She didn’t think anything could be colder than the way she felt. It hadn’t seemed cold moments ago when she’d gone in and bathed. Yet now, it iced its way up her joints and into her muscles and nerves until she felt frozen, like some ice queen. No feelings, no life. Dead.
Numb.
What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she move, react, defend herself like a normal person?
Bases loaded, no one out.
She could react to that. She could defend herself against that threat.
Dad coming home drunk, Mom upset.
That she could deal with.
Jack in the hospital. Mac bit her lip. She wished she had her old bat. It was probably lying in Moreno’s evidence locker, dusted with soot for fingerprints.
The phone sounded again. The noise made her jump, shattering the icy shroud which had imprisoned her. She stared at the receiver. It had to be Jack again. She wouldn’t know if she didn’t answer.
Mac reached for it, curled her fingers in midair and snatched her hand back. She didn’t want to know. She only knew that if Jack was in the hospital, she couldn’t stay.
Her cotton shift drooped off one shoulder. Mac pulled it back up. She wasn’t going anywhere dressed in a gown with her tush hanging out the back. The phone rang two more times, then went silent.
He’d guessed she wasn’t going to answer it. Either he would leave her alone for a while ... or he would find his way to her room.
There was no way in hell she intended to be there if he did. Mac ran her fingers through her still damp hair. Clothes. Not hers, they were grass-stained and bloody and they would probably reek. She wouldn’t get out of the hospital wearing them. Some security guard would probably tackle her and drag her into the ER.
Mac closed her eyes, trying to think. Clothes. In the nurses’ lounge. She’d seen the open closet with a uniform, a couple of sweaters, some dry cleaning, hanging there. And there were shoes below, several pairs. She grabbed up the extra gown she’d been using as a robe and bolted for the door, tugging it on as she went.
The phone began to ring again as she went through the door. Sorry, bud, strike three. Only two more outs, and I’m out of the inning.
Shannon’s clothes were extravagant on her. The pantsuit fit her with enough room to slip in another escapee. Mac looked at herself critically in the mirror. Only the joggers fit well, but the outfit would have to do. It was infinitely better than the gown with the built-in air-conditioning.
Someone had also left makeup in the small bathroom adjoining the lounge. Mac used the hair dryer, fluffing what body she could into hair that seemed as defeated as she had felt ten minutes ago. Then, she carefully put on foundation, patting it tentatively about her bruised face. She eyed herself. Sunglasses were not an option at ten thirty at night. If they were, she might pass. As it was ... Mac sighed.
“I ran into a door,” she said aloud to her mirror image, and grimaced at the sound of her voice. Maybe it would work, maybe not. It wasn’t like she was trying to escape prison.
Not yet, anyway.
No one looked up as she entered the elevator. The doors closed on her before she’d decided where to go.
She didn’t know where she could go, but she knew she could not leave without trying one last time to see her father. It might be her last chance to say good-bye. She owed him that much. When the chips were down, 3–2, he’d stepped in between her and Jack.
Just like a father should.
She swallowed down a sudden lump in her throat and punched ICU’s floor number.
Susan Craig had long ago found out what most cons knew instinctively, that tones of brisk efficiency and mannerism that echoed automatically broke down bureaucracy. She tucked her clipboard under her elbow as she approached the security guard.
“Little late for a round, isn’t it, ma’am?” A tired smile fractured across the man’s seamed face.
“Actually, I’m early.” She looked over the guard’s shoulder at Ibie Walker’s shrouded form. “He’s coming in for speech therapy on the soundboard tomorrow morning.”
“The soundboard?” the guard said, drawling slightly. “That that computer thing which makes the voice for you? Ibie going to have to talk like that now?”
“It’s probably temporary, but it’s hard to tell with stroke victims.” Susan tilted her head slightly, engagingly. “I need to measure him for the headgear. Since I’m still on the floor, I thought I might as well do it. It won’t disturb him, I’m sure.”
The guard made a noise of agreement in his throat. “Ain’t nothing much disturbing these two. It’s like a morgue in there. Nothing makes noise but those damn monitors.”
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I know it seems like that, but—” and she consulted the chart she’d picked up on the way across the unit. “He’s doing well, actually. He’s been sedated for rest this evening, tests and therapy tomorrow. As for the other man—” Susan looked across at Walton Smith. “He’s being kept under purposely.” The doctor had logged in instructions to keep him down to allow the brain swelling to subside.
“If you say so.”
She checked her watch again. “Look, I’m going to be here, ten, fifteen minutes. Why don’t you go get a cup of coffee? I smelled a fresh batch as I passed the lounge.”
The guard shifted restlessly. “You wouldn’t mind?” “Not at all. And you look like you could use the caffeine.” “That’s true. I’m here for the duration, until six a.m.” He scratched his brow with a blunt fingernail. “Fresh brew, you say?”
“Nothing smells quite like it.” Susan held her smile, though her face felt brittle.
“That’s the truth. If you don’t mind, Doc....” “I don’t mind at all. Any trouble, and I’ll holler. You’ll just be a couple of doors down the hall, anyway.” He tipped his hat. “I’ll be back in a few, then.” She watched him turn the corner on the U-shaped floor and disappear. Then she slipped into the cubicle. Out of habit, she pulled the privacy curtain out and across the foot of the bed, though the cables from the many monitors warped and dragged at the fabric.
Ibie Walker’s mahogany color had grayed a bit. The veins on his left arm looked like they’d collapsed on themselves. A telltale bandage revealed the former position of the IV which was now in the right arm, something not normally done on a right-handed person. It was either there, or on the neck, if the veins in the left arm had given out. But, all in all, the councilman looked as though he was resting in peaceful sleep. Susan checked the monitors, confirming what she had read on the clipboard.
The bastard was a tough old rooster. He was going to make it. The doctors earlier that day had determined there was loss of speech and some mild paralysis, but he was expected to recover from both with time. He was scheduled to go to her lab for biofeedback speech therapy, something relatively new in the field. Though she was technically psychiatric, her computer equipment was the most sophisticated in the hospital, and physical therapy often came up to use her facility when called for. Headgear placed on the face about the cheekbone, temple, and jaw translated the minimal muscle movement of the face, fed the movement into a computer and sound bites resulted. It would never replace speech, and, Susan reflected, the remarkable voice which had come out of Ibie Walker with all its witticisms and idiosyncrasies. But it would enable those partially paralyzed to make their needs known, and accomplish a little beyond that. It was a process which needed to be learned, much as an amputee learns to work with a prosthesis, tightening and loosening muscles to operate some of the artificial limb function.
The diagnosis that had seen Ibie ordered to have computer therapy brought him right into her lap. She needn’t even be standing here, now, jeopardizing all that she’d worked for. Still ... she put her hand into her jacket pocket and then reached toward the oxygen flow monitor. A slight adjustment would ensure the slowness of Ibie’s recovery. There might be a chance of minimal brain damage, but that did not matter. She needed time to work with him.
Her fing
ers grasped the dial, preparing to cut back the oxygen by at least half, when the cubicle door opened. Susan froze. She could not see who entered, except for battered white joggers beyond the privacy curtain. Whoever it was had come in for the other patient.
Susan dropped her hand from the dial and withdrew it from her jacket. She grasped Ibie Walker’s bony shoulder and squeezed it slightly. “You’re doing fine,” she said softly. “Tomorrow I’ll be working with you.”
She reached for the curtain to draw it back and did not see his eyelids dart open for a fearful moment, then shut again.
The curtain came back with a rattling of the hooks which held it upon the rod. Unveiled, the visitor recoiled.
Susan Craig looked intently at the young woman in the nurse’s uniform, instinctively sensing that something was wrong, and then the woman’s face appeared out of the dim illumination of the unit. Bruises had streaked through her makeup, confirming Susan’s reaction.
“What are you doing here?”
“I had to see him.” McKenzie took a cautious step backward, toward the exit of the care unit.
Susan folded her arms loosely across her chest. “I take it you haven’t been discharged.”
“You don’t have to say anything to anybody.”
Susan felt a muscle in her jaw twitch slightly. She’d probably already lost Hotchkiss. She had no intention of suffering any more setbacks. “That’s right, I don’t.” She gauged the distance from Walker’s bedside to where the young woman stood. “But I don’t think walking out would be in your best interests. The police, for one, will be less likely to believe any story you tell them.”
“They don’t believe me now.”
“Then you need to convince them.”
A dry laugh. “They’re not listening.”
Susan shrugged. “They weren’t listening this morning, either. Why didn’t you bolt then?”
“He’s out there. Now he’s in here.”
The note of desperation in her voice piqued Susan’s interest higher. “Your ex-husband? He’s still in the hospital?”
“He’s been calling.”
Susan made a quick decision. “You need protection until the police can substantiate what’s happening. You can’t go out like that. You look ... all wrong. The guards will pick you up. Listen. You’re due to check into my ward tomorrow morning, but I can put you in tonight. We have a guard at the door, sign in and out ... he won’t be able to get through.”
A wary look shone in the young woman’s eyes. She stood, her chin up, as skittish as a wild pony.
Susan held out her hand. “You’re going to have to trust somebody sooner or later.”
“I won’t be isolated.”
“Isolated?”
“If Joyce wants to see me, or Carter, they can?”
Susan put on her best smile. “Of course they can, within our visiting limits, which are pretty liberal. And once I’m done testing, we’ll have a fairly good idea of your overall health.” She inched forward. If she talked long enough, the returning guard would handle the problem for both of them.
McKenzie shook her head tentatively. Susan knew that look. She put as much warmth into her smile as she could muster.
“I’m here to help you. We all face the same worries, no one wants to have their insides opened up and looked at, but we don’t work that way. Did you ever have one of those gifts as a child, called a surprise ball? It looks like a big ball of yarn, wrapped with streamers, and when you unwrap it, layer by layer, little surprises and toys fall out?”
The young woman stood with a flicker of memory on her face; then, with a shy smile, she gave a slight nod.
“It’s just like that,” Susan told her. “We don’t know what surprises are in there any more than you do. We give you the support to start unwrapping your life, and we help you deal with what comes out, good or bad. We aren’t witch doctors and we’re not psychics, and we don’t enjoy stirring around in the stew of your mind. We do get satisfaction out of helping. That’s all.” Her hand wavered in the air. She had closed the distance between them. Suddenly, it became very important to Susan to complete the contact between them before the guard came back.
McKenzie teetered.
“There is a guard,” the doctor said. “He’s on break, but he’s due back any minute. It would be well if you made up your mind before then.”
“Don’t let Jack find me.” McKenzie surrendered, collapsing into her arms.
Susan embraced her awkwardly. She smoothed back a strand of hair from Mac’s forehead. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
Chapter 20
Jack got tired of trying the phone. He bought himself a cheese roll and a cup of coffee in the hospital cafeteria and sat in the corner, half-listening to a group of people wail over some dying old lady. The commotion amused him at first, then annoyed him, and he pushed himself away from the table after wadding up what was left of the sweet roll and throwing it into the ashtray. What the hell did they think happened in a hospital, anyway?
He strolled down the back corridors, where plastisheets flapped instead of walls, and took the stairs. The fire door clanged loudly when he entered the ward, but no one looked up or seemed to hear. The only bright spot of light was the nurses’ station in the center of the hallways, but only one woman was there, and she sat, rocked back in her chair, feet propped on the counter, reading a book. Her head nodded in time to the music from her earphones. A head-banging nurse.
Jack boldly pushed open the door to Mac’s room and then narrowed his eyes in the dusk light. It only took him a heartbeat or two to see that the room was empty, the mattress stripped of sheets and blankets. The phone receiver had been set back into its niche in the railing console, but no one had noticed that the cord was unplugged. He trailed his fingers over it, wondering where she’d gone now.
He’d been wasting his time. He didn’t like wasting his time. No, sir. Not when he had so much to do.
Rolling his bottom lip between his teeth, he backed out of the room. He made his way to the elevator, then halted when he saw the nurses’ station was now empty. A red light blinked on the control panel, and the earphones had been thrown hastily next to it.
The edge of Jack’s mouth quirked. He strolled up to the chart rack and looked for “Smith, M” and did not see it. Then he saw the aluminum file lying tossed on the counter under a sweater, its end peeking out. Someone had put a Post It note on it. The scrawled message read: Transferred to Psychiatric, 11:19 *sp.m.*n
Jack heard a soft footstep and turned away. Scratching his chin thoughtfully, he continued to his original destination of the elevator. So Mac had gotten herself into the loony bin. He grinned. Had he pushed, or had she jumped?
He’d find out in the morning how to deal with the psych ward. He wasn’t done with her yet, not by a long shot. When he was done with her, she’d wear her knees to bloody scraps crawling after him, begging him to take her back. Telling him she’d been all wrong, and that she knew nobody loved her more than he did. Nobody. He pushed through the doors. “Sweet dreams, babe.”
Dudley found himself sweating profusely in the car. It dribbled down his flanks from his armpits, making his shirt stick uncomfortably. He’d started perspiring once out of the mountains and past San Bernardino, less than an hour from home. It poured down his forehead, making it hard to see. He had the air-conditioning jacked all the way up, until the tip of his nose felt numb from the chill, but he kept blinking the sweat out of his eyes as it cascaded down his forehead and pooled in the palms of his hands. Finally, he pulled off the freeway and just sat, wiping his hands and face on his handkerchief, over and over again.
As he looked out the windshield, it was as though he looked through two pairs of eyes. One, bloodshot and tired from driving, and the other, night-sight keen and relentless, searching, stalking....
Dudley wiped his brow again, hand shaking. He licked his lip, as heavily salted as a pretzel, and took a deep breath.
Not here.
Not now.
He knew what he needed, what he wanted, and that Susan would never allow it. He would jeopardize all they’d worked for, all the children, funding for the future, helping all the neglected, channeling precious resources too often abandoned or beaten or molested by the uncaring present. He could never bear the burden of her displeasure.
Yet.... It stirred in him, the sleeping man did, and brought things up, as a restless rogue tide did from an ocean floor, things thought buried and drowned in the sandy bed. Things that no one wanted exposed to the sunlight. The sun burned. Burned fiercely.
He found himself looking at a 1960’s housing tract, wood-shingled roofs, mailboxes sitting at the curb, the stucco sides painted in bland colors, one a pleasant bluish hue that cooled his fever as he watched it in the dark out the passenger side window of the car. Just looking at it gave him peace, like laying a cold compress over a fever blister, calmed the racing beat of his heart and pulse, soothed his throbbing temples. He imagined for a moment the family who might live there, though the lights were all off except one, and from its shape and angle he knew it was the bathroom light. He knew. Someone could be slipping out of panties and bra even as he watched, speculating, stepping out of lacy lingerie and stretching, sinuous body, silken skin, hair lying across a bare back like a flame ...
Death Watch Page 22