Critical Condition (5 page)

“When Jerry reopened your mom’s case, he repeated the AFIS search—the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Sent her prints from the medical examiner through the system again. Back when your mom died, not every jurisdiction entered their fingerprints into AFIS, particularly not the smaller places that didn’t have the budget. But in 2004 the government began digitalizing those smaller places, starting with the Indian reservations’ tribal police.”

“My mom lived on an Indian reservation?”

“I don’t know if she lived there, but she was arrested on one.”

“So you know? You really know who she is?”

“Yes.” Janet began typing. A set of fingerprints appeared on the computer. “Here’s the arrest record matching your mom’s fingerprints. Picked up for shoplifting on a reservation in Nevada.”

Lydia looked at the date. “She’d have been six months pregnant with me then, if the birthday she told me was anywhere near the truth.”

“Yeah, and I’m guessing she was newly on the run—probably hadn’t figured out yet how to get alternative forms of ID, so had to use her own.” She scrolled down to the demographic information. “In which case, her real name was Martha Flowers.”

“Martha Flowers.” Lydia tried it on for size. It didn’t feel any more “right” or natural than the other aliases her mother had used during their life on the run. Maria would always be Maria to her. “Are you sure?”

“I called and asked them to scan in her booking photos.” Janet clicked out of the screen and logged onto her e-mail. “Okay, here we go.”

One click and three black-and-white images filled the screen: a dark-haired teen, eyes wide, lips pursed, in full face and both profiles. The flash glistened from the girl’s cheek on the left-hand profile shot. Tears.

Lydia wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her cast to her chest, cold despite the fleece pullover and long underwear she wore beneath. She was still a California girl, trying to dress against Pittsburgh’s perpetual chill.

Janet broke the silence. “Is it her?”

Lydia tried to speak but couldn’t. All she could do was nod. She traced the image with her finger, the closest she’d been to her mother in eighteen years. She swallowed her tears. “It’s her.”

“Then it’s a start. Let me call them back, see if they’ve dug up anything else.” She dialed out from Sandy’s office phone, and after a few minutes on hold she connected with the officer she needed in Nevada. “Yeah, I know it’s New Year’s Eve. Do you think—? Sorry about the lousy connection, we’re in the middle of a big snowstorm here. So did you find out more? Tell me. She left the following day after her hearing. Okay.” Janet began scribbling notes that Lydia couldn’t read. The detective nodded her head and made a few noises of surprise. “And he ended up in the hospital? Is he still around? I’d love to interview him. Oh, I see. Thanks.”

Lydia listened without really hearing, her mind spinning back to the day her mother was murdered. She and Maria had argued. Maria had come to her school, about to go on the run again, but Lydia didn’t want to leave her friends. They’d been too late, and ended up being chased by a man Lydia had never seen before; she’d thought he was a cop, after Maria for playing her fake psychic scam, conning people.

She’d been wrong. So very wrong. The man chased them into an empty church. Maria forced Lydia to hide in the confessional and faced the man alone. Maria had struggled, but he’d beaten her to death, stopping only when interrupted by a priest and running off.

Lydia had been only twelve, but that day had changed everything for her. Not only had she lost her mother, she’d lost her one connection to her own past—she didn’t even know who her own father was, much less any other family. Maybe today was the first step to regaining that lost history.

Maybe she had a family. Maybe they were still looking for Martha and her baby, even after all these years. . . .

“What happened?” Lydia asked once Janet hung up.

“Looks like your mom was right to run. Storekeeper dropped the charges the next day and she hitched a ride out of town with a local trucker after her hearing. But that same day, a man came to the station saying he was her lawyer and demanding to see her—even though she’d never requested a lawyer and hadn’t made any phone calls.” Janet paused, eyes squinted at the cement-block wall, thinking.

She shook her head, her frown deepening. “The next day when the trucker got back into town, a gang of guys beat him to a pulp. Wanted to know everything about her—where she went, what they’d talked about. They were interrupted by the trucker’s son coming home, otherwise they probably would’ve killed him, sounds like.”

“Are you going to talk to him?” Hope flared through Lydia. Maybe Maria—Martha—had mentioned her home, who her family was.

“Can’t. He died in a traffic collision a few years later. Wouldn’t matter anyway—we already know where your mom went. What we need to know is where she came from. Why she was running.”

Reality dashed Lydia’s hopes—she’d been foolish to get so excited anyway. She knew as well as anyone that Maria had been terrified of going home. She’d been running for her—their—lives. “And who she was running from.”

GINA WAITED FOR THE ELEVATOR, FATIGUE BLURRING her vision. As a third-year emergency medicine resident, she was used to being tired, but this was something different. A weariness that crept into her blood, numbing her from the inside out. Every move, every decision—hell, every blink—left her feeling empty.

She twisted the engagement ring hanging from the chain around her neck. Jerry’s ring. Maybe her New Year’s resolution would be to finally be honest with herself, that she wasn’t good enough for him, and she should walk away forever. Lord knew, he’d be better off without her—just look where loving her had gotten him.

If there was one thing Gina could be brutally honest about, it was her own shortcomings. She couldn’t take care of Jerry. She didn’t have the strength, the patience. Hell, she couldn’t even take care of herself—wasn’t that why she’d stayed with Jerry for so long?

He’d made her feel safer than anyone else ever had. Protected. Cherished.

Even Old Jerry had been putty in Gina’s manicured hands, no match for a mind trained in the art of verbal guerrilla tactics by the famous trial lawyer, her father, Moses Freeman.

It had been oh-so-easy to persuade Jerry to race to her rescue in the past, when she was in trouble. What the hell else could she have done when the hit man took her hostage?

She had the feeling that when she finally figured it out, she’d hate the answer.

The elevator arrived and the doors opened. Gina stepped inside and immediately wished she’d taken the stairs.

Ken Rosen stood in the corner, sandwiched between a woman whose arms were filled with balloons and a man on crutches who was clutching a pack of cigarettes.

Ken, an attending in immunology and infectious disease, was dressed in his usual casual hospital uniform: jeans and a polo shirt. No lab coat, so she guessed he wasn’t seeing patients today. You never knew with Ken; he was the essence of Bohemian/Zen master/don’t-give-a-shit casual. Aside from occasionally also wearing the lab coat, she’d never seen him in anything other than jeans and a polo—except for when they’d first met and he’d been wearing running shorts and dodging bullets during a drive-by shooting.

The fight-or-flight urge raged through her, leaving a cascade of sweat streaming down the back of her neck. But Gina didn’t want to fight Ken. Didn’t want to run from him either.

She sucked in her breath. Inhaled the scent of cigarettes. God, she would kill for a cigarette. Nineteen days cold turkey—no patches, no gum. Small penance. Or punishment.

Ken broke the silence. “I’ll catch the next one.”

He pushed past her. The doors banged against his arms, but he didn’t seem to notice. His back was rigid, his shoulders tight—as knotted as his expression when he’d seen her. A wince that etched his eyes into two slits, as if merely seeing her was painful.

All because she’d chosen Jerry instead of him—seeing how that was working out, she’d think Ken would be celebrating.

Instead, his pain sucker punched her. Gina turned to face the blank rear wall of the elevator, aware that the other occupants were staring at her. She sniffed. Pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes suddenly hurting.

Hah. Well, at least she’d finally gotten some emotion out of Mr. Zen Master. . . .

Unlike Jerry, Ken had made it very clear that he wouldn’t play nursemaid to her, that he wouldn’t coddle her or solve her problems, wouldn’t make everything she screwed up right again.

He’d told her the truth about herself even when she didn’t want to hear it. And damn him, he’d been right. If she’d listened to him sooner, Jerry might never have been shot.

Gina turned to the man on crutches. “I’ll give you fifty bucks for that pack of cigarettes.”

 

 

“YOU KNOW THE ONLY REASON TILLMAN IS DOING this is so one of us will quit. Just so we have things straight,” Jim told Nora after she hung up from calling Gina. “I’m not leaving.”

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us.” Nora scanned the ER census board. Only two patients, both from an earlier traffic collision. “Are those the guys from the zoo? Why are they still here?” she asked Jason, the desk clerk.

“One’s waiting for crutch-walking instructions, and they’re both waiting for their ride.”

If her staff was going to be working a double shift, she had better start rotating them, send a few to get some rest. And she had to talk to Mark Cohen, the attending on duty and ER department head, to make sure he was on board with that. Even if things stayed slow, it was still going to be a long night. No one was going to be happy about missing their New Year’s Eve plans. Including Seth. Damn. Nora dreaded making that phone call.

Her fiancé, Seth, had also been injured during the violence that had swept the hospital almost three weeks ago and he was still off work, recuperating at their home. He’d almost died. Every night Nora woke, fighting nightmares about finding him . . . all that blood.

“Jim, can you go teach a guy how to use crutches? Do you know how to do that?”

“Tillman said we need to work together.” Jim’s petulant tone sent the message loud and clear: If he was being relegated to performing scut work, then Nora was damn well going to suffer alongside.

She wanted to get rid of him long enough to call Lydia, as well as find out where Harris had wandered off to, so she could keep an eye on him. “You get started. I’ll be right there.”

Jim stood his ground. Just then Harris appeared down the hall, accompanied by Mark Cohen. The DEA agent appeared frustrated. Good for Mark. Nora knew he’d never betray any of his people, especially not Lydia.

Jim tapped his foot and handed her the patient chart.

“All right. Let’s go,” Nora conceded. Damn Tillman. He had the worst timing.

Apparently medical school had never covered basics like how to walk with crutches, much less how to measure them or teach a patient how to go up and down steps and overcome other obstacles, so Nora had Jim read the patient education handout while she measured their patient, Mr. Olsen, for his crutches. It didn’t help that Mr. Olsen was distracted, more interested in talking with the other patient than learning how to use his crutches.

“What’s the status of the
Spheniscus
?” he asked his friend, who was nodding his head, listening to his cell phone.

“They’ve left the airport, but the roads are awful. The state police are diverting people off the interstates and have closed down the turnpike.”

“Damn weather.”

“What’s a
spheniscus
?” Jim asked, forgetting about the crutch he was supposed to be adjusting.

“
Spheniscus mendiculus
,” Mr. Olsen answered. “A very rare and valuable specimen of equatorial penguin.”

“We’re awaiting a shipment of twelve of them from Galapagos,” the other man put in, hanging up his phone. “We were supposed to pick them up at the airport, but—”

Mr. Olsen rolled his eyes. “They’d be in the habitat where they belong, acclimating to their new home right now, if you knew how to drive in snow.”

“There was ice. I couldn’t help it.”

“Now we need to rely on Zimmerman. He doesn’t appreciate how delicate they are.”

“Calm down, Henry. Zimmerman understands. He’s doing his best.”

Now Nora was intrigued. “Wait. You’re worried about penguins getting cold?”

Both men began speaking at once. “These penguins—”

“These
spheniscus
are equatorial.”

“Where it can be as warm as thirty-eight degrees Celsius.”

Oh. Nora saw how that could definitely be a problem. That was over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

“And, to make matters worse,” Mr. Olsen continued, “several of them are molting in preparation to mate. Which means they’ve also been fasting.”

“So, they’re particularly vulnerable to the elements?” Jim asked. He looked surprisingly interested—unlike his usual haughty, too-bored-to-be-bothered expression. “What kind of transport are they in? Is it climate controlled?”

The zookeeper warmed to Jim’s concern. “It would have been if someone hadn’t crashed it. Zimmerman has them in the back of his van, so if the trip isn’t prolonged they should be okay.” He paused, looking morose. “I hope.”

“Are Galapagos penguins related to the Magellanic penguins off the coast of Argentina?” Jim asked.

“Yes.” Mr. Olsen brightened, obviously excited to find another penguin enthusiast. “The Galapagos penguins traveled the same Humboldt currents up the coast to the equator and settled there. They’re a unique population.”

“Jim, I didn’t know you were so interested in penguins,” Nora said, hoping to redirect the conversation back to medicine. Although it was nice to see Jim treating his patients like human beings for a change, rather than nuisances. “At least not the non-NHL ones.”