Life Support (34 page)

Off to her left, through a soft drizzle, a silhouette appeared. It was Dvorak. He halted beneath a streetlamp, glancing left, then right.

She jogged up the sidewalk to join him. "Where did he go?"

"I caught a glimpse of him in the stairwell. Lost him right after he left the building."

"You're sure he did leave the building?"

"Yes. He's got to be around here somewhere." Dvorak started across the street, toward the hospital power plant.

The squeal of tires made them both swing around.

The van came straight at them, barreling out of the darkness.

Toby froze.

It was Dvorak who shoved her sideways, who sent her tumbling, scraping across blacktop.

The van roared past, taillights fading away down Albany Street.

As she struggled back to her feet, she found Dvorak already reaching for her arm, steadying her as he helped her back to the sidewalk. The impact of her fall was just beginning to register as pain, first as a vague throbbing in her knees, then the sting of nerve endings scraped raw. They stood beneath the streetlight, both of them too shaken at first to speak.

Dvorak said, "I'm sorry I shoved you so hard. Are you all right?"

"Just a little banged up." She glanced up the street, in the direction the vehicle had just vanished. "Did you get the license number?"

"No. I didn't get a look at the driver, either. It all happened so fast�I was trying to getyou out of the way."

They both turned as an ambulance pulled up to the ER loading dock, lights flashing. Somewhere in the distance, the wall of a second ambulance was drawing closer.

"It's going to be chaos in that ER," said Dvorak. "I've got a first aid kit in my office. Let's go there and clean up your knees."

With Dvorak holding her by the arm, she limped across the street, the pain worsening with every step. By the time they'd made it upstairs to his office, she was dreading the first dab of antiseptic.

He moved aside his papers and sat her down on the desk, next to the photo of his fisherman son. The smell of rubbing alcohol and iodine rose up from the open first aid kit. Crouching in front of her, he moistened a cotton ball with peroxide and gently dabbed the abrasion.

She gave a start of pain.

"Sorry," he said, glancing up. "There's no way to do this without hurting you."

"I'm such a wimp," she muttered, clutching the edge of the desk. "Go ahead, just do it."

He continued dabbing her knees, one hand resting on her thigh, the other gently cleaning off dirt and gravel. As he worked, she focused on his head, bent in concentration, his dark hair close enough to ruffle with her hands. His breath felt warm against her skin. At last I have him alone, she thought. No crises, no distractions. This may be my only chance to make him listen. To make him believe me.

She said, "You think I hurt my mother, don't you? That's why you won't talk to me. Why you've avoided my calls."

He said nothing, just reached for another ball of cotton.

"I'm being set up, Dan. They're using my mother to get back at me. And you're helping them, without even listening to my side."

"I've been listening to you, Toby." He'd finished cleaning her abrasions. Now he took out a roll of adhesive tape and began tearing off strips of it, taping squares of gauze on her knees.

"Then why won't you tell me if you believe me?"

"What I think you should do," he said, "is talk to your attorney. Lay it all out, everything you know. And let him discuss it with Alpren."

"I don't trust Alpren."

"And you think you can trust me?" He looked up at her.

"I don't know!" She exhaled, her shoulders drooping forward as she realized it was hopeless, trying to make him care. "I did talk to Alpren, this afternoon," she said. "I told him what I told you. That Brant Hill's getting back at me. They're trying to ruin me."

"Why would they bother?"

"Somehow I've scared them. I've done something, said something to make them feel threatened."

"You have to stop blaming Brant Hill as the source of all your problems."

"But now I have proof."

He shook his head. "Toby, I want to believe you. But I don't see how your mother's condition is connected to Brant Hill."

"Listen to me. Please."

He snapped the first aid kit shut. "All right. All right, I'm listening."

"The woman I hired to take care of my mother isn't who she says she is.

ltoday I spoke to someone who worked with Jane Nolan years ago�the realJane Nolan."

"As opposed to what?"

"The fake one. The one I hired. They're completely different people.

I'll get Vickie to back me up."

He remained silent, closed off, his gaze focused stubbornly on the first aid kit.

"I saw a photograph, Dan. The real Jane was about a hundred pounds overweight. That's not the woman I hired."

"Then she's lost weight. Isn't that possible?"

"There's more. Two years ago, the real Jane worked for a nursing home run by the Orcutt Health chain. I just learned that Orcutt is part of an umbrella corporation�owned by Brant Hill. If Jane was Brant Hill's employee, then they had her resume in their files. They'd know she left Massachusetts. It'd be easy for them to slip another woman into my house under Jane's name. With Jane's credentials. If I hadn't seen that photograph, I never would have guessed the truth."

He said nothing, but his gaze had lifted to hers now. At last he's listening to me. At last he's considering my side of it.

"Have you told all this to Alpren?" he asked.

"Yes. I told him that all he had to do was talk to the real Jane Nolan.

The problem is, no one knows where she's living or what her married name is. I've tried to track her down, but I can't even find out if she's still in the country. Obviously Brant Hill chose someone they knew would be hard to find. If she's even still alive."

"Social Security records?"

"I suggested that to Alpren. But if Jane's not currently employed, it could take weeks to track her down. I'm not sure Alpren wants to put out the effort. Since he doesn't believe me in the first place."

Dvorak rose to his feet. He stood looking at her for a moment, as though seeing her, really seeing her, for the first time. He nodded.

"For what it's worth, I'll talk to him."

"Thank you, Dan." She gave a sigh, the tension leaving her body in one exhilarating rush. "Thank you."

He held out his hand to help her off the desk. She grasped his arm and allowed him to steady her as she rose to her feet. Still holding on to him she looked up and met his gaze.

That's all it took, that meeting of gazes. She felt his other hand come up to touch her face, his fingers slowly gliding down her cheek. And she saw, in his eyes, the same longing she felt.

The first kiss was too brief, merely a brushing of each other's lips.

A timid first meeting. His arm wrapped around behind her back, drawing her closer. She gave a murmur of pleasure as their lips met again, and then again. She swayed backward, and her hips bumped against the desk.

He kept kissing her, matching her whimpers with murmurs of his own. She tipped backward, falling onto the desk, pulling him down with her.

Papers scattered everywhere. He trapped her face in his hands, his mouth seeking hers in deeper exploration. She reached out to grasp his waist and instead knocked something away.

Glass shattered.

They both gave a start and looked at each other, their breathing hard and fast. Their faces flushed at the same time. He pulled away, helping her back to her feet.

The photo of Dvorak's son had landed facedown on the floor.

"Oh no," murmured Toby, looking at the broken glass. "I'm sorry, Dan."

"No problem. All it needs is a new frame." Kneeling down, he gathered up the pieces of glass and dropped them in the rubbish can. He stood up, and his face flushed again as he looked at her. "Toby, I . . . didn't expect . . ."

"I didn't, either�"

"But I'm not sorry it happened."

"You're not?"

He paused, as though reconsidering the truth of that last statement. He said again, firmly, "I'm not sorry at all."

They stared at each other for a moment.

Then she smiled and pressed her lips to his. "You know what?" she whispered. "Neither am 1."

They held hands as they walked back across Albany Street to the hospital. Toby was moving in a daze, her bruises and scrapes now forgotten, her attention focused instead on the man holding her hand. In the elevator they kissed again, were still kissing when the door slid open.

They stepped out just as a crash cart rattled by, wheeled by a panicked-looking nurse.

Now what? thought Toby.

The nurse with the cart rounded the corner and vanished into the next hallway. An announcement crackled over the public address system, "Code Blue, room three eleven . . ."

Toby and Dvorak glanced at each other in alarm.

"Isn't that Molly's room?" she asked.

"I don't remember�" He was in the lead as they chased the nurse around the corner. Toby, her knees stiff from the bandages, couldn't keep up with him. He halted outside one of the rooms and stared into the door way. "It's not Molly," he said as Toby caught up. "It's the patient next door."

Toby glanced past him and caught a glimpse of chaos.

Dr. Marx was performing CPR. A scrub-suited resident barked out orders as a nurse scuffled through the drawers of the crash cart. The patient was almost lost from view in the press of personnel, all Toby could see through the crowd was one gaunt foot, anonymous, sexless, lying exposed on the sheet.

"They don't need us," murmured Dvorak.

Toby nodded. She turned to Molly's room. Knocking softly, she opened the door.

Inside, the lights were on. The bed was empty.

Her gaze shot to the bathroom, also empty. She looked at the bed again and suddenly realized the IV pole was there, the plastic tube dangling free, the end still attached to the intravenous catheter. A small pool of dextrose and water glistened on the floor.

"Where is she?" said Dvorak.

Toby crossed to the closet and opened the door. Molly's clothes were gone.

She ran back into the hall and poked her head into Room 311, where the code was still in progress.

"Molly Picker's left the hospital!" said Toby.

The charge nurse glanced up, obviously overwhelmed. "I can't leave now!

Call Security."

Dvorak pulled Toby out of the room. "Let's check the lobby."

They ran back to the elevator.

Downstairs, they found a security guard manning the front entrance.

"We're looking for a girl," said Dvorak. "About sixteen�long brown hair, wearing a raincoat. Did you see her leave?"

"I think she walked out a few minutes ago."

"Which way did she head?"

"I don't know. She just walked out that front door. I didn't watch where she was going."

Toby stepped out the lobby entrance, and rain gusted at her face. The wet pavement stretched like a glistening ribbon.

I "It's only been a few minutes," said Dvorak. "She can't have gotten very far."

"Let's take my car," said Toby. "I've got a phone in there."

Their first swing around the block turned up no glimpse of Molly. They drove without speaking, both of them scanning the sidewalks as the windshield wipers squeaked back and forth.

On their second circle around the block, Dvorak said, "We should call the police."

"They'll scare her off. If she sees a cop, she'll run."

"She's already running."

"Are you surprised? She's afraid of that Romy guy. She was a sitting duck in the hospital."

"We could've arranged for police protection."

"She doesn't trust the police, Dan."

Toby circled the block one more time then decided to widen the search.

Slowly she drove northeast along Harrison Street. If the girl was seeking the safety of crowds, this was the direction she'd take�toward the busy streets of Chinatown.

Twenty minutes later, she finally pulled over to the curb. "This isn't working. The girl doesn't want to be found."

"I think it's time to call the police," said Dvorak.

"To arrest her?"

"You'd agree she's a danger to herself, wouldn't you?"

After a pause, Toby nodded. "With that blood pressure, she could have another seizure. A stroke."

"Enough said." Dvorak picked up the car phone.

As he made the call, Toby stared out the window and thought about the misery of trudging through that rain, icy water seeping into your shoes, trickling under your collar. She thought about her own relative comfort here in the car. Leather seats. Warm air whispering out of the heater.

Sixteen. Could I have survived the streets at sixteen?

And the girl was pregnant, with a blood pressure lethal as a time bomb.

Outside, the rain began to fall harder.

tour blocks away, in an alley behind an Indian restaurant, Molly Picker huddled inside a cardboard box. Every so often, she caught a whiff of cooking smells�strange, spicy scents she could not identify but that made her mouth water. Then the wind would shffl and she'd smell the nearby Dumpster instead and would gag on the stench of rotting food.

Her stomach veering between hunger and nausea, she hugged herself tighter. Rain had seeped into the box, and it was beginning to sag, collapsing onto her shoulders in a mantle of soggy cardboard.

The back door of the Indian restaurant opened and Molly blinked as light spilled into the alley. A man with a turban came out, lugging two trash bags, which he carried to the Dumpster. He Iffled the metal lid, tossed the trash inside, and let the lid slam back down again.

Molly sneezed.

She knew from his abrupt silence that the man had heard her.

Slowly his silhouette appeared at the box opening, the turbaned head frighteningly enormous. He stared at her and she at him.

"I'm hungry," she said.

She saw him glance toward the kitchen, then he nodded.

"You wait," he said, and went back inside.

A moment later he reemerged with a warm napkin-wrapped bundle. Inside was bread, fragrant and soft as a pillow.