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“I have to tell you something,” Holly says to Izzy and Barbara. Whatever the EMT has given her is working. The pain in her arm and her ribs hasn’t gone away, but it’s receding. She thinks of the therapist she saw when she was younger. “I need to share something.”

Izzy takes her hand and gives it a squeeze. “Save it. I’ll need to hear everything, but right now you just need to take it easy.”

“It’s not about the case. I made up a joke and I’ve never had a chance to tell anyone. I tried to tell the woman… Emily… before she could shoot me, but then things got… complicated.”

“Go on,” Barbara says, and takes Holly’s hand. “Tell it now.”

“A new millionaire… me, actually, long story… walks into a bar and orders a mai-tai. When the bartender goes to make it, she hears a voice saying ‘You deserve that money, Holly. Every cent.’ She looks around and sees no one. She’s the only customer at the bar. Then she hears a voice on the other side. It says, ‘You look very pretty tonight, Holly.’ The bartender comes back and she says, ‘I keep hearing voices saying nice things about me, but when I look, no one’s there.’ And the bartender says—”

The EMT who gave her the shot looks back at her. He’s grinning. “He says ‘We charge for the drinks, but the nuts are complimentary.’?”

Holly’s mouth drops open. “You know it?”

“God, yes,” the EMT says. “That’s an old one. You must’ve heard it somewhere and just forgot.”

Holly begins to laugh.

31

In a treatment room at Kiner, Holly is swabbed for DNA and photographed. Barbara gently wipes her face clean afterward. The resident on duty in the ER examines the bullet-wound and pronounces it “basically superficial.” He says if it had gone deeper and shattered the bone, that would be a different deal. Izzy gives her two thumbs up.

The doctor pulls off the shirt she’s used as a bandage, which starts the bleeding again. He cleans the wound, probes for shrapnel (there is none), then packs it. He says there’s no need for staples or sutures (a relief) and wraps it tightly. He says she’ll need a sling, but one of the nurses will take care of that. Also a course of antibiotics. Meanwhile, he’s got an ICU full of Covid patients to deal with, most of them unvaccinated.

“I got you a room here,” Izzy says, then smiles. “Actually that’s a lie. The Chief of Police got it.”

“Other people need it more.” The floaty feeling from the injection started to go away when the doc pulled the shirt out of the coagulating blood in the arm wound—rrrip—and by the time he’d finished disinfecting and probing, it was entirely gone.

“You’re staying,” Izzy says flatly. “Gunshot wound observation is mandatory in this town. Twenty-four hours. Be grateful they’re not stashing you in a hallway or the cafeteria. There are plenty of people in both places, coughing their lungs out. A nurse will give you some more pain med. Or a good-looking intern, if you’re lucky. Get a good night’s sleep. We’ll start debriefing you on this shitshow tomorrow. You’ll be doing a lot of talking.”

Holly turns to Barbara. “Give me your phone, Barb. I have to call Penny.”

Barbara starts to get it out of her pocket, but Izzy holds up a hand like a traffic cop. “Absolutely not. You don’t even know for sure that Bonnie Dahl is dead.”

“I know,” Holly said. “You do, too. You saw her bike helmet.”

“Yes, and her name is on the flap of the pack.”

“There was an earring, too,” Holly says. “It’s in the cell where they locked me up.”

“We’ll find it. They may have found it already. A six-man forensics crew is going over that basement as we speak, and a team from the FBI is on its way. After the basement, we’ll go through the whole house. Fine-tooth comb stuff.”

“It’s a gold triangle,” Holly says. “Sharp points. I found the other one outside the abandoned shop where they kidnapped her. The one in the cell was under the futon. Bonnie must have left it there. I used it to cut Professor Harris’s throat.”

And closes her eyes.

July 30, 2021

1

At ten o’clock, Holly is rolled into Kiner Memorial’s ninth-floor conference room in a wheelchair. She doesn’t need it, but it’s hospital protocol; she has another eight hours of blood-pressure and temp checks before she’ll be released. Waiting for her are Izzy, Izzy’s partner, George Washburn, the plump-cheeked District Attorney, and a sharp-dressed man of about fifty who introduces himself as Herbert Beale of the FBI. Holly assumes he’s there because of the kidnapping aspect, even though there’s no Interstate angle. Bill Hodges told her once that the Feebs always like getting involved in high-profile cases, especially when they’re winding down. Gluttons for TV time, he said. Barbara, Jerome, and Pete Huntley are also attending, by Zoom. Holly insisted.

The plump-cheeked man rises and approaches Holly with his hand outstretched. “I’m Albert Tantleff, the Upsala County District Attorney.” Holly offers him her good elbow instead of her hand. Smiling indulgently, as if at a child, he bumps her elbow with his own. “I believe we can dispense with the masks, since we’ve all been vaccinated and the air circulation in here seems very good.”

“I prefer to keep mine on,” Holly says. It’s a hospital, after all, and hospitals are full of sick people.

“As you like.” He gives her another smile of the indulgent variety and returns to his seat. “Detective Jaynes, your show.”

Izzy—also wearing her mask, perhaps in deference to the guest of honor—powers up her iPad and shows Holly a photograph of a bloodstained earring in a plastic evidence bag. “Can you confirm that this is the earring you used to cut Rodney Harris’s throat?”