Live to Tell (29 page)

“Our nurse manager, Karen, will help, too. She should be here in”—Danielle glanced at her watch—“another twenty minutes or so.”

D.D. nodded. “Tell you what. You’re the pros. So, Danielle, how about you partner with me. Gym Coach … er—”

“Greg,” he supplied.

“Greg, you’re with Neil. Phil and Alex can be team number three. We can alert one another the second we find the girl. Any other advice?”

“Think like a cat,” Danielle said. “Lucy’s drawn to quiet places with natural light. Sunbeams, moonbeams, that sort of thing. Or she may curl up someplace cozy instead: inside a cabinet, under a desk. Like a cat.”

D.D. and Danielle would start with the psych ward, the top floor of the hospital. Greg and Neil would cover the seventh floor, while Alex and Phil would take level six.

D.D. secured in a locker the records Phil had photocopied. Then she and Danielle hit the unit.

The nurse led D.D. down the hallway, where a huge window overlooked a dazzling city nightscape. They passed half a dozen kids tossing and turning restlessly on mats, with a lone staff member keeping watch. Danielle greeted the MC by name. Ed informed her that another MC, Cecille, was tending Aimee, while Tyrone had Jorge in the TV room.

D.D. got the impression that the unit remained a busy place, even though it was now nearly three in the morning.

At the end of the hallway, Danielle paused, gesturing to the first pair of dorm rooms. Danielle took the one to the right, D.D. the one to the left, and they blitzed their way down the corridor. From what D.D. could tell, each room was identical to the last, with the exception of one that contained only a bare mattress. Apparently, that room belonged to the missing child, who had a tendency to turn furniture into weapons.

They finished checking the sleeping quarters, then the bathrooms, the locked kitchenette, and the locked Admin area. D.D. looked under every desk, even found herself pulling out the paper tray for the copier.

“Think like a cat,” she muttered to herself. “Think like a cat.”

D.D.’d never had a cat. Hell, she didn’t trust herself with a goldfish. They made it through the Admin area, the common room, the classrooms, and the waiting room. From there, she and Danielle discussed more creative possibilities—accessing ductwork, climbing up into ceiling tiles, exiting through a window.

The windows didn’t open, the nine-foot ceiling was too high for a child to reach, and the vents weren’t big enough for crawling.

D.D. contacted Neil. He and Greg had finished the seventh floor and moved to the fifth. Phil confirmed he and Alex were still searching the sixth level, so D.D. and Danielle took the elevators to the fourth floor and resumed their hunt.

The nurse’s movements were jerkier now, her face paler. The woman was definitely worried about the missing girl, and doing her best to hide it.

“So what happens to a kid like Lucy?” D.D. asked presently as they made their way to the nurses’ station. Only two nurses were on duty this time of night, and neither had seen a stray child. They promised to keep an eye out, tending to their own duties as D.D. and Danielle started searching each patient room.

“You said she’s primal,” D.D. continued. “What does that mean? You give her enough meds, stick her in enough therapy, she transforms from wild cougar to tame pussycat?”

“Not exactly.” Danielle stuck her head into the medical supplies room. No nine-year-old child magically hiding here. They moved on, footsteps faster now, seeking the next target.

“Lucy’s missed most of the key developmental stages,” Danielle explained. “It’s improbable for a nine-year-old to make up that kind of ground. We once worked with a primal child who was three. If he was hungry, he trashed the refrigerator. If he was thirsty, he drank out of the toilet. If he had to go potty, he found a corner. It took a year of intensive training to get him to recognize his own name, and another year for him to come when he was called. That was at three. Lucy’s nine. These developmental stages aren’t hurdles anymore, they’re mountains, and there are dozens of them she needs to climb.”

“So she’ll stay with you guys until she figures them out?” D.D. asked. They ventured into a darkened room where a heavyset man sprouting half a dozen wires and tubes snored in the middle of the bed. They worked by the glow of the monitor lights, peering under the bed, behind the chair, inside the shower.

Danielle shook her head. “We’re acute care, remember? Lucy will require lifelong assistance. Only place that can handle her is a hospital run by the Shriners. They do unbelievable work and have the waiting list to prove it.”

D.D. felt uncomfortable. She was better with felonious adults than broken children, though she supposed one became the other. They exited the snoring man’s room, hit the next one. Danielle took the chair, while D.D. peered under the bed.

“Do all primal kids escape?” D.D. asked. “Is it like … the call of the wild?”

“Oh, they’re wilder, touch of Tarzan, yada yada. Still, never had a kid escape once, let alone twice.”

“What set Lucy off?”

“Don’t know. We haven’t had time yet to get a sense of how she experiences the world.”

They exited the patient room, hit a unisex bath.

“‘A sense of how she experiences the world’?” D.D. repeated.

“That’s what it’s about,” Danielle replied. She paused in the middle
of the hallway, finally looking D.D. in the eye. “Our jobs are the same. You think like a criminal in order to capture the criminal. I think like a nine-year-old primal child in order to reach the primal child. It’s why the parents break. They’re not trained to think like an autistic child or schizophrenic child, or an ADHD child. They don’t realize Timmy is refusing to put on his coat, not because he’s a little shit, but because the sound of the zipper makes his ears bleed. Loving a child isn’t the same as understanding a child. And take it from a pediatric psych nurse, love is
not
all you really need.”

“Grim,” D.D. said.

“If I heal them now, you won’t have to arrest them later.”

“Not so grim,” D.D. concurred. “Now, where the fuck is Lucy?”

“Agreed,” Danielle said tiredly. “Where the fuck is Lucy?”

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird won’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring
.

“You will do as I say.”

And if that diamond ring turns brass, Mama’s gonna buy you a looking glass. And if that looking glass gets broke, Mama’s gonna buy you a billy goat
.

“Take the rope.”

And if that billy goat won’t pull, Mama’s gonna buy you a cart and bull. And if that cart and bull turn over, Mama’s gonna buy you a dog named Rover
.

“Climb onto the chair.”

And if that dog named Rover won’t bark, Mama’s gonna buy you a horse and cart. And if that horse and cart fall down, you’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town
.

“Now show me how you can fly.”

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Hush, hush, hush …

D.D.’s cell rang. She checked the number, flipped it open. “What’s up?”

“We got a sighting,” Phil said tersely. “Girl was heading toward radiology. Apparently with a rope.”

“With a rope?”

“A rope.”

D.D. didn’t like the sound of that. To judge by the stricken look on Danielle’s face, neither did she. “Radiology,” D.D. confirmed. “We’re on our way.”

She flipped the phone shut, then she and Danielle rushed down the hall. “Elevators are too slow,” Danielle said. “Stairwell. This way.”

The nurse shouldered through the door and they clattered down the steps,
rat-a-tat-tat-tat
. D.D. stayed on Danielle’s heels as the nurse rounded the landings. She muscled through the exit door once again, then they bolted down a dimly lit hall.

This part of Kirkland Medical Center appeared quiet. Empty chairs, vacant receptionist desks. Three in the morning. Appointments done, just the odd job here and there for the ER docs. Lots of long, empty corridors for a child to wander at will.

They broke into what appeared to be a waiting area. D.D. glanced around, seeing half a dozen closed doors and little else. She heard running footsteps, then Alex and Phil burst in the area.

“Which way? Where?” D.D. asked. She was on the balls of her feet, ready for action.

“Think like a cat, think like a cat,” Danielle was muttering. “The imaging rooms! They’re small and dark, and sometimes still warm from the machines.” She pointed to a handful of doors, each bearing a number. “Go.”

D.D. grabbed the doorknob closest to herself as the others did the same. The first was locked; she went to the second. It opened and she dashed inside, to discover a dark cocoon. She flashed on the light, saw it was really two rooms. One with a table, and a smaller, glass-windowed chamber where no doubt a technician stood to man the imaging equipment. She checked both spaces. Nothing. She reappeared in the waiting area. Phil was exiting a room. Alex, too, then Danielle. Each was shaking his or her head.

More footsteps. Greg and Neil pounding down the corridor toward them.

“Other rooms?” D.D. asked Danielle.

“Sure,” the nurse said blankly. “It’s a whole level of rooms. I mean, janitorial closets, receptionist areas, offices. There are rooms and rooms and rooms.”

“All right. This is central station.” D.D. pointed where they stood. “We work from this area out, likes spokes on a wheel. Everyone, grab a room.”

They moved urgently now. The rooms were small, easily cleared. It took twelve minutes, then they returned to central station, eyeing one another nervously. The floor was quiet, just the distant twitches and hums of a large building that grumbled in its sleep.

Phil spoke up first. “Now what? I swear, we spoke to a janitor who saw her walking down this corridor. She had to be going somewhere.”

D.D. puzzled over that, chewing her bottom lip. This floor felt right. Dark, secluded, lots of little spaces. If you were going to hide in a hospital, this was the place to be.

And then …

She turned slowly, regarding the first room she had tried. The only locked door on an entire floor of unlocked rooms. And suddenly, just like that, she knew.

“Danielle,” she said quietly. “We’re going to need that key.”

The janitor supplied the master key. D.D. did the honors, already gloved, careful not to touch anything more than she had to.

The heavy wooden door swung open. She stepped in slowly, snapped on the light.

The girl’s body hung from the middle of the ceiling, rope secured to a hook, wheeled desk chair cast aside. The green surgical scrub shirt shrouded her skinny frame, and her body swayed lightly, as if teased in the wind.

“Get her down, get her down” came Danielle’s voice, urgent behind her. “Code, code, code! Dammit, Greg, call it in!”

But Greg wasn’t moving. It was obvious to him, as to D.D., that the time for medical attention had come and gone. To be certain, D.D.
took one step forward, wrapped her hand around the girl’s ankle. Lucy’s skin was cool to the touch, no pulse beating feebly at the base of the foot.