the lower level of the parking garage. “One more guard to deal with and then you’re in. But this one might be a tougher sell.”

  After an endless series of spirals, the van comes to a halt and then we hear beeping as Tai backs up.

  “Get ready,” she says and then gets out of the van.

  A moment later we hear her call out, “Hey, you got time to help me unload some stuff?”

  “Can’t,” a man’s voice says.

  “Aw, come on. The sacks are only sixty pounds each. Could be a good workout.”

  We don’t hear him respond, but a second later, one of the back doors opens. Tai pulls out a big white bag and slings it over her shoulder. She must be as strong as an ant because I’m sure that bag weighs as much as she does.

  When she turns back around to grab the second bag, she whispers, “He just unlocked the door and walked away so he didn’t have to help me. Hurry up before he gets back.”

  “This girl is amazing,” Thomas says as we hop out of the van. “We should totally draft her into our gang.”

  We each take a bundle of laundry to carry like a shield. Another idea of Tai’s. We can hide behind them and, worse comes to worst, throw them if we have to. Thomas has to put one knee up under his bundle to keep his grip on it. His strength is fading by the minute and we don’t have time to waste. I glance over and catch him wiping more blood from his nose but pretend I don’t see.

  I give Tai a quick one-armed hug. “Thank you again.”

  She flicks her hair back and looks down at the ground. “Just . . . be careful.”

  “We will. And I have one more favor to ask. If we haven’t made contact in one hour, call 9-1-1. Say there’s been a break-in or something. Whatever it takes to get the police here.”

  “Got it. Good luck.”

  We watch forlornly as she gets into the van and pulls away. This is it. We’re on our own.

  “You’re assuming the police will actually show up here if she calls them,” Thomas says.

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I think we’re about to enter no-man’s-land.”

  Chapter 24

  I remember the foyer. Kind of. It has this swirly pink marble on the floors. Fresh flowers. Tall ceramic vases filled with some kind of decorative bushy grass next to the elevators and fussy old-people chairs with claw feet.

  But this vague sense of familiarity is overshadowed by what I see as we enter. Two men are shoving a struggling Mikey into one of the elevators. He must’ve been fighting them for a while or we wouldn’t have caught up to them. The elevator doors close, cutting off the sound of Mikey’s yelps.

  I rush over to the elevator, balancing my laundry bag on my hip. Thomas shuffles along behind me, his bag dragging on the ground. The LED sign above the elevator doors displays the floor number: 1 changes to 2, 2 changes to 3. And it stops there.

  I turn to look at Thomas. He’s breathing hard but trying not to show it.

  “They took him to the third floor,” I say. “How about we make that our first stop?”

  He flashes me a thumbs-up. “Aye, captain.” I push the button to summon our lift.

  When we get out of the elevator at the third floor, I know we’re in the right place because someone is screaming.

  The hallway is so full of tension I get a prickling sensation on the back of my neck.

  Three nurses and a guard are wrestling a youngish woman into one of the rooms. Fortunately, a year at a research hospital where they do experimental brain surgery has conditioned me well. That and living in New York City. I’m good at minding my own business. I hustle past the action, and now I have a clear view of the rest of the corridor.

  Which means I can see Mikey’s guards push him around the corner into an intersecting hallway.

  I wait until the sounds of their scuffling feet die down before I follow them. I peer around the corner just in time to see a door closing.

  “Um, Angel . . .”

  I look back at Thomas. All of a sudden, his bloody nose seems to turn on like a spigot. He looks down like he’s not sure where all this blood is coming from. Before I can figure out how to help, his face goes white. It’s like someone just pulled a shade down over his eyes. He’s going to faint.

  He staggers to the right, his laundry bag tipping him over even farther when he tries to hold onto it. I grab him, then steer him down the empty hall. I duck into some sort of examination room, right next to the one they put Mikey in. It’s hardly large enough for the bare gurney that looks as though it’s been hurled into the room and forgotten. A huge window opens onto an interior courtyard below. I barely get Thomas through the doorway before he goes down face-first onto the edge of the gurney. As I try to brace him, both our laundry bags drop to the ground, and dirty laundry spills out in a silent explosion of color and unsavory smells.

>   I kick the door closed behind me. The only light in the room comes through the window, since it’s never fully dark in Manhattan.

  In the room next to us, I hear bumping and what sounds like furniture being shoved into the wall.

  Thomas raises his head. “Did I just faint?”

  “Yeah. A little bit.”

  “That is so not cool.”

  In the outer hallway, we hear men talking. Through the door, I can barely make out what they’re saying. They’re speaking fluent murmur.

  “We’re gonna have to wipe him again later when the doctor gets back,” one voice says.

  A woman’s voice answers, “I’ll do it, but he may be reaching the limit. He’s starting to exhibit symptoms of—”

  “Just keep him quiet for now, okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Thomas has turned himself onto his side.

  “Stay there,” I hiss.

  I take two quick steps toward the window. It’s got a big center window and two side panels, maybe twelve inches wide, that open like doors. It’s one of those old-fashioned kinds that looks nice but is completely unsafe in this sort of setting. By which I mean a place containing people who could figure out ways to hurt either themselves or someone else. People like me.

  “There is no way you’re going to fit through there,” Thomas says.

  “Watch and learn.”

  I turn sideways and snake my upper body through the window, put my hand down on the ledge, and hold myself in a push-up position until I can pull my legs through slowly enough that I don’t send myself down into the courtyard below. I squat on the ledge and put my face back through the window.

  “It’s the rule of cats,” I say, giving Thomas a thumbs-up. “If you can get your shoulders through, you can get the rest of you through. Be right back.”

  I take a few steps along the ledge—thankful that early twentieth-century architects loved putting lots of uselessly ornate decorations on old townhouses, so I have plenty of things to hold onto. Now I’m close enough to Mikey’s window to peek in. The nurse’s back is to me but Mikey is looking up from the bed, where he’s strapped down. His eyes grow wider when he sees me. At first he looks terrified, like maybe he thinks he’s hallucinating, but then his expression turns hopeful.