“Heads up!” Gilda yelled, and in a deft motion, lifted the dog bed while kicking her walker toward Ellie.
Ellie oomphed as the walker hit her belly.
Gilda leapt toward a thin woman on a motorized scooter. “Sorry,” she whispered and elbowed the woman to the floor with one arm and slung the dog bed on top with the other. She cranked the scooter’s speed dial from turtle to rabbit and rocketed down the corridor.
Man, this unit had pep. Imagine what Father Vincent could do with it. The only problem was that the dog bed blocked her view. She steered the wheelchair around a corner, scattering a doctor and two nurses.
“Hey,” said a man wheeling a stacked cart of lunch trays as Gilda nicked him.
She heard a crash and the sound of shattered crockery and looked over her shoulder to a landslide of beige food—turkey and gravy, maybe, and, judging from the smell, some kind of custard. And here came Ellie. Gilda turned ahead and stepped on the gas. The scooter was jetting at full throttle.
“Watch out, lady!” came a voice behind her. The man with the lunches. Ellie had slipped and fallen. Good.
An elevator just ahead opened, and Gilda yanked the scooter to a hard right to steer it in. She slammed on the brakes, slicing between a rabbi and a gent hooked to a portable oxygen tank. “Sorry, fellas. I’m kind of in a hurry.”
The door shut behind her just as a custard-smeared Ellie neared.
“And I thought I had it bad,” the man on oxygen said.
“What floor?” the rabbi asked.
Gilda faced the elevator’s rear and couldn’t remember how many floors the hospital had. “Um, fifth, please.”
“What have you got there?” The man with the tank pointed at the dog bed.
“Don’t ask.”
The elevator opened and Gilda backed out the scooter. To her left was the staircase. Ellie could be running up it right now, looking out every floor for her. Gilda zipped the scooter past a long window, then pointed it toward an opening door.
“You can’t go in there,” a nurse said as the scooter buzzed by. “You’re not authorized. The nursery needs to be kept germ free.”
She halted the scooter just before ramming into a shelf of diapers. The dog bed rocked from side to side but didn’t topple. She was in the maternity ward. To her right were rows of babies in bassinets. “All right. Hold that door.”
She backed out, mastering a tidy three-point turn, and buzzed through the open door and down the corridor, throwing a glance back every few seconds. She rounded a corner.
“I know you’re here somewhere,” came Ellie’s voice behind her.
Gilda zipped into the first open door she saw and pulled it shut behind her. Dang it. She set down the dog bed and regained her breath. Dang dang dang. How was she going to get out of this?
A low moan, gathering steam, came from across the room. Gilda raised her head. She was in a patient’s room, and the patient was clearly in labor.
“Breathe, honey,” Gilda said. Shoot.
The patient’s moaning subsided, and she began to pant.
The door opened, and Gilda started, hands on the scooter’s controls. But it was only a candy striper with a pitcher of water.
“Lock the door behind you,” Gilda said.
Without asking why, the candy striper locked it. She set the pitcher by the patient’s bed, then turned to Gilda, arms crossed. “What do you want?”
“Can’t you do anything for her?” Gilda nodded toward the bed.
“I’m a candy striper, not a gynecologist. Besides, she’s only at three centimeters and she wants to go natural. Isn’t that right?” she shouted toward the bed.
“Arghhh,” the woman moaned.
“The nurse will check in on her.”
Gilda examined the candy striper. She was a bit overdeveloped for her age and clearly had the attitude to match. Gilda would bet her red lipstick and gum smacking weren’t regulation. In short, Gilda knew her type well.
“Here’s the deal. I’m on the lam. I’m being pursued by an escapee from a mental institution, and one of your surgeons has the police after me.”
The candy striper didn’t flinch. “What’s that?” She jerked a thumb to the tablecloth-swathed shape next to Gilda’s scooter.
“Marie Antoinette’s dog bed.”
She nodded once, took a wad of gum from her mouth, and stuck it on the bedside table. “Gotcha. Wait here.”
As soon as the door closed behind her, the woman in labor began to moan again. “Another one’s coming.” She broke into pants.
“Oh, honey. Where’s the kid’s father?”
“At the basketball game.” The poor woman was drenched in sweat.
“Doesn’t he know you’re here?”
The woman nodded and grimaced. “Playoffs.”
“Get a lawyer,” Gilda said. “It’s not going to get any better. While you’re at it, look up Bad Seed floral arrangements. I’ll do you up one for free.”
A moment later the door burst open again, jolting Gilda. The candy striper was pushing a gurney and had acquired a fresh wad of gum.
“Get on.”
“I need to take the dog bed—”
“I know. Get on.”
Gilda complied. Truth be told, she was through with the scooter. The saddle could use more padding. With the candy striper’s help, she sat on the gurney’s edge and swung up her legs. The candy striper placed the dog bed on her belly, then covered her up to her neck with a sheet.
“Where are we going?”
“To the candy striper’s lounge.”
The woman on the bed started moaning again.
“A good lawyer, I tell you,” Gilda shouted as they left. “You deserve better.”
The candy striper pushed her into the hall. “Look pregnant.”
Gilda glanced down at her boxy middle and closed her eyes. No professional would fall for it, regardless of how much Oil of Olay she used. “Give me a break, hon.” And hurry, she wanted to add. Ellie could be around any corner.
“Helen,” a woman’s voice said. Gilda opened an eye to a middle-aged woman with a clipboard. “Where are you taking her?”
“Delivery. Dr. Grigson’s orders.” She sounded remarkably convincing. Gilda suspected the Villa might welcome her someday.
“Her?”
The candy striper lowered her voice. “Probably not her own eggs.”
“Fine. Just hurry up. We’re on lockdown. The police are searching the building.”
The candy striper rolled Gilda down the hall and into an elevator. “Can you go any faster?” Gilda asked.
“We don’t want to attract attention.”
They got off the elevator and rolled down another hall, and, after a pause for the candy striper to unlock a door, into a dim room. A supply closet. The door clicked shut after them.
Gilda sat up and caught her breath. “Get this thing off me, will you?” Once the dog bed was set to the side, she grunted off the gurney to a surprised trio of candy stripers eating potato chips. One of them was looking at her phone. They’d cleared out the rear of the storage closet and kitted it out with lounge chairs and a mini-fridge.
“Who’s she?” A candy striper waved a chocolate bar at Gilda.
“Fugitive from justice.”
Gilda took a chair while the first candy striper pushed the gurney to a corner. Gilda rubbed her backside as she sat down. “That scooter has nice power, but the seat’s not too comfortable.”
“Are you the one the police are looking for?” The candy striper with the phone put it away and stared at her.
“Probably.” That double-crossing surgeon hadn’t scheduled an operating room. He wanted to get his dog bed and send her up the river. And now Ellie was after her, too. She’d no doubt drag Gilda to the police and convince them of all sorts of things. The Villa would be forced to shut down. With luck, Adele had escaped. And, even more desperately, Gilda hoped the stress hadn’t been too much for Adele’s brain.
Gild
a let out a sigh. At least she appeared safe here. She noted a row of well-thumbed romance novels on the floor. Warren had the one with the yacht on the front. The candy stripers had something good going. “You know where I can get a walker?”
“I’ll say.” The candy striper on the end, the one with the straight black hair and name tag that read Maria, pointed to three collapsed walkers leaning on a supply shelf. She moved the dog bed to the front of the shelf to pull one out. The rest of the shelf was full of neatly stacked boxes of disposable gloves, bottles of rubbing alcohol, and a pack of cigarettes. Cigarettes? Come to think of it, the air did carry a hint of menthol.
“You know a way to get out of the hospital without being seen?” Gilda hoped Adele had made it back to the car.
“I suppose we could put you in a box and smuggle you to the loading dock.”
“Or take her through the morgue.”
Behind Gilda, the doorknob rattled. “Gilda?” It was Ellie. It rattled again.
“Hush,” Gilda whispered to the candy stripers. They stared at the knob.
Gilda held her finger to her lips to signal silence. At last, the rattling stopped. They waited one minute, then two. Ellie must have moved on. How and when Gilda was going to get out of the supply closet, she didn’t know, but at least she had somewhere to hide out for a few hours.
“I think we’re safe,” Gilda said finally.
Now metal-on-metal scraping came from the door handle.
“What’s that noise?” the candy striper with the chocolate bar asked.
Gilda knew the sound of a picklock all too well. With horror, she watched the doorknob’s lock pop out. They were in a storage room with no other exit.
The door burst open, and Ellie flew in, smashing into the shelf and sending bottles of rubbing alcohol bouncing to the ground.
“Surprise!” Ellie said.
35
When Gilda had shoved her and hightailed it in the opposite direction, Adele had run, no questions asked.
Now she found herself in the hospital’s bowels, wandering through darkened corridors, every once in a while passing an orderly or what looked to be maintenance workers.
Finally, a nun stopped her. “Are you looking for the cafeteria, dear? You just passed it.”
The cafeteria. Her stomach gurgled. She hadn’t eaten since last night, and it didn’t sound like the operation was going to happen. But she didn’t have anything with her. No money, nothing. Just an ID for someone named Gloria.
“Thank you.” Adele tried to smile, but she knew she sounded disappointed.
“You follow me,” the nun said. “Lack of a few dollars shouldn’t stand between a hungry woman and a square meal.”
Adele obeyed. The nun led her to a room bright with fluorescent lights.
“Jimmy.” The nun’s habit waved a bit as she pointed toward Adele. “You fix this girl up with whatever she wants. Put it on my account.”
Even in the harsh light, the nun’s face radiated pink. Her eyes were the milky blue of a Van Gogh iris. Adele’s gratitude blended with the intense urge to beg the nun to come to the Villa and sit for a portrait.
“Thank you,” Adele said. “Thank you so much.”
“Never you mind about thanking me. We thank the Lord.”
When the nun left, her skirts whisking about her ankles, Adele turned toward the steam table. Flaccid hotdogs, pale macaroni and cheese, and a sorry imitation of spaghetti filled its stainless steel tubs. Further on was a salad bar under a grimy sneeze shield. The hospital appeared to share a recipe book with the Carsonville Women’s Correctional Facility.
“The milkshakes are good,” the man the nun called Jimmy said.
Yes. A milkshake. She smiled. “I’ll have a chocolate milkshake and a tuna salad sandwich, then.”
“With fries?”
“Please.”
She carried her tray to the corner where she could watch the room. An anonymous mix of hospital staff and visitors came and went. She was reminded that her aneurysm was one of thousands of serious health problems in the county. The woman in a wheelchair asking for coffee was clearly bald under her stocking cap. Chemotherapy, likely. Another woman struggled to quiet two playful toddlers, but her mind was somewhere else. Maybe upstairs with an ailing parent. A man with a fat ankle cast limped by on crutches. All Adele had cared about was herself. The truth was, all these people—and more—were burdened.
Last night’s trip to Oliver’s apartment had been selfish, too. She’d let her anger overcome her good sense, and the Villa’s residents might still pay the price for it.
Where was Gilda, and why had she run? Gilda was hardly in shape to sustain a high-speed chase. Warmth and worry suffused her as she considered the risks Gilda and the other Villa residents had taken for her, first by breaking her out of jail, then stealing the Italian landscape and the dog bed, and setting up this operation. Adele lowered a french fry before it reached her mouth. But the doctor hadn’t scheduled surgery. He wanted them to meet him in his office. Now she understood why Gilda had run. The police were waiting to take Adele back to prison, and Gilda had known it.
Adele absently hoovered up the last drops of milkshake with her straw. Except for risking the Villa by getting art supplies and sneaking out to destroy the fake Stubbs—she winced remembering Warren’s cold greeting on her return—she’d been passive this whole time. She’d let them do all the work, relying on the excuse of her brain aneurysm.
She pushed away her tray and stood. The old folks at the Villa had put their future on the line for her. That wasn’t right. It was her life at stake, not theirs. She wouldn’t make them pay for her own stupid mistakes.
She was going to see Dr. Lancaster and turn herself in.
* * *
Ellie shut the storage room door behind her and twisted its lock. Victory was so close she could taste it, and it tasted delicious. “Didn’t think I’d find you, did you?”
The redhead, Gilda, sat in a chair holding a collapsed walker. Up close, she looked even older than through the telescope, with vivid hennaed hair and powder-white skin. Her mauve lipstick had worn away, leaving purple stains feathering around her lips. Beyond her hovered three candy stripers, one of them holding a half-eaten chocolate bar and another holding a bag of chips.
“Are you from the housekeeping staff?” one of the candy stripers asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you wearing—?”
“I said, shut up.” Ellie took a step closer to the redhead.
“You’ve been watching us,” Gilda said.
“What if I have?”
“You want to take down the Villa. To get at the Booster Club.”
“You deserve it.” The boxy object next to the shelf had to be the Marie Antoinette lit de chien. She yanked off its cover. Yes, the dog bed. Bottles of rubbing alcohol had toppled onto it. One bottle’s cap had popped, and alcohol seeped over the bed’s velvet canopy.
“What’s going on? You two know each other?” the busty candy striper asked, cool as a flagpole in January. She patted her apron and came up with a pack of cigarettes.
“Shut up,” Ellie said. Then, to the redhead, “You. You screwed up my life. I had money. People paid attention to me. My marriage was a model. Then you sent me to the Bedlamton Arms.”
“What’s that?” the candy striper with the chocolate asked.
“Funny farm,” the busty one whispered.
“You did it to yourself,” Gilda said. “It was your greed, pure and simple, that got you in trouble. You were making sweetheart deals with the county. You wanted to stop the family shelter from being built—”
“I was fine with the shelter. Remember?”
“Only because the Booster Club tricked you into thinking it was sitting on money. You’re responsible for your failure. Don’t you put that on us.”
The whole bottle of rubbing alcohol had now emptied on the dog bed’s cover, and other bottles toppled around it. If the bed were gone, so was the
Booster Club’s ransom for the surgery. Not only would the surgery not take place, Dr. Lancaster wouldn’t hesitate to jail them all. The Villa would shut down. Claudine and the rest of the Booster Club would be crushed. As they should be.
“You’re nothing but a criminal,” Ellie said. “All of you. Criminals. You shouldn’t be allowed to see daylight.”
“I think she’s been drinking,” a candy striper said, waving the unlit cigarette. “I smell it.”
“Maybe we’ve broken a few laws over the years,” Gilda, now standing, said. Even standing, she was a head shorter than Ellie. “But we’ve done a lot of good. We take care of each other, and we look out for people who need it. That’s more than I can say for you. All you care about is yourself—your bank account, who’ll kiss your keister, who you can screw over to make your next buck. You don’t obey the law—you use it to hurt people.” The disgust on the older woman’s face was palpable.
Ellie did care. Maybe it had taken her a while to get there, but at last there was one thing she cared about. Right now, though, her anger overshadowed it. “Give me a cigarette,” she said to the candy striper.
The girl bit her lip and shook one from the pack. With a trembling hand, she passed it to her.
“Matches.”
The girl reached into her apron and handed Ellie a matchbook.
Ellie peeled a match from the book and examined its red tip a second before pressing it to the flint. None of these idiots seemed to realize what was going to happen. The girls watched, slack jawed, but the redhead’s eyes suddenly widened.
“No!” Gilda yelled. “Run, girls, she’s going to blow the place up.” She grabbed the folded walker and shoved it at Ellie, but it was too late.
Ellie had lit the match and used it to flame the entire matchbook. It whooshed to life. She tossed it toward the dog bed. The candy stripers, their fear of Ellie transformed into fear for their lives, pushed past both women and burst out into the corridor.
A tiny flame rippled over the dog bed, then, fed by rubbing alcohol, spread until it encompassed it. Ellie stood, transfixed. The Marie Antoinette lit de chien was now truly history. Orange flames devoured the centuries-old blue velvet as if it were dry straw.
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