Angel Interrupted (29 page)

Gonzales nodded, but reluctantly. Callie Matthews was not in good shape. Seeing her son alive on Vitek’s video files might reassure her, but it might also put her over the bend. I thought Gonzales might protest, but he didn’t. Like me, he had noticed Maggie’s expression, and it puzzled him. She looked almost shamefaced. I wondered what on earth she had to feel so guilty about.

So did Gonzales. “What is it, Gunn?” he asked.

“I apologize,” she said quietly. “About Fiona Harker. Every time I think I’m getting somewhere, I get pulled onto the Matthews case. I haven’t forgotten about her, sir. I will find out who killed her.”

Gonzales looked bemused. “Gunn,” he said, shaking his head. “The dead can wait. Let’s just find the boy. But in the meantime, I’m giving you a direct order. I want you to go home and get some rest. I’ll set the wheels in motion on everything else. I’ll need you fresh in the morning. So go home, shower, and rest.” His voice was surprisingly kind for someone whose entire existence revolved around self-interest.

His cell phone rang and he glanced at the caller ID. “Gonzales,” he said into the phone, with the tone of voice he reserves for people more important than he is. He held his hand over the receiver and mouthed four words at Maggie: “Do what I say.”

Yeah.
As if that would stop Maggie from doing what she thought she needed to do.

As soon as she left Gonzales, Maggie phoned her father. Colin had been waiting. He had his police scanner on and had followed the dispatches sent over the radio. He’d heard about the fire called in and had heard Maggie’s call for an ambulance when she had tagged the man Calvano shot as a “critical witness” priority.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is the fire related? Did they find the boy?”

Maggie told him about Vitek’s sham background and his house burning. She also explained that Tyler Matthews was still missing, his whereabouts known only by the man whose life hung in balance.

“So you can’t find the boy?” Colin said. “Not without this man’s help?” He shook his head. “I don’t think Calvano’s uncle can save him from being sacked over this one. Barring a miracle, he’s done. And that’s too bad. Many a man has made a great detective once he’s been humiliated. You just need to break him, like a stallion.”

If that was the case, I’d have made a stellar detective. God knows, I’d humiliated myself often enough.

Maggie didn’t want to think about Calvano. She had enough to worry about. “We’re going to try finding the boy some other way,” Maggie said. “We’re not waiting on this guy to pull through. He may not make it.” She outlined what she had suggested to Gonzales. “Can you think of anything else we could do?”

“Bring in the KinderWatch volunteers one by one,” her father said promptly. “Find out every scrap of information they know about Vitek and the other man. You’ll at least figure out what name he was going under. That may tell you something.”

“Yes,”
Maggie said, angry at herself. “I should have thought of that.”

“The FBI would have suggested it soon enough. But it won’t hurt to propose it first. That way, they’ll overcompensate by taking over the questioning completely—and you can get out there and look for the boy. If you had to stay inside talking to people, knowing that boy was still missing? You’d go crazy, Maggie May. Trust me on this one. You’re like poetry in motion. You need to keep moving.”

Ah, but Colin Gunn loved his little girl.

“I love you, Dad,” she told him. “I’ll fill you in later.”

“Wait,” he added. “Don’t go feeling guilty about Fiona Harker. Her turn will come. Things have a way of working out.”

Maggie hung up and was pacing the halls of the emergency room wing when Peggy Calhoun arrived. Peggy looked distressed.

“You okay?” Maggie asked.

“No, I’m not okay,” Peggy admitted. “I can smell that burned man in the emergency room. I can
smell
him, Maggie. I can only imagine what kind of agony he’s in.”

“I know,” Maggie said. “But I’m betting we’ll find he’s left hundreds of victims in his wake, all of them kids. His whole identity was fake. Does that make it any better?”

“Maybe a little. How about the other guy? Is he going to make it?” She knew finding Tyler Matthews probably depended on it.

“We have no idea. We’re hoping you can help us find out who he is. That way, even if he doesn’t make it, maybe we can at least pick up his trail. Follow me.” Maggie led her into the treatment room where Christian Fletcher was still working on the man. But fewer nurses surrounded him now, and the urgency in the room had abated.

Fletcher noticed Maggie the moment she approached. “He’s stabilized,” he told her. “I’m sending him up for surgery. And I apologize, but I just have to ask—were those your—”

“No,” Maggie said, cutting him off. “My partner’s.”

Fletcher shook his head, disapproving. “At least he missed the spine. The kid may lose a kidney, but he’s got a good shot at making it.”

“How soon can I talk to him?”

“Anyone’s guess. He’s still under right now. Surgery is going to take at least three hours.”

Maggie’s frustration was intense but she fought to keep it under control. “We need to know who he is,” she said. “For so many reasons.”

“I can’t help you there.” Fletcher pulled off his gloves and handed them to a nurse. “I can only save them. I can’t tell you who they are.”

“I know. That’s why my colleague needs to fingerprint him and take a DNA sample before you send him up.”

At her words, the three nurses hovering over the man looked up. They stared first at Maggie and then at Fletcher.

“I can’t let you do that,” Fletcher said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

“Can I talk to you alone?” Maggie asked, her voice catching slightly, as if Fletcher had touched her most vulnerable spot.

There was no way Fletcher would say no, not to Maggie, not when she was acting like she needed him and only him. He gestured her over to a corner, where they huddled together, Maggie whispering furiously. Fletcher used the excuse to stand closer than was necessary, his head bent until it nearly touched hers. His professionalism had crumbled with his proximity to Maggie, and his face was a kaleidoscope of emotion as she explained why she needed this favor.

The nurses made no bones about shamelessly trying to eavesdrop. Neither did Peggy, for that matter. She didn’t need a microscope to confirm that what she suspected was true: there was something between the two of them, whether they liked it or not. I fought my jealousy and thought of Tyler Matthews alone in the house near the old reservoir, waiting for the man to come take him to his mother. If this helped Maggie find him, so be it.

Fletcher put up a fight, citing protocol, but Maggie won in the end. Peggy could take her samples, no subpoena necessary. The well-being of Tyler Matthews overruled Fletcher’s professional qualms about allowing his patient to be DNA-typed.

The nurses stepped back wordlessly as Peggy did her job, their eyes still on Fletcher and Maggie. I knew it would be less than an hour before word was out through the entire hospital that they had something going on, whether it was true yet or not. God help Maggie’s reputation if he’d killed Fiona Harker. Her attempts at keeping distance between them wouldn’t stop the gossip.

Peggy worked quickly as she took the unconscious man’s fingerprints and a swab from the corner of his cheek. The nurses did not offer to help her, not even when she had to hold the air tube out of her way to scrape his cheek. They did not approve of Fletcher’s decision, nor did they give a crap about how attractive Maggie was. They believed in protecting the patient’s best interests, no matter what. And they did not have the benefit of knowing a little boy’s fate was at stake.

Peggy stepped back when she was done. Fletcher nodded and two of the nurses began to wheel the man’s gurney toward a back elevator.

Fletcher and Maggie shook hands, and she thanked him—rather unnecessarily, I felt. Also unnecessary was the fact that he was walking her to the exit door. This was not a cotillion. I turned away from them, determined not to torture myself, and saw a flurry of movement inside the wide steel elevator where nurses had loaded the man on the gurney while escorting him up to surgery. They were bending over him, but they didn’t look alarmed. They looked surprised. The man’s arm moved—I saw it distinctly. He reached out and touched one of the nurses. His lips moved and she bent closer, her ear nearly to his face. His hand fluttered again before he grew still. He’d said something to the nurses, I guessed, and then fallen back under, but what he’d said I did not know.

I do know that the two nurses looked up and stared straight at Maggie, their faces filled with synchronized indecision. Then they looked at each other and back again at Maggie, trying to decide what to do. But before either of them could react, the elevator doors slid shut, hiding them from view. They were on their way to the operating floor.

Whatever it was, if the man had said anything meaningful at all, it could be hours before Maggie would know. And that’s if anyone bothered to tell her at all.

As a wanderer through other people’s lives, I have come to understand that human fate is shaped by random events colliding with events that are inevitable. But whether random or inevitable, each moment in a life carries the potential to become the point on which a destiny turns. Even the smallest of events can change the path of a life, if we choose to view it as important; even the largest of catastrophes can matter not a whit, if we choose to decree it inconsequential. But there is always a wild card in the deck of destiny—and that is the ripple effect of other people’s lives on our own. We can never know when another person’s choices will change our own fate profoundly.

So it was with Maggie that night. Unable to talk to the injured man until he was out of surgery, she headed back to the parking lot, knowing she’d never be able to sleep, and determined to use the long hours ahead to help find the missing boy. But Christian Fletcher followed her out to her car, his doctor’s coat still soaked with blood.

“I’m sorry,” he said from the edge of the shadows next to Maggie’s car. He had moved as quietly through the night as me.

She whirled around, surprised to find someone behind her. I felt fear rise in her and just as quickly subside once she recognized Fletcher. A connection between them had taken root, and it was not based on fear. “Sorry for what?” she asked him.

“Everything. Meeting you when I did. Coming to you the other night like a crazy person. Not being able to help more when I know it means so much to you to find the boy.”

She stared at him, not knowing what to say.

“Please just come have a cup of coffee with me. I need to sit across from you for fifteen minutes and act like a normal person. I need to hear you talk about your life, something that has nothing to do with people dying or hurting each other.”

As he spoke, I felt the loneliness in him rise and seek out her own. I thought she would turn away, but the fire had unnerved her, and she needed the contact as much as he did. “All right,” she said. “Just a cup. And we’ll have to pretend I’m asking you about Fiona Harker. I can’t be seen with you under any other circumstances.”

“Fair enough,” Fletcher said. Something inside him stirred to life, something light-filled and breathtaking. It was a hope he had not felt in a long time.

“I was going to go home and shower,” Maggie confessed as they walked back into the hospital. “But I don’t think I want to be alone right now. I can’t stop thinking about that little boy.”

“I know,” Fletcher said, taking her arm for the moment it took them to reach the bright lights of the emergency room entrance. This time, it was something inside of Maggie that stirred at his touch, something she had not felt in a long time.