The Dirty Secrets Club (34 page)

"Anything about the car chase? The crash?"

"Very fuzzy. Remembers being terrified. Remembers opening the door of the BMW. Doesn't remember the crash." Tang smiled tartly. "She does remember you."

"Let me speak to her alone." When Tang's face pinched, Jo added, "It'll make the nurses happy, and give me a chance to get her to open up."

Tang's cell phone beeped. She turned away to read the text message and Jo went back in the room.

Meyer's eyes followed Jo as she approached the bed. With IVs and monitors surrounding her, the girl looked spindly. But a can of 7UP sat on the bedside tray. If Meyer was able to take liquids by mouth it was an impressive indicator of recovery.

Jo rested her hand on Meyer's and said softly, "It's good to see you awake."

"You're the one. From the wreck." Her voice was surprisingly clear. "You found me."

Out in the hall, Tang said, "I'm at St. Francis Hospital. Do you have the information?" Jo caught her eye, put a finger to her lips, and shooed her away. Bristling like a cactus, Tang headed for the nurses' station.

Jo rubbed Meyer's hand with her thumb. "I'd like to talk for a minute."

"I can't remember the crash."

"Then let's talk about what you said to me."

"I don't remember saying anything to you."

The light in her eyes was hot. Jo bet that, upright and healthy, she had the eager-beaver, clean-cut energy of so many law students. Pretty in pink, with a hungry ambition beneath the twin-set. Maybe it had helped her survive.

"That night, you worked late at the office with Callie. You ordered dumplings from General Li's."

"Yeah."

Keeping her voice light, Jo led her through it. Meyer and Callie had worked until nearly one a.m. That wasn't unusual before trial, Geli said. Then Callie offered to drive her home. It was far too late for her to catch the bus.

"So you got in her BMW," Jo said.

Geli blinked. Fear flashed in her eyes. "I don't know what happened after that. All I remember is being really, really scared." She bit her lip. "I don't want to talk about it." She slid down in the blankets. "I'm really tired."

"Okay." Jo rubbed her hand. "But I'll come back and check on you. All right?"

Pale smile. "Sure."

Jo turned to go, and stopped. "One thing, Geli. I found the CD album sleeve. The All-American Rejects."

The girl went completely still.

Jo kept her voice on the friendly side of neutral. " 'Dirty Little Secret.' I know you gave it to Callie as a message about the Dirty Secrets Club."

Meyer's face looked like plastic. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Callie gave it back to you. She was upset, I imagine."

"Oh, that?" She licked her lips. "That was a joke."

"You weren't going to get in the club. It never would have happened."

Meyer began blinking rapidly. "I don't feel well. Please go."

"You'll find it a lot easier to talk to me than to the police," Jo said.

She turned her head. "Stop. Just stop it."

"That's exactly why I'm here. What do you want me to stop?"

Meyer grabbed the call button and pressed it. She pushed her cheek into the pillow and closed her eyes.

Jo said quietly, "Think about it. We'll talk again."

Vehemently, Meyer said, "Leave me alone."

A young nurse bustled in. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, ordering Jo out. In the hallway Tang was pacing, her face inquisitive. Jo walked out and gestured her toward the nurses' station.

"How'd it go?" Tang said.

"Compared to what? Compared to an intervention, that was a home run. She knows a whole hell of a lot about the Dirty Secrets Club. I just have to figure out how to pitch to her."

"Bean ball?"

Jo set Meyer's chart on the desk at the nurses' station. Tang urged her toward the lobby.

"Come on."

Jo expected Tang to head for the elevator, but instead she pushed through the fire door into the stairwell. When the door clicked shut behind them, Tang held up her PDA.

"That text message I got? It was about Pray."

"Information?" Jo said.

Tang stared at her. "You could call it that."

The elevator stopped with a quiet
ping
and the doors opened. Skunk waited for a moment, scanning the scene. A sign said Intensive Care Unit. The place was quiet and felt anxious. He pushed his mop and bucket out of the elevator. There was nobody at the nurses' desk. A big whiteboard on the wall listed patients' names and what room they were in. He stopped and read it.

Angelika Meyer. His heart rate rabbited.

He peered around. Nobody had noticed him. They would, in a minute. He was wearing an orderly's uniform, and an ID badge around his neck. He'd paid the guy a hundred bucks to let him have it. Janitorial was outsourced, and an unfamiliar face wouldn't set folks off here, not right away anyhow. Cleaners came and went all the time.

If he played this right, it was a twofer. Get Meyer, and find the Spider. Yesterday at the Marriott he had lost track of her after the TV van barbecued the cameraman. He had to draw her here. She had the names.

He pushed the mop and bucket down the hall toward Meyer's room.

Tang checked up and down the stairwell, ensuring she and Jo were alone. They started walking down the stairs. Her voice echoed off the concrete walls.

"I sent search requests for information on anybody nicknamed 'Pray.' Database searches for arrests, known associates, that kind of thing."

She was looking at the PDA. In the harsh light of the stairwell, she seemed like a fist of a woman.

"I got thinking about what we saw on Xochi Zapata's video— this guy getting garroted with a chain. That leaves a scar. I set search parameters to look for a nasty neck scar as a distinguishing characteristic."

"Smart. Any luck?"

"One possible. Right here. The photo just came through from the FBI." Tang handed her the PDA. "Take a look."

On the small color screen Jo saw a photo taken with a telephoto lens. Three men in a hot dusty climate, aloha shirts rimed with sweat. They were close enough to talk sotto voce, but standoffish. It seemed clear they were doing business, but without much trust. Two men looked unfamiliar. The third, weathered and grim, with sunken cheeks and sunken eyes, had a gruesome scar that ran completely around his neck. Red lumpy tissue fading to gristle. Grisly souvenir of a lynching.

Sweat pricked her pores. Still staring at the photo, she dodged around Tang and ran up the stairs.

"Hey!" The lieutenant charged after her.

"Come on." Jo pumped her way up the stairs. "I've seen that face before."

"Where?"

She shouted her answer, but her words were lost beneath the howl of the fire alarm.

Jo shoved the fire door open. She and Tang ran out into the ICU. The alarm was shrilling. Red emergency lights throbbed on the wall. Nurses were massed in the hallway near Geli Meyer's room.

The motherly nurse was spraying a fire extinguisher through a doorway. White clouds of carbon dioxide filled the air. Jo sprinted toward her, smelling smoke and gasoline.

"Jesus—"

"What's going on?" Tang called.

A young nurse put out her hands. "Get back."

Jo held up her lanyard with her hospital ID. Tang pulled out her badge. Seeing it, the nurse pointed down the hall. "That way. He ran that way."

"Who?" Tang said.

"The janitor. Who threw the Molotov cocktail."

"Shit." Tang drew her weapon. "Exits?"

"All kinds. Corridor leads to other departments, and there's stairs ..."

Tang took off. "Get Security. I'm calling for backup."

Jo pushed through the crowd. The nurse with the fire extinguisher inched forward into the burning hospital room. In the corridor Jo saw an abandoned janitorial mop and bucket.

"The patient?" she said.

"Nobody's hurt. It's an empty room."

The smoke, she saw, was seeping from the room next to Meyer's. Head thumping with relief, she ran to Meyer's door. The bed was empty.

"Where's Geli?"

"Waiting area. We grabbed her and moved her out of harm's way."

The nurse with the extinguisher called, "It's out." She came out coughing, fire extinguisher hanging from her hand. "How the hell did he get in here?"

The young nurse turned to Jo. "The guy was loitering outside Geli's room. I didn't recognize him, so I asked for his ID. He grabbed this bottle, lit it, and threw it into the empty room, then took off."

Jo went into Meyer's room, to the closet, and got the girl's purse. She walked back past the elevators and around the corner to the waiting area. Geli was huddled on a sofa, with her IV hanging on a stand beside her. She was wrapped in a blanket, clutching her knees with whitened knuckles. She saw Jo and looked simultaneously relieved and horrified.

Jo sat down, opened Meyer's purse, and dumped it on the sofa.

"Hey," the girl said.

"You need to talk. Now." Tossing aside Meyer's lipstick, lighter, and junk, she found the wallet and rifled through it.

Jo pulled out the snapshot. The Kansas farmer with the
Reservoir Dogs
smile and the silver poker-chip belt buckle. Mr. Tarantino Gothic.

She compared it to the long-range photo on Tang's PDA. They were before and after shots.

It was Pray.

The fire alarm continued ringing, like a hammer. Jo held up the snapshot. "What's his name, Geli?"

"Him?"

"Please don't tell me the photo came with the wallet." She showed Meyer Tang's PDA. "This shot was taken after he was garroted. It isn't from GQ."

Meyer pulled the blanket up toward her chin. "I don't have to talk to you."

"Nope. I'm not a cop. I'm not even your mom. I'm just a shrink. And I'm the one you begged to help
Stop it."

Meyer tried to hold her gaze, and couldn't.

"Geli, Skunk killed another woman today. With a Molotov cocktail. It was horrifying."

Meyer stared at her knees. She didn't react to hearing Skunk's name, but her eyes were skittish.

"I know Skunk works for Pray. So guess what, honey? One plus one equals your buddy wants you dead."

The girl's face was growing pale. Jo had seen this look before, on people who were deep in denial—on alcoholics who insisted they could stop drinking any time they wanted.

"Or do I have it wrong?" Jo said.

She'd seen the look on people who loved danger—on the faces of climbers who thought they could handle a big wall solo. And she'd seen it on the faces of women who lived with batterers. It frequently came with
But you don't understand
or
It's not that way, he really loves me.

"You're way off base," Meyer said.

Jo turned the PDA so Meyer could see. "The police have Pray's photo. You have his photo. You have his buddy Skunk trying to turn the ICU into Dante's Inferno. What part of this don't you get?"

Meyer clutched her knees. Her dirty hair was falling over her face. She looked sullen and cornered.

Two hospital security guards appeared in the corridor. Behind the din of the fire alarm, Jo heard them talking urgently to the nurses.

"Pray sent Skunk here to burn down the ICU. How does that not add up to wanting you killed?" Jo said.

"Stop talking about him like that. You have no idea."

"Then give me an idea."

Meyer stole a glance at the PDA photo. She seemed to drink it in. Hot patches of color appeared on her cheeks.

"He would never hurt me. He couldn't. He can't harm anybody."

"Sure." And here's a lump of polonium for your tea. It tastes just like sugar. "What's his name?"

"You're the genius, you figure it out."

"If you want to make me wait until Lieutenant Tang tells me, fine. I'll call him Pray, or the Object Lesson."

"Don't." The sudden anger in Meyer's voice carried above the alarm.

"How have you been contacting him? Is he phoning you here? You know we'll find that out as well, right?"

Meyer finally looked at Jo. Her expression said
I've outsmarted you.
"Not if he doesn't have a phone number."

Jo tried not to look surprised. "Really? How about an address?"

A strange look entered Meyer's eyes. It was both sly and sad. "He's physically incapable of harming anybody."

Jo stared at the young woman. Why was Pray incapable of harm?

"You don't understand anything," Meyer said. "He was abandoned twice. First when he was attacked. They robbed him and left him to die. They took everything and left him maimed."

No phone, no address. Why was Pray inaccessible?

Meyer's pale face was livid. "Then he was abandoned by the system. Nobody's willing to help him get justice. Nobody cares that he was robbed and mangled, because he wasn't some rich asshole from the city. He's just dirt to them."