Lost and Found (40 page)

“Doctor Oliver, hi, it’s Amanda from the service … we’ve got a nurse from Bellevue on the phone … she says there’s someone who’s been brought in that might be one of your patients?”

“Is she or isn’t she?” I’m truly annoyed now. Vanity is my business, but if this is a patient calling to complain that her swelling hasn’t gone down to zero just two days after a surgery, I’m going to knock some skulls. Nurses should know better than to bother me with that kind of nonsense.

“They’re not sure. She had your business card in her purse, but they don’t seem to have her in their system there. They don’t think she was ever a patient at Bellevue. But they were thinking maybe you had her somewhere else? I don’t know. I thought I should call since it was an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?” My blood pressure has spiked. This can’t be what I think it is. It just can’t.

“A mugging, I think is what they said. She’s been beat up pretty badly, according to the nurse. Is she allowed to say that? To give details? Usually they’re very hush-hush with us over the phone.”

My heart lodges in my throat. “What’s her name?”

“How’d you know it was a woman? Did I mention that? I must be losing my mind, because I don’t remember saying it. Anyway, the ID they found says she’s Leah Carmichael.”

Okay. All right. No. I’m not going to scream. I’m not going to yell. I’m not even going to raise my voice. I can do this. I can remain calm while my world crumbles around me.

“You still have them on the line?” I rake my fingers through my hair and then grab a fistful of it, pulling until the pain is unbearable. It helps keep me grounded in reality.

Jana and Robinson see the look on my face and move in closer. All the joking around stops.

“Sure do,” Amanda says.

“Connect me, please.”

Waiting for Bellevue to come on the line is torture. Time feels like it’s standing still. I never fully appreciated that expression until now. Come on, Time, move, you bastard!

“What’s going on?” Jana asks, resting her hand on my arm.

I can barely get the words out. “Leah’s been hurt.” I look around the condo and realize there’s nothing keeping me here now that Jana’s back from her girls’ weekend. Cassie is in good hands, and I have somewhere I definitely need to be that’s not here.

“I have to go.” I stride over to the foyer and grab my wallet and keys off the table.

“You want me to ride along?” Robinson yells out behind me.

“No, stay with Jana. I’ll call you when I know something.”

“Doctor Oliver?” the voice says on the other end of the line.

“Yes, this is him.”

“Hi, it’s Anna in the ER. We have a Leah …”

“Yes, she’s mine. She’s my patient. I’m on my way.”

“Okee dokee.”

“Is she … how is she?” I hold my breath waiting for the elevator and her response.

“Well, she’s pretty banged up. They worried about internal injuries, so she’s going in for a CT right now.”

“I’ll be there in less than thirty.”

“See you when you get here.”

I disconnect and leap into the waiting elevator. Racing out of my building, I break stride only when I reach the curb where a cab is pulling up to take me to the hospital. My chest is tight and my mind is racing as we move out into traffic.

What if she doesn’t make it? What if she … Jesus. I never told her exactly how I felt when she left this morning. What if I never get the chance? Why did I wait?

I’m not much for praying, but I’m not going to take any chances. I close my eyes and mumble the words.

“God, please don’t take her from me. Not yet. Please, not yet. I need to tell her. I need to tell her that I love her and I can’t live without her.”

Chapter Seventy-Nine

IT SMELLS IN HERE. NOT at all like Belinda’s shop. What is that odor anyway? It reminds me of … of … Mel? Does it remind me of Mel? Why do I smell like Mel? Oh, God, is my foot going to fall off?

I open my eyes, or rather, I try to open my eyes. One of them is kind of stuck closed, so I just open the one I can. I find myself looking at a ceiling tile with hundreds of tiny holes in it. This isn’t James’s apartment. What am I doing sleeping in an office building?

My one eyeball roams around.

Oh
.

This isn’t an office. It’s a hospital.

And there are people in it.

And my head hurts. And my arm too.

Holy crap. Is it broken?

I recognize three of the four people in the room. They’re all staring at me.

“She’s awake,” says a woman holding Cassie. My brain tells me she has to be James’s sister. They have the same coloring and their noses are similar.

A movement out of the corner of my one good eye catches my attention. James is there, his eyes red and swollen.

“Hey,” I whisper. It’s the best I can do. Not only am I in pain, but seeing him there makes me suddenly feel like curling into a ball and crying. I want him to wrap his arms around me and make all this bad stuff go away.

“Hey,” he whispers back, taking my fingers in his.

“I think I broke something,” I say.

Everyone in the room laughs.

“You have a fractured ulna, a contusion above your right eye, and hemorrhaging in your spleen that necessitated its extraction.”

My eyeball rolls up into my head and I sigh. “Whatever that meant.”

Everyone laughs again. I’m thinking when I get out of here maybe I can find a job as a comedian. Ha, ha, I’m so funny when I’m dying.

James’s sister walks over closer to the bed. I turn my head to see her better. “Hi there. I’m Jana, James’s sister.”

I blink to acknowledge her. I’m suddenly pretty tired. Keeping one eye open is exhausting business.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she says. “Sorry it had to be under these circumstances.” Her eyes go a little watery and Robinson steps up next to her, draping his arm over her shoulders.

“When you’re on your feet again, we’ll have drinks together,” he says.

“Yeah, I guess I missed out on that, didn’t I?” My words slur together, try as I might to enunciate. Great impression I’m making here. So proud. Crazy drunk victim me.

James speaks up. “If you’re feeling up to it, there’s a police officer outside who wants to talk to you again.”

“Again?” I’m confused.

“Yes. You spoke to them when you first arrived. Before your surgery. Do you remember?”

“Surgery?” None of this is making sense. My head is spinning. Why is James looking so sad? Why was he crying? “Am I going to die?”

His voice comes out rough as he squeezes my fingers hard. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

That’s the last thing I remember hearing before the room goes black again.

Chapter Eighty

I PUSH OPEN THE DOOR to the man’s room, inhaling the scent of topical antibiotic and post-surgical interventions common with people who have limbs removed. I remind myself once more before going all the way inside that I can’t push this guy too hard; he’s already been through a lot. But if he has information about Leah and maybe whoever it is who attacked her, I want to know about it. It seems like a long shot, but she was here visiting him, and she told me she has no family. I don’t like all the mystery, so while Leah sleeps, I’m going to put some of it to rest.

“Who’re you?” asks the man from the hospital bed. He needs a shave. Thick gray beard stubble covers every inch of his face from just below his cheekbones to the bottom of his neck.

“My name is Doctor … James Oliver. I’m a physician, but I’m not treating you.” I stop a couple feet from his bedside.

“What are you doing here then if you’re not treating me?”

“I came to tell you that a friend of yours is in the hospital. Thought you might like to pay her a visit.”

“A friend? Who?” The grizzled man frowns at me.

“Leah Carmichael.” I wait to see his reaction, and he doesn’t disappoint.

“Leah? What’s wrong with Leah?” He sits up straighter in bed, wincing at the pain it causes him.

“She was attacked. Outside her place of employment.”

The man throws his covers back and swings his one good leg over. The other is wrapped in gauze and missing the foot.

I step forward to slow him down. The nurse at the station told me why he’s here. “Sir, you can’t get out of bed just yet.”

“Like hell I can’t.” He’s putting his one remaining foot down on the ground.

“I’ll get you a wheelchair. Stay put or I’ll call a nurse and they’ll strap you down.”

He pauses, narrowing his gaze at me. “You’re a real ball buster, aren’t you?”

“Only when necessary.”

He gestures to me with a careless wave. “Who’s Leah to you? I don’t remember her mentioning a … a boyfriend or a husband.”

“We’re … uhhh … we’re … I’m not sure what we are. I’m her boyfriend maybe.” I wasn’t expecting that question. I’m flustered. I can’t tell him I’m the guy who just fell head over heels with a girl and then almost lost her. “Just hold on while I find a wheelchair.”

I’m back in less than a minute, my game face back on.

“Took long enough,” says the old coot as he allows me to lower him into the chair, “I almost gave up on you.”

I ignore his grouchiness and adjust the footplates of the chair so his footless leg can rest straight out in front of him. I’m sure gravity isn’t doing his pain levels any good, so letting it dangle is not an option, especially if I want this guy to open up and tell me what he knows. Now that I’ve seen his face, I realize he is privy to a lot more information concerning Leah than I could have imagined.

“So, you’re her …. friend?” I ask, sure I’ve got it partly wrong and partly right. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. Every time I meet a man in Leah’s life I could swear she’s related to him. This guy is no exception. He too shares many of her facial features not to be living in her family tree somewhere.

“You could say that.” The old man stares straight ahead, his jaw set.

I move around to the back of the chair and start to push. “If I were a betting man, I’d say you’re more like family.” When I get to the door I leave my duties as chair-pusher to open it. I wait there in the open doorway for his answer.

He looks up at me scowling. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I point at his face. “It means that I can see the family resemblance.”

The old guy rolls his eyes and lets out a long hiss of air.

“Blow me off if you want, but I know bone structure.”

“What, you some kind of artist or something?” He looks up at me, giving me the impression I’m being tested.

“Something like that.” I move back around to push him. “She could use some family right now. She’s in a lot of pain.”

“Her parents are dead,” he says.

“So I’ve heard. But if she had other relatives, that would be nice for her. To have them here. To support her.”

He says nothing.

I wheel him down the hall and nod at the nurse as we go by. She stares at me for a few seconds and then goes back to her computer. Being a doctor easily recognized has its privileges.

“What happened?” he finally asks. “To Leah.”

I smile, hoping this means he’s rising to the bait. “I wish I could tell you, but if you’re not family …”

I wait.

He says nothing.

I continue. “You know, HIPAA laws and so on. Privacy. I could let you see her for about a minute but then they’d kick you out. Unless you’re family. Then you could stay longer. Visit more frequently.”

He grumbles something unintelligible.

We enter the elevator. I wheel him in and make him face the wall, hoping it will be easier for him to talk to me if I’m not looking at him.

“If you tell me you’re family, I’ll support you. I can see it in your face anyway, so it’s not like it’s the wrong thing to do.”

For two floors he says nothing. Then, “Sometimes sleeping dogs should be let to lie.”

I shrug. “And sometimes sleeping dogs should be woken up so they can go for a walk.”

He grumbles again, but this time I can hear it clearly enough. “Ain’t no walking going to be happening any time soon for this old dog.”

“That’s what wheelchairs are for. Walk. Roll. Same difference.”

I pull him out of the open elevator doors and angle him to go down the hall. Leaning over, I speak quietly in his ear. “So, what’s it gonna be? Relative or not a relative?”

I’m holding my breath without even realizing it, releasing it only when my chest starts to burn. I push him forward until we’re stopped just outside Leah’s door.

“Relative,” he says finally. “I’m her uncle.”

I smile as I push the door in. “That’s what I thought.”

Chapter Eighty-One

THE POLICE OFFICER IS TAKING notes on a legal pad from the chair next to me. She’s using my food table for support. I’ve told her my version of events, and now she’s telling me hers. I’m more than a little stunned at what I’m hearing.

“Apparently, Mr. Goodman, the jeweler you visited, has a nephew with a rap sheet long enough to paper the walls in here with. He heard his uncle talking about a new customer with a big ring and he paid attention. It was him who showed up at the store and took your purse.”

“Was it him who followed me on the subway?”

“More than likely.” She frowns at her notes and scribbles something in the margin. “We are guessing he’s the one who attacked you outside the store, but without any eyewitness accounts, it’s hard to say. We’re trying to place him at the scene using video from nearby businesses, but it’s going to take a while to get warrants.”

“Warrants?”

“Yes. People don’t just hand video over these days.” She rolls her eyes.

“That’s just mean,” I say, wondering if I should tell Belinda to put cameras up. I know she’d share her video footage if the police asked.

The door opens and a leg appears, followed by a body in a wheelchair.

I can’t stop the grin from appearing. “Mel! You came to see me!”

He looks like he’s ready to growl. “Of course I came to see you. Let them try to keep me away.” He looks over his shoulder at James, his driver.

My cheeks go pink as I realize what James has done for me. I feel uncharacteristically shy. I guess I’m not used to people being so considerate.