Critical Condition (6 page)

“I did a summer working with an Earthwatch expedition studying Magellanic penguins in Argentina,” he murmured. “Came home wanting to be a zoologist, but my dad had different plans.”

“Let’s get Mr. Olsen up and walking so he can get back to the zoo and take care of his new charges.” Nora handed Jim the crutches she’d adjusted to fit their patient.

“Right. Okay, Mr. Olsen. All you need to do is remember that you don’t want your weight to rest on your arm-pits.” He tapped the padded top of the crutch. “But rather on your hands. Always move the crutches and your injured leg first, then swing your good leg to catch up. Like this.”

Jim demonstrated, taking a few steps, then handed the crutches to Mr. Olsen. Before taking them, Mr. Olsen turned back to his coworker. “Call Zimmerman again. Call the police, get him an escort if you have to. We must protect those penguins.”

 

 

IT WAS A LOT TO TAKE IN ALL AT ONCE. LYDIA stood beside Janet Kwon, hovering over the laptop. “Do they say anything else about my mother? Where she was from? Any family?”

“Not here. Now that we have a name, though, I can search for more information later. But right now we need to concentrate on the immediate threat.”

“The man who almost killed Jerry.”

“And who wanted to find you.”

Lydia sank back into the chair, thinking hard. “How did the people responsible for my mother’s death find out that Jerry had reopened her case?”

Janet’s frown corrugated her forehead. “You’ve always said the man who killed your mom was dressed like a cop.”

“Jerry’s the first person I told that to. Ever.” She’d been too terrified to confide in either the L.A. police officers who’d found her standing over her mother’s body or the social workers who’d taken her into custody.

“What if the killer kept looking for you after he killed your mom? Best way for him to keep an eye on anyone looking into Maria’s case would be to flag those fingerprint records.”

“Which means he really was a cop.”

Janet seemed to reluctantly agree. “Back then, before a flick of the computer could get you into records, it would have been hard. And even now with all the security clearances, virtually no one outside law enforcement could do it. In fact”—somehow her frown managed to deepen—“unless he works in the same jurisdiction where your mom’s murder took place, it’d be tough to pull off.”

“So he must be LAPD.”

“Or maybe L.A. County Sheriff.”

“Why didn’t he just come after me while I was in foster care? What stopped him?”

“As far as I can tell, since you had no ID or birth certificate, family services initially labeled you a Jane Doe until the lab tests confirmed your relationship to your mom, right? Way back then the records were pretty much all on paper—so even a police officer wouldn’t have had access without first knowing your name.”

“And since Maria was labeled a Jane Doe as well, he’d have had no idea what name I was using.” Lydia never realized it before, but thanks to the foster care system, for the past eighteen years, she’d been as good as invisible to anyone looking for Maria or her. Including Maria’s killer.

“Or what name you went by now—after eighteen years, you could have taken on an adopted family name, or been married, more than once, even. But he must have flagged your mom’s AFIS file as an early-warning system.”

“So when Jerry reran Maria’s prints and got a match, the killer knew someone was looking into her case. Which meant that Jerry probably knew where
I
was.”

“So the hit man was sent here to Pittsburgh, to get Jerry to tell him where you were.” Janet bolted upright, her feet slamming against the floor. “Eighteen years of law enforcement. He’s gonna be high ranking—or”—she paused, clicking her nails against the butt of her gun as she thought—“or maybe he’s gone federal. The AFIS system is run by the Department of Justice.” She shrugged, deflating a little. “Or he could just be a clerk in a cubicle somewhere with access to the database.”

“But that still doesn’t answer the real question: What does he want from me? It’s been eighteen years.”

That was the question that had kept Lydia awake for the past two and a half weeks. She’d been just a kid when she witnessed her mother’s murder—she doubted that she could identify the man’s face. Not that he’d even known she was there; she’d stayed hidden, just as Maria had told her to. The killer haunted her dreams, but by the time she awoke, she never remembered anything but the terror he provoked. Her attention had been focused on her mother’s screams, the blood, the need to stay small and quiet and hidden.

“Whatever it is, he didn’t think twice about targeting police officers.” A glower darkened Janet’s face, and Lydia knew she was thinking of Jerry. “That’s high stakes.”

“I don’t have anything worth killing for—and neither did Maria,” Lydia protested. “We lived on the streets most of the time, were constantly on the move.”

“Maria worked as a con artist, right?”

“I don’t know if you’d call it ‘con artist.’ Some days I think she really believed she was psychic, but she pretty much just told people what they wanted to hear.”

“Maybe one of her clients told her something—”

“Something worth killing her over? Seems unlikely. And why then come after
me
after all this time?” Lydia flounced in the chair, frustrated, and immediately regretted the sudden movement when it jarred her sling and pain bellowed from her arm. She took the sling off—she was more comfortable without it anyway, and had worn it only to help with any recoil while she was shooting—and propped her cast on the arm of the chair so it was elevated. The throbbing quieted.

Janet shut down her computer. “I should get back to the station. I’ll call you if I learn more.”

Lydia remained sitting in the chair beside Sandy’s desk.

“You okay to get home by yourself?” Janet asked. Lydia glanced up and realized the detective had already put her coat and gloves on and was standing by the door.

“I’m fine. Just moving slowly.” Lydia nodded to her arm, as if that were her excuse. “You go ahead.”

Janet hesitated. “Okay,” she finally said. “Drive safely.” A blast of wind and snow heralded her departure. The office felt ten degrees colder after she left.

And still Lydia sat, thinking of the frightened teenage girl from those booking photos. Martha Flowers had been skinny—much too thin for a pregnant woman. There’d been what looked like track marks visible on her arms, and her eyes had held the sunken look of a junkie wanting a fix. No surprise to Lydia. Maria—Martha—had confessed to her daughter that she’d been a heroin addict once, but told Lydia she’d quit cold turkey when she found out she was pregnant. It was about the only fact she’d ever shared about her life before Lydia.

Young. Her mother had been so very young. And alone. And terrified. Of what?

Of whom?

Lydia’s father. They’d been on the run from him since before she was born. Lydia didn’t even know his name. To her he was the bogeyman.

When she was older she used to think he was actually a figment of Maria’s mind, an imaginary specter who allowed her to justify their nomadic existence, the way her mother dragged them from place to place, living like pieces of debris swept through the streets of L.A. by the Santa Ana winds.

She’d blamed her mother. Thought Maria was crazy.

The morning of the day Maria died, Lydia had threatened to leave, to turn herself in to children’s services, ask them to find her father so she could live with him instead. All she’d wanted was some normalcy, a taste of security. A bathroom with a real door on it instead of a sheet draped over a curtain rod. A place her friends could visit. A home.

It was the worst fight they’d ever had. A few hours later, Maria was dead.

Nausea twisted through Lydia’s gut, an echo of the awful wrenching feeling that had consumed her as she watched Maria die. For eighteen years she’d felt guilty. Even though she hadn’t made the call to children’s services, she still blamed herself that the bogeyman had found them that day—or the monster he’d sent to do his dirty work.

Now the bogeyman was back. And he was after her.

GINA BOLTED OFF THE ELEVATOR, THEN SLOWED her pace to a calm, confident stride—everything she didn’t feel. She pushed through the doors to the ER and saw Jason, the ER day-shift desk clerk, sitting at his usual place behind the nurses’ station, playing a handheld video game as he lounged in a well-padded office chair.

“Have you seen Nora?” she asked, scanning the patient board. Still slow. Only two patients, both marked as discharged. Gina took a banana nut mini-muffin from the basket in front of Jason and crammed it whole into her mouth, unable to resist. It took everything she had to fight the urge to grab the entire basket and gobble them all down. So much for calm and confident.

“She and Jim Lazarov just headed out to triage. How’s Jerry?”

Gina choked on a last swallow of muffin, forcing it down even though it gouged her throat. “A little better. I guess.”

“Remember that news guy who got hit in Iraq? They removed like half his skull, but a year later, he’s walking and talking and back doing the news.”

It was the same kind of miracle story everyone kept sharing with her. But they had the opposite effect on Gina—as if for every other person she heard about who beat the odds, it meant that Jerry’s chances at a winning ticket in the traumatic brain injury lotto were diminished. But she nodded her thanks anyway.

Surreptitiously, her hand jammed deep into the pocket of her sweater, Gina slid a cigarette from the pack she’d bought off the patient in the elevator and rolled it between her fingers. Wondered if she could sneak outside for a quick smoke before heading back up to Jerry. Maybe grab some cookies from the lounge on her way back. Her need to binge tasted like burnt caramel—made her salivate with anticipation as she allowed her urges to stampede over her willpower.

Even better would be the pain when she purged. Pleasure and pain, spiraled together in a macabre dance, that was her. A whirling dervish. Out of control. Just like her life.

Gina hadn’t given in to her eating disorder since Jerry was shot—weeks of restraint, surely she deserved one little binge? It would feel so good.

The thoughts and emotions sprinted through her mind. She forced them aside, turning a calm façade to Jason. “Was there a guy here, looking for Lydia?”

Jason snorted. “Suit. Flashing a badge and a gun—you’d think after the shootings, they wouldn’t let anyone with a gun in here.”

Unfortunately the hospital security guards, like the entire hospital, were seriously short-staffed and administration had temporarily forbidden them from carrying any weapons other than pepper spray—which, in Gina’s mind, made them more liabilities than assets.

She continued to caress the pack of Marlboros in her pocket as she fought to keep her attention on what Jason was saying. “So the guy with the suit and the gun, where did he go?”

“When I told him he’d have to talk to Mark Cohen if he wanted any info on an attending, he grabbed a copy of the schedule.” Jason gestured to a ripped remnant of paper hanging from his well-ordered corkboard. “Too bad it was an old one. From before Lydia broke her arm. It listed her as working today, so he’s probably combing the hospital for her.”

Gina didn’t like the sound of that. “Which way did he go?”

“Mark blew him off the first time around.” Jason jerked his head toward the ER department head’s office. “But I think the suit headed back for round two.”

“Thanks.” Gina jogged down the maze of corridors to Mark Cohen’s office. The door was closed, which was unusual—if Mark was here, his office door was always open. She pushed it open without knocking and walked in to find a man sitting in Mark’s chair, rummaging through his desk. “Can I help you?”

The man jerked his shoulder, but otherwise hid any signs of being startled. “You’re not Dr. Cohen.”

He stated it as a fact, dismissing her. He was about Jerry’s height, just shy of six feet, brown hair, brown eyes, totally unremarkable. Except for the air of command.

“Neither are you.” Gina held her ground as she channeled Jason and the other ER clerks—none of them anyone you’d want to mess around with. She was glad she wasn’t easily identifiable as a doctor. After her shift, she’d changed into one of her most comfortable “frumpy” outfits: black turtleneck, black jeans, bulky cable-knit cardigan. “Want to explain to me why you’re going through Dr. Cohen’s desk? And just who the hell you are?”

“Official business.” He snapped open a credential case and waved it in front of her. “Harris. DEA.”

Gina grabbed the case before he could repocket it and scrutinized it. It said his name was Nathaniel T. Harris, and the picture was him, the seal and identification looked real enough, but the hackles on the back of her neck still screamed that something was wrong here.

He snatched his credentials from her, sliding them into his jacket pocket. “Do you know where I can find a Dr. Lydia Fiore?”

For an instant, Gina was tempted to tell him that
she
was Lydia. It might be the best way to find out what was really going on. She hugged her cardigan tighter, kneading her fingers into the wool as she wrestled up the courage.

But of course, it would never work. Even if Harris didn’t know exactly what Lydia looked like, he surely could tell the difference between a five-foot, ten-inch black woman and Lydia’s skinny five-five. Besides, too much of Lydia’s past was a mystery, even to her closest friends. There was no way Gina could keep up the pretense. Anger flashed over her—Jerry had paid the price, almost with his life, for Lydia’s secrets.

“I’m not Dr. Fiore’s personal assistant,” she said instead, raising herself to her full five-ten, using her anger to bolster her lies. “I work for Dr. Cohen. I suspect they’re both busy with patients, so if you’d like to make an appointment—”