by Lisa Jackson
“You can see how lucky this unknown jogger was,” the reporter was saying. “Had she slid off the ledge, she would have fallen into the river.” The camera panned to Grizzly Falls, where white water sprayed and churned before a swift current sliced beneath a hundred-year-old bridge and past the glittering lights of the town.
The camera’s eye returned to the reporter. “This is Nia Del Ray,” and she signed off to the two anchors sitting behind a joined desk. The blond female anchor clarified, “That footage was shot last night, and the latest report from the hospital is that the woman is in critical condition, but the identity of the jogger has not yet been confirmed.”
Trace stared at the set and felt that same sense of doom that had been with him when he’d visited Jocelyn’s apartment. Without a thought to the time, he picked up the phone and dialed Ed Zukov’s number. He’d need his neighbor’s help; someone would have to look after his boy for a couple of hours. Though he didn’t want to believe that Jocelyn Wallis was the unidentified jogger who’d lost her footing and nearly her life at the crest of Boxer Bluff, he had to find out.
Pescoli’s cell phone rang sharply near her ear.
She groaned and rolled over to the side of the bed, scrabbled for the damned thing where it was charging on her night table and knocked her reading glasses onto the floor.
“Great,” she muttered as she flipped on the lamp, then said into the phone, “Pescoli.”
“I think you’d better come down here,” Alvarez said as Pescoli eyed the clock near her bed. The digital readout shone a bright red 5:57.
“And ‘here’ is where? The station? Geez, Alvarez, it’s not even six. What the hell time do you get up in the morning?” How could anyone be so alert at this god-awful time of day?
“Yeah, the station. I think we might get an ID on the Jane Doe.”
“Give me half an hour.” Pescoli rolled out of bed and stumbled into the main bath, where she yanked off her University of Montana Grizzlies football jersey and panties, then stepped under a much too cold shower spray.
Twenty-eight minutes later she was walking toward the back door of the sheriff’s department. Ignoring the rumbling in her stomach and Joelle’s winking snowflakes in the windows, she clomped the snow from her boots and walked inside, down a series of short hallways to Alvarez’s desk, where her partner was busy talking to a tall man in an unzipped fleece jacket, faded jeans, work shirt, and sporting a dark beard stubble. He was sitting in the visitor’s chair but got to his feet as she approached.
Alvarez glanced up. “This is my partner, Detective Pescoli, and he”—she hitched her chin to indicate the visitor—“is Trace O’Halleran. He thinks he knows who our Jane Doe is.”
O’Halleran’s lips pinched at the corners a bit. He shook Pescoli’s hand. “I just think it’s an odd coincidence that a woman I know is missing about the same time. She jogs, too, and I dropped by her house yesterday because I heard she hadn’t shown up for work.”
As Alvarez waved him back into his chair, she listened to O’Halleran while he explained that he and Jocelyn Wallis, a schoolteacher whom he’d met through his kid at Evergreen Elementary, had dated a few times and that the relationship had stopped before really getting started. Then, yesterday, he had gotten a call from a friend who worked at the school and was informed that the Wallis woman hadn’t shown up for work. He’d noticed she had phoned him but hadn’t left a message, so he’d gone to her apartment, investigated on his own by letting himself in with a hidden key he knew where to find, and subsequently discovered her missing. Her purse and car had still been at her home. As had been her phone. He’d found it odd, as it was out of character for her; to his knowledge Jocelyn Wallis had never missed a day of work.
“Then I saw this morning’s news,” he said, wrapping up. “That woman was pulled from an area of the park ... one of the trails Jocelyn runs. So, I came to you.”
Pescoli watched him closely all through the recitation. He seemed earnest, intense, and worried. His hands were clasped between his knees, the thumb of his right hand working nervously. He hadn’t called her family, hadn’t wanted to worry them, thought maybe the school would start contacting friends and relatives, and hoped that she would show up.
He was emphatic that he and she weren’t dating. There had been no big blowup; they’d just quit seeing each other. It had been O’Halleran who had cut things off.
Pescoli wanted to trust the rancher. Handsome in that rugged way she’d always found sexy, he was used to working outside and had the winter tan to prove it. His thick hair brushed the collar of his fleece jacket, and his hands were big, calloused, and had a few tiny white scars. A single father whose wife, he’d admitted, had left him, O’Halleran seemed sincere, and he had come in of his own accord, but that didn’t mean a whole helluva lot.
She’d seen the most pious, timid of men turn out to be cold-blooded killers.
“So, is this Jocelyn Wallis?” Alvarez asked as she slid a couple of pictures of the battered woman to him.
O’Halleran swept in a breath. “God, I hope not,” he said fervently but studied each of the two shots. “I—I don’t know. Maybe. Jesus.”
“I’ve got a few pictures of Jocelyn Wallis,” Alvarez said.
“From the school’s Web site?” Pescoli guessed.
“Motor vehicle division.” Alvarez clicked on her keyboard, and a driver’s license appeared on the screen. The woman in the picture was somewhere in her early thirties with a bright smile and long reddish brown hair.
“Could be.” Pescoli looked at O’Halleran. “Any identifying marks? Tattoos? Scars? Birthmarks?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Don’t know.”
“You didn’t see her naked?” Pescoli questioned. “She didn’t talk about any surgeries or injuries as a kid? Or getting a tattoo?”
“We didn’t get that far.”
“You didn’t sleep with her?” Pescoli asked.
He hesitated and looked down at his hands before meeting her eyes again. “Once. At her place. I didn’t see anything. She didn’t tell me about anything like that, but she did wear earrings. Three in one ear, I think, and two in the other.”
“That’s something,” Pescoli said. “So why don’t you come down and see if you know her?”
“The hospital will allow it?” he asked.
“We’ve got friends in high places.”
He was already climbing to his full six feet two inches, and Alvarez was reaching for her jacket, purse, and sidearm. “I’ll drive,” Pescoli said. She wanted to see his reaction to the injured woman, and then she’d double-check his story.
And if the woman turned out to be someone other than Jocelyn Wallis, there was still the problem that the schoolteacher was missing.
If what O’Halleran had told them was true.
“Oh, thank God, Doctor Lambert! I was so afraid.... Oh, sweet Jesus!” Rosie Alsgaard said, the fingers of one hand theatrically splayed over her chest as she hurried along the hallway of the second floor of the small hospital. Dressed in scrubs, the ear tips of the coiled stethoscope peeking out of her pocket like the tiny twin faces of a double-headed snake, the ER nurse jogged over the shiny linoleum as she met Kacey. “Oh, man, I was worried. We all were.”
“Worried? What’re you talking about?”
“Because of the patient who was admitted last night, before my shift! She’s a dead ringer for you, and Cleo, she was certain it was you! The Jane Doe.”
“Cleo?”
“The nurse’s aide who was working ER last night. And not just her. Me, too. I saw the patient and ... and it’s freaky!” Rosie was breathing hard, her words tumbling out of her mouth in no sensible order. “I mean, of course her face is swollen and bruised, her nose broken, but her hair ... and she looks like you. I was sure when I saw her this morning ... I mean, I was worried sick that you had fallen and—”
“Rosie! Slow down,” Kacey ordered, one hand up. “Let’s start over.”
An aide pushing a m
edication cart passed by, while another nurse whipped past them and hurried toward the bank of elevators located at this end of the small building housing the newly reopened St. Bart’s Hospital.
“Okay, okay!” Some of Rosie’s color was coming back, and she took a long, deep breath. “Last night a patient came into the ER by ambulance. Apparently she was out jogging and fell down the ravine by the river. She didn’t have any ID on her, and she was—is—in bad shape. Head trauma, broken pelvis, fractured tibia in two places, sprained wrist, two cracked ribs, ruptured spleen, and cuts and contusions. I mean, she’s a mess, must’ve rolled down that hill, hitting rocks and roots and God knows what else. But the thing is, she does resemble you. She’s got the same build, and we all know that you jog, sometimes up in the park.... We all were hoping that it wasn’t you, but we were worried just the same.”
“Someone could have called.”
“Too busy last night. The police were here, too. And there were two multiple-car accidents with the snow, so there wasn’t any time. Cleo and I, we figured if you didn’t show up for rounds today, that we’d call the clinic.”
“Where’s the Jane Doe now?”
“In ICU, but she might have to be sent to Missoula or Spokane, depending. Right now, no one wants to move her.”
“I’ll check on her when my rounds are finished.”
Rosie offered a tentative smile. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
As Kacey went about her rounds, she wondered just how “okay” she was. For the second time in a week she’d heard that someone who looked like her was either dead or fighting for her life. Weird. But until she saw the woman in the ICU, she couldn’t be certain that Rosie’s imagination wasn’t working overtime.
An hour later, after she’d finished checking on the few patients who were under her care in the hospital, she made her way to the ICU.
Anita Bellows was the nurse on duty. Barely five feet, Anita, at forty, was as lithe and agile as a woman half her age. A gymnast in college, she now ran marathons and trained year-round to keep in shape. With short brown hair, a quick smile, and large eyes surrounded by lashes caked in mascara, she had moved from Missoula when St. Bart’s opened this past year, giving the aging Pinewood Community Hospital a run for its money.
Today, like Rosie Alsgaard, Anita, spying Kacey push open the door to the ICU, was visibly relieved. Anita was situated at the large circular desk from which private, curtained “rooms” radiated, much like the petals of a sunflower. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered, making a quick sign of the cross over her thin chest, where a tiny gold cross was suspended on a fragile chain. “I thought ... I mean, I was worried that . . .” She sighed and hitched her chin toward a woman lying in one of the two occupied beds. “I’m just glad she’s not you.”
“She’s the Jane Doe?”
“Uh-huh. Brought in last night.”
Kacey approached the private, curtained area for the patient.
The muscles in her torso tensed as she stared down at the patient’s swollen face. Kacey saw the resemblance despite the contusions and probable broken nose. High cheekbones, deep-set eyes, which were now closed, a heart-shaped face, a few freckles still visible were like her own. The patient’s hair was a deep auburn hue, and it fell in unruly waves to her shoulders, just as Kacey’s did, even though a part of Jane’s head had been shaved to allow an intracerebral pressure catheter to be inserted into her skull. The ICP monitored pressure inside the skull and drained off excess fluid.
Not a good sign. Heart monitor, ICP, IVs, urinary catheter were just a start. Jane Doe’s body was draped beneath a sheet, one leg splinted, but Kacey already knew from Rosie and Anita the patient was a similar size and body type.
She touched the woman’s hand. Who are you?
An eerie whisper swept over the back of her neck, and she told herself she was being foolish and unprofessional. Just because Rosie, who wasn’t known for being rock steady, thought there was a resemblance, so what? Yet, as she looked at the comatose woman, just for a second she imagined her own self in this woman’s place. In her mind’s eye she saw herself helpless, comatose, on the cusp of death, while nurses and doctors scurried around to try and save her life.
“See what I mean?” Anita asked.
Kacey lifted a shoulder. “Maybe she does look a little like me.”
“Try ‘she looks a lot like you.’” Anita straightened the sheet, but her gaze was focused on her patient. “Pretty compromised. Just when we think we’ve got her stabilized, she starts to crash.” She bit at her lower lip as she concentrated. “Some of her symptoms aren’t consistent with her injuries, and Dr. Henner is still trying to figure out what’s going on internally. X-rays, MRIs, CAT scans, but . . .” She glanced at the laptop computer that was also hooked to all the monitors. “Since she’s comatose, we can’t ask her what happened, and no one was with her or has come forward. She can’t give us any information on her pain or if she was on some kind of drug or had a seizure ... lots of unanswered questions, but the lab work should come back this morning. Then we’ll know a little more. A couple of detectives were here last night and said they’d be back in the morning.”
“Detectives?” Again, that tiniest of shivers.
“Yeah, two women who were checking out the accident.” She glanced at the clock mounted on one wall. Frowning, her eyebrows drawing together, she added, “They’ll probably show up soon, so I’ll double-check with the lab. Maybe they’ll know something more. You’d think someone should be missing her. She came in wearing top-end jogging clothes, jewelry, and had an iPod in her pocket. It’s not like she was destitute. Trust me, someone’s missing Jane.”
Kacey, too, saw the time. “I’ve got to get going. Tell anyone who might still think I’m lying in that hospital bed that I’m alive and kicking and I’m definitely not the Jane Doe.”
“Will do,” Anita said. She was just walking back to her station when the ICU buzzer announced a visitor.
Anita hit a button that unlocked the doors, and they were immediately pushed open as Trace O’Halleran, his face a grim mask, strode into the unit. Unshaven, hair mussed, wearing work clothes under a heavy jacket, he looked shaken and none too happy about being at the hospital. Two women were with him, just a step behind. The taller of the two was a redhead, mid- to late thirties, who introduced herself as Detective Pescoli. Her partner was shorter, Hispanic, and said her name was Alvarez. Both wore the no-nonsense attitude of cops on duty.
Anita wasn’t impressed with their credentials. “We can’t have more than one visitor at a time in ICU. What’s he doing here?” She pointed at the rancher.
O’Halleran’s gaze met Kacey’s, and she noticed a spark of recognition in those deep-set eyes. What was it his son had said? That she looked like his girlfriend? A little drip of trepidation slid through her bloodstream.
“This is Trace O’Halleran,” Pescoli said. “He thinks he might be able to identify the woman who was brought in last night.”
Anita wasn’t persuaded. “Only one at a time.” She held up a hand as if to physically halt the two officers. “There are several patients here, and we’re not going to disturb them.” As if to enforce her authority, she glanced toward Kacey. “This is Doctor Lambert. She can take Mr. O’Halleran to the patient’s bed, and you two can wait here, by the door.”
The officers looked as if they wanted to argue but held back, and Kacey managed a smile she didn’t feel. She was suddenly cold as ice inside. O’Halleran and the Jane Doe? “Over here,” she said and led the way, slowly drawing back the curtain so that he could view the patient.
He visibly flinched at the sight of her, his jaw tightening, his eyes closing for the briefest of seconds before he opened them again and took a long look.
“Jesus,” he whispered under his breath. Then more loudly he said, “It’s Jocelyn,” turning away from the bed to face Kacey. “Jocelyn Wallis. The teacher Eli was talking about.” He didn’t explain any further to the detectives, and Kacey
figured they’d already covered that ground. He looked once more at the battered woman lying, unmoving, in the hospital bed. The corners of his mouth twisted downward. “How the hell did she fall?”
“That’s what we want to find out,” Pescoli said. “We’ll need you to tell us everything you know about her.” The taller detective was moving toward the newly identified patient, but Anita stepped between them.
“Uh-uh. You can handle this interview outside the room.” The smallest person in the area, she was still very much in command as she faced off with the cops. “I mean it. Out. But ... I’ll need to get some information, too.” She glanced at O’Halleran. “Medical. Family.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know her that well.” He rubbed a hand behind his neck, and Kacey wondered how much he was covering up. How involved was he with Jocelyn Wallis? “I think she has a sister somewhere in California.”
“California’s a pretty big state,” Alvarez pointed out.
“That’s all I ever heard. California. I told you I don’t . . . didn’t really know her.” But he was thinking now. “Her maiden name was Black, she said, and her parents are from somewhere in Idaho. Around Pocatello?” he said as if asking himself a question. “She mentioned her dad a couple of times.... What the hell was his name? Cedric? No ... Cecil.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s right. Cecil Black, but I don’t remember her mother’s name. The school would have a lot more information. You can probably get it from the principal. Her name is Barbara Killingsworth.”
Anita was nodding and shepherding them out. O’Halleran glanced back at Kacey just as one of the monitors started to give off an alarm.
Anita spun on her heel. “Oh, hell! She’s crashing!” To the detectives, she said, “All of you, get out of here! Now!” She was already reaching for the alarm button on her desk to alert the rest of the staff. Kacey had moved to Jane Doe’s—now, presumably, Jocelyn’s—side, ready to administer CPR and hoping to high heaven that the crash cart and doctor arrived soon.