Hand of Fate (6 page)

Mrs. Lofland's eyes opened. "A part of me is always praying. But yes. I'm praying for the people out there. And for you."

"But I think you and I are safe," Nic said.

"That doesn't mean you can't use a prayer?' Mrs. Lofland's smile held a hint of mischief. Then she closed her eyes again.

Twenty minutes later, Nic was just picking up a doughnut when Leif's blue eyes appeared in the window of the conference room door.

Calling his name, she jumped to her feet. He tried to open the door, but only managed an inch before it caught. Mrs. Lofland scooted her chair forward, leaned down, and pulled out Nic's rolled-up jacket.

"Is it safe?" Nic asked, feeling her heart beat in her throat. He wasn't wearing a mask.

For an answer, Leif pulled Nic into his strong arms.

Chapter
9

Northwest Portland

Forty blocks. That's how far it was to Good Samaritan Medical Center, yet it was still the closest hospital. But Allison would walk all day if she had to. She would walk until her feet fell off. Dear God, she prayed, protect these two precious innocents. And everyone else caught in this nightmare.

At first she half ran, half walked, the child wailing and clutching her coat collar. Every block or two, Allison made herself stop and turn in a circle, her eyes looking for anyone searching for a lost child. She saw dozens of panicked people, but no one who seemed to belong to the little girl clinging to her. She spared a thought for Nicole and the juror. Loving God, watch over us . . . words that were part of the grace she and her husband Marshall said every evening and that she had never meant more than now.

Allison's breath was coming in gasps, forcing her to slow to a fast walk. For a moment, she pressed one hand against her belly, checking in with that little hum she had been feeling for several weeks, the hum of connection. Still there. She shifted the little girl from one hip to the other. The child was finally quiet now, her face wet with tears. Her black hair fell to her shoulders, and in her ears were tiny sparkling stones. Her dark-green coat was a little too big for her, the sleeve edges frayed.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" Allison tried.

The girl's dark eyes stared into hers, but she didn't make a sound. Was she in shock? Or something worse?

"My name's Allison. What's yours?"

She still looked blank. What was the Spanish word for name? Something like yah-ma?

"Yah-ma Allison," Allison ventured, pointing at her chest, still moving along as fast as she could. She had managed to put ten blocks between them and what was happening. At least here most people were on their feet. "Yah-ma Allison," she repeated, then turned her finger to point at the girl and raised her eyebrows. "Yah-ma?"

"Estella," the girl answered. At least it sounded like that. She patted her own chest.

"Okay," Allison said. "Estella." Her mood lightened a little. If only she could ask Estella where her mother and father were. If only the girl were old enough to reel off a phone number or an address. Or at least say if she felt sick.

When she came to the freeway overpass, Allison's mouth fell open. Interstate 5 in both directions was bumper-to-bumper as far as the eye could see. A person could have walked down the river of cars and never touched the ground. And they weren't moving at all. Ambulances, cops, and the desperate were using the shoulders, but there were already places where these were choked off too.

By the time they were a half mile from the hospital, Allison was overwhelmingly thankful that she had worn flats. One of Estella's small feet rested just where the bulge of her pregnancy was beginning to show. The weight had been nothing when she had begun her mad dash from downtown. Now her hip and shoulder ached with each step. The girl's head drooped against Allison's shoulder. Either she was used to strangers, or she was tired, or--and Allison didn't want to think too much about this--she was getting sick and no longer had the energ
y t
o fuss. They were in Northwest Portland now, an older part of town where the roads were notoriously narrow. Today they were gridlocked, filled with cars whose panicked drivers were convinced they had only a few minutes before they would die. Ambulance drivers cycled through various siren tones and even squawked out orders on their speakers, but there was no place for people to go.

One ambulance simply took to the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians before it. It didn't seem like the sidewalk would be wide enough, but the ambulance scraped between the building and the parking meters with less than an inch on either side, and then forced its way back into traffic a block later.

By the time Allison reached the hospital, it had been more than an hour since the alarms had interrupted the trial. Thinking about the Bratz Bandits seemed absurd and unreal. Reality was slogging forward with a child like a deadweight on her hip. Reality was looking at the frightened faces around her and wondering if any of them would make it.

Allison had expected the emergency room to be crowded, but what she saw shocked her. Dozens of people stood, sat, or lay in the parking lot and next to the sidewalk. A lucky few were on gurneys. Some children or small adults were even doubled up. The rest sat or lay on their coats or right on the blacktop. Some coughed and moaned; others were silent or talked quietly. One well-dressed woman who leaned against a brick planter called, "Nurse! Nurse!" over and over, but didn't seem to be suffering.

Among them moved a dozen people in scrubs and street clothes, taking pulses, blood pressures, and temperatures. The faces of the doctors and nurses were calm and determined, and just looking at them made Allison feel a little better. They moved quickly, but they didn't appear panicked. And although most wore latex gloves, they didn'
t s
eem to be worried about contamination. Here there were no face masks, no moon suits.

And then Allison caught sight of a familiar face--Dr. Sally Murdoch, a pediatrician she occasionally consulted about crimes she was prosecuting. Sally wore an open black leather jacket over green scrubs.

Allison waited until Sally straightened up from talking to a middle-aged woman and then said, "Sally, this child and I were both--"

A hand yanked her back. "Wait your turn!" growled a man in a business suit.

On any other day, she thought, he would have held a door for her, graciously waited for her to get off the elevator, offered her a nod and a smile as they passed on the sidewalk. But this was not any other day.

Allison realized that a half-dozen people were waiting in a ragtag line for Sally. She had the baby to think of, and Estella, but she didn't think even that argument would hold any sway. Sally gave her a sort of smile and a shrug, and Allison joined the end of the line.

Sally spoke to each person in turn, her words a soft murmur, putting a stethoscope to their chests, looking at their eyes and throats, laying a consoling hand on their arms. The businessmen took whatever news she delivered stoically, but the woman ahead of Allison burst into ragged tears. Allison's heart lurched. She didn't want to imagine what the message had been.

When it was Allison's turn, Sally said, "Who's this?"

"Estella. I think. I found her downtown, crying. I don't think she speaks English. And Sally, you need to know that we were only a block from whatever happened. So we were exposed. Can you help us?" She hesitated, and then said in a rush, "And you should know that I'm--I'm pregnant."

Sally shot Allison a quick glance, then murmured, "Hey, baby girl."

She gently touched Estella's knee before she slipped her stethoscope inside the girl's coat. Estella's arms tightened around Allison's neck.

Sally listened intently, and then shook her head. It had to be bad news. Allison felt like her heart would crack.

But then Sally said, "This child is fine. And just from looking at you, I can tell you're fine too. Just like all these people here are fine, except for the ones who got hit by a car trying to run across a street or who ended up with a heart attack from the stress. But everyone else is fine."

"Fine?"

"Fine," Sally said definitely.

"How can you say that?" Allison protested. "I was downtown. I saw it. People were falling to the pavement all around us, gagging and coughing. And we were right there. We were breathing in whatever they did."

An old man tugged Sally's sleeve. "Please, miss, please, I was downtown. You've got to help me."

Sally turned and pointed at the line. Allison now saw how tired she was.

"Go wait over there with those people. I'll be with you soon." She turned back to Allison. "We've run dozens of blood tests, and they've all come back negative. This has overwhelmed all the hospitals, not just Good Sam. And they're all reporting the same thing--nothing."

"What?" Allison took a step back, startling Estella, who began to cry. "That can't be right. I was there. What are you saying--that all these people made it up?"

"Not at all." Sally sighed. "People were already on high alert because of the terrorist attack last month. You give folks clues like fire alarms and ambulances and emergency crews giving people oxygen right in front of them, and you throw them into a state of hypervigilance. It's the power of suggestion. The same thing happened in
Tennessee a few years back. A teacher thought she smelled gasoline. She got dizzy, short of breath, and nauseated. They evacuated the classroom and eventually the whole school. The more ambulances they sent, the more they had to send. More than a hundred people ended up in the emergency room, and dozens were admitted."

"And?" Allison prompted.

Sally shrugged. "They tested and tested--but nothing. Most people who got sick said they smelled something, but they all reported something different--it was bitter; it was sweet; it smelled like something burning. Same thing happened today. People saw the hazmat team, heard there had been some kind of chemical spill, decided this was another sarin gas attack, and began to monitor themselves for symptoms. The air downtown doesn't smell or taste that good anyway, especially not when you add hundreds of idling cars when everyone tried to follow the mayor's order to evacuate. It's called mass hysteria. Otherwise healthy people convince themselves something is wrong."

Allison was still having trouble believing it. "But I was there, Sally. I was there. Something awful happened."

"Something awful did happen--it just didn't affect that many people. The hazmat people tell us there was a small release of some kind of gas at KNWS. Small and contained. One fatality. They're treating a couple of other people who were on scene, but only as a precaution!'

KNWS. That rang a bell. "Who was the fatality?"

"They said Jim Fate."

"Jim Fate?" His name sparked the last bit of adrenaline Allison had left. "I was going to meet with him tomorrow. He'd been getting some kind of threats."

Sally raised her eyebrows. "They must have been more than threats. I'm hearing we were lucky that, for whatever reason, he chose to stay i
n h
is studio, and it was nearly airtight. It kept this scene"--she swept her arm out to the hundreds of people--"from being a real disaster."

Allison looked closer at the would-be patients. Sally was right. No one seemed in dire straits. "Why do you have all these people in the parking lot--why aren't they inside?"

"It started when we thought they really were contaminated. We couldn't risk it spreading to the entire hospital. Now they're out here simply because we don't have room for them in there. And a lot of them won't go away--they don't believe us when we tell them they're okay. But not one of the people we're seeing has reddened eyes, irritated mucous membranes, or labored breathing. If this had been a real poison gas attack, we would have seen that, at a minimum. And we would be in a world of hurt. We don't have enough protective gear--chemical goggles, face shields, and respirators--even for our staff. We don't have enough nerve antidote kits for all these people. We don't have enough anything. Nobody does."

"If it had been real, what would you have done?" Allison asked, shifting Estella's weight. Her panic was slowly ebbing.

"Triage," Sally said bluntly. "You simply don't treat the weakest and the sickest, the ones who will probably die. You concentrate on the ones you can save, and you say a prayer for the rest."

Chapter
10

Good Samaritan Medical Center

Allison had taken a child. She had taken a child. At the time, she had thought she was saving Estella's life. But now that she knew there had been no danger, she felt sick when she thought of Estella's family. Somewhere in the chaos, they must be frantically searching for their missing girl.

"What do you think I should do, Sally?" she asked her friend. "This child's poor family must be going crazy trying to find her. Should I try to take her back downtown?"

Sally blew air through pursed lips. "You can't go back there. They're still clearing the area, just to be safe. Even if you did manage to get back downtown, chances are whoever was with her has been moved--either forced to evacuate or taken to a hospital. You might walk her around the parking lot, see if there's anyone she recognizes. But if not, I'd take her home and call Child Protective Services. I'll make a note that you have her in case anyone asks for her. What did you say her name was again?"