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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

T his hospital is an enormous maze. I wander, apparently endlessly and aimlessly down identical passageways that seem to go on forever, only to turn into dead ends that make you walk all the way back the way that you came.

Corridors and hallways lead anywhere and everywhere other than where you thought the signs were telling you to go. Right-angled twists and turns that make you re-trace your steps for miles every time you go astray. And all the walls and floors look exactly the same, yet no two floors are laid out in any way alike.

I’m convinced either that all of the doctors, nurses, orderlies and ancillaries are able to read the colored lines on the floor like they’re Hogwarts’ ancient runes that they learned and memorized since childhood or, perhaps more likely, they only ever visit the place where they work, the canteen, and their locker rooms, and everywhere else they’d be just as lost as I am.

While I meander, lost and angry, I try to piece together the words and pictures that have been coming into focus in my memory. Making connections. Feeling my way. Putting names to faces where I can. Picturing times and places. It still feels like my brain is a Swiss cheese, with more holes and empty space than yummy protein.

The family and the business, I feel like I have that clear. Who I am in the big picture. Most of the details, though, are still a blurry haze. I have no clear idea what happened that I wound up getting kidnapped. And why?

Like, it’s not hard to imagine a million reasons why a woman in my position, a woman like me, would be a target. But I want to know the real reasons. Who did it. And why?

I need to find them. Because how else will I be able to repay them?

I stumble around like a blind person or what seems like hours, wishing I’d brought a bag of poppy seeds I could lay a trail with, or a loaf of bread that I could crumble. But that’s probably only because I’m so impatient and anxious to get things moving.

By the time I get back to Mikey’s room, Bruno is there. I can hear Diabolo’s tireless panting.

The fine cane corso lifts his head and tips it back, raising his paw, panting extra hard, and thumping the floor with his tail to show how pleased he is to see me, and to be here with Mikey. And he just happens to be straining his big brown eyes from slipping sideways to the ward sister, for no reason that need concern anyone.

As I step around the door, I’m just in time to see Sister Tharpe crouching to give him a bowl of water and a pat. As she begins to straighten up, she sees me and I’m sure that I see her hand, which was headed for her front pocket, take a detour to smooth the tunic over her thigh.

We make eye-contact and give each other nods that are so slight, I believe they would be undetectable to anyone but us, and we would deny them flat out and bare-faced.

And so, I am not aware of any treats that she might have in her pocket for doggies and if she did, they too would remain a secret to the grave, between her and Diabolo.

“Thanks so much, Sister,” Bruno shakes her hand and he favors her with a twinkle that I’m sure she will remember.

I give him a look as we head down the hallway. He opens his hands. “What?”

I pull my lips tight together.

We wait quietly on either side of the wide metal elevator doors. He continues to protest innocence. Which is entirely damning, since I haven’t accused him of anything.

Inside the empty elevator, we keep to the same sides.

The doors roll shut but, just before they meet in the middle, a large male hand grabs one side, and they slide back open.

With a genial glow on his reddened face, the man smiles and apologizes. Making a slight bow, he waves his companion into the car ahead of him and, like a couple of oversized gray beetles with their hands in the pockets of their huge coats, they keep up a regretful conversation that seems to be about one of their fathers.

Both men turn to us and smile as they, too, stand on either side of the car in front of us.

“I hate to hear him like that,” the first one is saying. “He was always a cheery soul. Not the life of the party as you might say, but amiable and friendly. He was a pleasure to meet, and everybody’s friend.”

The doors close again and the car shakes a little as it starts to descend.

“Well,” the other man says, “you wouldn’t know it now.”

“Comes to us all in time, just in different ways, I guess,”

Both men roll their shoulders and sigh. There are four floors and the only number that’s lit on the panel of buttons is the first floor. The man in front of Bruno is turning the top half of his body as the elevator jolts to a stop at the third.

My eyes flick to Bruno as his are turned to me.

A large black nurse is about to step in when she clocks the faces of the two men.

Bruno makes the smallest wave of a finger at her. The man in front of me sees it and reaches forward to grab her arm and pull her in. I tell her, “Run,” as I lash a sharp kick into the soft back of his knee with the pointed toe of my red Ferragamo.

The nurse pulls free just as the doors start to close again. Shaking his head, sadly, the man who held the doors to force his way in with us turns, pulling a short twelve-gauge from the pocket of his coat and aiming it in my direction.

Bruno swings a fast left into the man’s kidney, but he’s too well padded. All that happens is that the barrels of the gun swing round and onto Bruno. The elevator starts to move down again.

I’m struggling to get the Sig out of my jacket pocket, cursing myself for not appreciating that tea-dress more. I duck.

With his forearm, Bruno knocks the shotgun skyward, but the gunman slices it straight back down to crack the butt on Bruno’s skull.

The man in front of me is on his back and angry, drawing his hand from his coat. While I wrestle with the jacket pocket, inside the rainproof hoodie, all I can think to do is to stamp my heel into the man’s bicep.

Bruno barges at the man on his side, and slams him into the metal wall of the car. But that brings the shotgun down. It’s on me again.

The car shakes as we hit the first floor. The man under me rolls and starts to rise, lifting his arm.

Swinging both his forearms down on the gun hand, Bruno forces the shotgun down to point at the man’s own foot. The man’s mouth sets as they struggle against each other. the attacker grips the shotgun barrels. Shoving the gun sideways at Bruno, he forces Bruno’s back against the rear wall.

The doors slide open. Two more men are waiting.

Bruno squeezes the man’s hand on the trigger. The shotgun blasts the far wall of the car, and the man screams as the barrel broils his hand.

Bruno turns the man and squeezes the trigger a second time. The blast takes one of the men outside the car straight in the face, and peppers the other one enough to blind him, at least temporarily.

I’m able to get a shot off from the Sig, through the pocket of the jacket, into the left side of the pelvis of the man on the ground, just as Bruno swings the butt of the shotgun into the side of his head.

Finally I get the Sig out from the pocket of my leather jacket. Pressing the barrel to the temple of the shotgun jockey, I hold out my other hand with a ‘give’ motion. “Wallet,” I tell him.

Narrowing his eyes, reluctantly he hands it over.

“Phone.”

I jam the gun harder against his head, making his neck bend. For good measure I step on the hand the Bruno didn’t burn.

I jab him with the Sig Sauer and he flinches as I say, “Code.”

He snarls a four digit number. I try it with my thumb before I thank him and leave.

Bruno checks that I’m okay. I thank him sincerely, and I’m concerned for him, too. As we step out of the elevator car, the doors are trying to close, but they’re stopped by some feet and ankles.

As we move away from the carnage and the injured men, I call back to them, “Good thinking, pulling this in a hospital. You should get seen in no time.”