Shiver on the Sky
Page 60
Chapter Thirty-Nine
(Friday Afternoon—Owen)
Owen and Martina walked down the hall toward Carl’s room. Aaron sat in a waiting room behind them, reading a magazine. They’d been intercepted by a nurse, who had consulted a list of allowed visitors. Aaron’s name hadn’t been on it. Owen thought he’d looked relieved.
A policeman stood outside Carl’s door. Owen hoped he had the same list the nurse had checked. Come to think of it, he hoped Gordon had been right about the warrant for his arrest being canceled—and that all the cops involved knew about it.
The cop twitched when he got a look at Owen. Owen felt his heart lurch—then grinned. “Officer Ramirez,” he said. “We meet again.”
Ramirez looked down and actually scuffed his toe on the hospital’s cheap tile. “Mr. Tremaine. Uh…I’m sorry about the situation the other night, by your boat. You have to understand, I didn’t know who you were.”
Who he was? Who did the kid think he was now? What had Gordon said to him, anyway? “Not a problem.” He pointed at himself and Martina. “This is Martina Moynihan. We should be on your list. Mind if we go in?”
“Um, he’s still not conscious. And I’m supposed to call Detective Gordon first if…ah, when he wakes up.”
“Okay,” Owen said. “So suppose we just walk in and look at him? We’ll come get you if it looks like he can talk.”
Ramirez looked troubled. “I don’t know if—”
“We’ll get you if he wakes up,” Martina said. She smirked at Owen and pushed her way past Ramirez without looking at him.
Owen caught Ramirez’s eye and shrugged helplessly. “Be right back.” He sidled into the room and closed the door behind him, grinning now that Ramirez couldn’t see it. He’d been surprised again that Ramirez was so painfully young—but then, why would the kid have changed in just a few days? For most people there hadn’t been anything unusual about the last week.
Martina stood by the bed, her hand over her mouth. Owen came up beside her and squeezed her shoulder.
Carl’s hands and arms were covered with bandages, and so was the right side of his face. Including the eye—was it still there, underneath? An oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose. The nose had tape over it, and from the swelling it was probably broken. Carl’s breathing rasped through the room, almost drowning out the beeps and whistles of the equipment deployed around his bed.
But the worst, somehow, was his complexion. Carl had always been a bit ruddy-faced, which Owen had seen him use to his advantage when pretending to be drunk. But today his skin was white. Dead white, Owen found himself thinking. He searched for another adjective. Pasty white? Fish-belly white.
Lots of bandages. He pictured Carl as an animated mummy, lurching through a graveyard at midnight, his breath rasping out through the fog shrouding him from the sight of the mundane world, searching for…what? A Pulitzer? Owen shook his head. Enough. Carl was pale, that was all.
Martina had become a little wan, too. Owen took her hand. “He’s just sleeping,” he said.
She nodded and grabbed his fingers. “I don’t even know him,” she said. “But I saw him up and moving around just yesterday, and it makes me think of Shawna.”
Shawna. He’d managed not to think of her for an hour or so. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Me too.” Now, anyway.
She sniffed once, then withdrew her hand. “Excuse me for just a second.” She rooted around in her purse, then took out a tissue. Owen resolutely looked at Carl as she blew her nose.
“Sorry,” she said afterward. He nodded. After a short silence, she turned to him. “Owen? This might be a bad time to ask, but what about Shawna? Is there going to be any kind of ceremony?”
He hadn’t thought of that either. “I don’t know. She has family in Illinois. I guess they’ll probably want her shipped back there. In fact, she might be gone already.” The idea seemed alien, but plausible. He didn’t like it. “I’ll ask Gordon about it when—”
The door opened behind them. A nurse poked her head in, smiling. “Sorry,” she said. “We need to change some dressings. You can wait outside, if you like.” She came into the room, dragging a cart behind her. Ramirez held the door, giving Owen a pleading look. “It won’t take long,” the nurse said. She stood, still smiling, obviously waiting for them to leave. Ramirez frowned and let the door close.
“Ma’am?” Owen asked. “Do you know…has he been awake? At all?”
“Oh, he’ll be fine.” Her face softened. “There shouldn’t even be too much scarring. He was nearly conscious for a little while this morning, when we moved him. He didn’t say much, just mumbled something about his little girl. But I’m sure he’ll be up and talking away before too long.”
Owen nodded and reached out to take Martina’ hand again. “Thanks,” he said to the nurse. He pulled Martina along gently, continuing down the hall when they left the room. He nodded to Ramirez as they passed.
She took her hand back when they rounded a corner. “What?” she demanded.
Was she upset about being pulled along? Or because he’d held her hand? “Did you hear that? Carl doesn’t have a daughter. Maybe he saw the kidnapped girl, or found out something about her.”
She looked back doubtfully. “Shouldn’t we say something?”
“Like what?” Owen walked backwards down the hall, motioning for her to follow. “The cops might already know a lot more than we do. They definitely know the girl’s involved, and they’re already looking for her. And Gordon is already going to talk to Carl whenever he wakes up again.”
She nodded slowly and walked toward him. “So where are we going?”
He shrugged. “Back to the boat, I guess. I want to call Viktor Bentley and see what I can find out. But mostly I need to think.”
“About what?”
“CyberLook. Whatever happened with Danny. Everything.” He stopped and made eye contact. Why didn’t she see it? “There’s something else going on here. The girl’s involved somehow, and I can’t see what that has to do with CyberLook or whatever Danny’s game was with the NSA.”
She bit her lip, looking away. “I almost hate to say this, but didn’t you just tell me the police are already looking for her? And that they know more than we do?”
Owen laughed. “Yeah. They’re doing that. I plan to tell Gordon anything I find out, but, Martina…how well would you say the police have done with this so far?”
A vertical crease formed between her eyes. He turned away, urging her down the hall. “Come on, let’s go.”
She followed, frowning.