He got more coffee and settled back, watching the circling fish, checking his watch every little while. Just before four, several young women dressed in scrubs hurried out, and several others double-timed in from another parking lot that lay beyond the gardens. Young women walking fast, all businesslike, they knew where they were going and were in a hurry to be on time. Rising, he left his trash on the table.
He was headed for the stairs when he saw that woman contractor come in through the glass front doors, and he stepped back, frowning. No mistaking her, same jeans and red sweatshirt she’d had on at Debbie’s, only now she was wearing one of those backpack purses, an expensive leather model. Looked like, the way she held her head, she was talking to the damn purse, but then he saw she was talking on her cell phone. He turned away and sat down at the table again. Did she recognize him from around Emmylou’s place?
As far as he knew she’d probably never noticed him there—yet when he glanced around again, she was looking straight at him. She saw him looking, said something into the phone, and went on past the pond toward a set of stairs that descended on the far side. Well, he’d seen her for sure, around Debbie’s and up at Emmylou’s, too, helping out with the old woman’s carpentering. Were these women all friends? He didn’t rise until she had disappeared, moving on down the steps, making him wonder where she was headed, what was down there in that direction. He waited a while and then descended the other way, to the ER, trying to calm his jumpy nerves.
RYAN HAD AWAKENED in late afternoon to the ringing of the phone. Clyde, sprawled beside her on the king-sized bed, hadn’t stirred. An afternoon nap was a rare occurrence in their lives, she didn’t like being woken up. Grabbing the ringing instrument, she’d eased out from under the coverlet that she’d tossed over them.
“It’s Kate. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Only a little.”
Kate laughed. “I’m sorry. Pedric called, he’s feeling better, he asked if I could bring Kit over, he misses her, he wants to know if I can smuggle her in. I don’t want to leave Lucinda alone yet when she’s on the pain meds, but he sounded so forlorn. I think Kit’s ordeal up on the cliffs has left him more upset than she was, he wants her close to him, he asked if Lucinda could spare her for a while. Could you . . . ?”
“Of course I’ll come, I’ll take her over there to him.” Beside her, Clyde turned over, mumbling but hardly waking; Clyde had sat up the longest last night with Pedric, he deserved to be sleepy.
“I’m just running Kit up to the hospital,” she said, “Pedric’s asking for her.”
“Take the Mercedes,” he said, waking fuzzily. “Keys are on my desk. I’ll drop the truck off at the shop before the mechanics go home, I don’t like the way it’s running.”
She thought it was running fine, he was so picky about their cars. She grinned at him, nodded, pulled on her boots, and found her purse. She dropped her keys on the desk, took the Mercedes keys, and told Rock to stay home. The Weimaraner, having hauled himself from sleep and surged off the love seat, was more than ready to go with her. She told him, “No,” and hugged him, but he looked after her ruefully. She moved on down the stairs and out, slipped into the silver Mercedes, and headed for Lucinda’s house.
When she pulled up into the Greenlaws’ drive, tortoiseshell Kit was waiting on the steps shifting from paw to paw, lashing her fluffy tail with impatience. Ryan set the emergency brake and then opened the driver’s door. Kit leaped up into her lap, her expression a strange mix of eagerness and sadness.
“What? What’s wrong? Lucinda’s all right?”
“Fine,” Kit said, snuggling down close to her, pushing her head into Ryan’s ribs.
Ryan rubbed Kit’s warm little ears, but she didn’t start the car. “Tell me.” She sat frowning down at Kit. “Is it Pan? Is it because you argued?”
“Because . . .” Kit pawed at a tear seeping into the dark fur of her cheek. “Because the most important things to Pan are so different from how I see things. I didn’t know that about him. We can never . . .”
Ryan took Kit in her arms. “You’re not opposite at all. You’re perfect for each other. You’re male and female, that’s all. That’s what makes the world work. Females go more for security, they’ll fight tooth and claw to protect their home and kittens but tomcats’ hearts are strung for adventure. They go searching for challenge, that’s the way they protect their brood. That’s the way you’re made, you and Pan.”
Kit looked up at her and her pink tongue came out, licking at another tear.
Ryan looked down into Kit’s wide yellow eyes. She didn’t know what else to say, she didn’t know how to resolve this. Their story was as old as the very concept of male and female. “Maybe,” she said, “if you could talk without hissing and spitting at him . . .”
“Pan does all the hissing,” Kit said untruthfully. Ryan gave her a sideways glance, settled Kit in the seat again, put the car in gear, and headed for the freeway.
“Maybe I hissed a little,” Kit said, “but he was so—”
“If Pedric sees you all teary, you’ll make him feel worse than he does now.”
“I know,” Kit said contritely. She crept up into Ryan’s lap again, curled up in a tight little ball, shivering. She was being so dramatic Ryan wanted to scold her, but this was the way Kit reacted, the little tortoiseshell was a born drama queen. This was the way she was made, her wild little spirit knew no compromise, her wild heart blazed with the passion of an unruly youngster, and Ryan knew she would never change. Taking the off-ramp for the hospital, she headed up the hill, made a right, and a left into underground parking. Cruising the first level for a space, she passed Debbie’s old station wagon pulled in beside a pillar. What was she doing here? Had one of the children been hurt? Or maybe Debbie had brought Tessa to emergency for some free cold medicine, that would be her style. But then when she did find a parking place, she was two cars down from an old green Chevy that was a ringer for Emmylou’s car, so much like it that, telling Kit to wait in the car, she walked back and looked in.
She could see Emmylou’s ragged tan sweater on the front seat, no mistaking the tear in the sleeve. The presence of the two familiar cars there at the hospital unsettled her. Uneasily she returned to the car, where Kit was standing on the dashboard, peering out. “Debbie’s car, and Emmylou’s?” Kit said. “What’s that about?” And neither of them could answer.
Opening her small leather backpack, Ryan watched Kit climb in and curl up at the bottom. Kit didn’t like this pack because she couldn’t see out, like the big canvas one with the net insets, but to Ryan the oversized purse seemed less obvious. She buckled the flap loosely enough so Kit could crawl out if she had to, she would never confine any of the cats beyond escape. “Smile for Pedric,” she said, “he needs you now, even more than Pan does.” She slung the pack over her shoulder. “Who knows,” she said, “maybe Pan will get some sense and change his macho mind, maybe he’ll look at your side of the argument.”
Kit didn’t answer.
“Maybe,” Ryan said, locking the Mercedes, “if Kate describes her journey in more detail, if she tells him more graphically exactly why she will never, ever return to the Netherworld, maybe he’ll listen. Maybe,” she said, “he’ll think a little more about the dangers to his beautiful lady.” Heading for the elevators, stepping in and pushing the button for the main level, she took her phone from her pocket so she could talk with Kit in public looking perfectly natural. Stepping out of the elevator onto the open terrace, she crossed to the glass doors, moved inside into the vast, airy court with its sun dome and pond, its information desk and cafeteria, its light-filled corridors leading away to the various hospital wings. The hospital walls were made of white concrete in a bas-relief pattern that made her think of Aztec monuments, the occasional paintings hanging against them offering rich islands of color, oils and watercolors by well-known local artists, dating back into the la
st century. The smell of coffee and of onion soup rose sharply from the cafeteria kitchen. A man stood beside the pond half turned away seeming to watch the red, black, and white fish swimming aimlessly, but in fact he was watching her, a furtive sideways glance. Did she know him? The back of his neck was so white he must have only recently decided to change his hairstyle. Pale cheeks and chin, too, when he turned.
But he was no one she knew, and she headed past the fishpond, for the far stairs that descended to the ICU, hoping she could slip Kit into Pedric’s room without getting caught. The nurses in the ICU stuck pretty close to their patients. They’d pushed their luck enough, up in Santa Cruz. Their own Peninsula Hospital, being larger, seemed somehow more intimidating. Who knew what contempt a furry feline visitor, discovered in the ICU against all bureaucratic regulations, would stir among the medical staff—what lack of sympathy that would generate for a needful patient?
26
RYAN DESCENDED THE stairs, not talking to her hidden passenger even with the ruse of her cell phone. The scrutiny of that man by the pond had made her edgy. Light from the main pavilion shone from behind her down the wide stairs; she imagined Kit peering out beneath the leather flap at the sunny vistas and at the paintings spaced along the walls, oils and watercolors, many of the bright California coast. At the bottom of the stairs she followed the signs through a long waiting room; three women sat at a little round table at the far end, all talking at once. Passing them, she moved on down the hall to the ICU. As she entered, no one paid any attention to her, the nurses were all busy with patients or at the computers. When she found Pedric’s glass cubicle, the clear doors and the canvas curtain were wide open. His hospital bed was empty, the white covers neatly turned back. When she turned, a slim, dark-haired nurse stood behind her, green scrubs, gold earrings, hair sleeked into a bun at the back.
“Where’s Pedric? Mr. Greenlaw? I thought he was in room 7.”
“You are . . .”
“Ryan Flannery,” she said. “I’m a friend, I’m on his health care directive.” Did they keep lists of those permitted in the ICU? The nurse moved to a desk within the open nurses’ station, peered into a lighted screen and pushed a few keys, then glanced up at Ryan. “Mr. Greenlaw is having an MRI. Later today, sometime after he returns, he’ll be moved over to the west wing, into a room there.”
“Why is that? He’s not worse?”
“Oh, no, his own doctor wants a few more tests, that’s all. And he wants the surgeon to go ahead with the arthroscopy on his knee, for the torn meniscus. That’s usually an outpatient procedure, but with the other complications, Dr. Bailey wants it done while he’s here, wants him to stay for at least a day or two.”
“Can you tell me where the new room will be? What number?”
“We don’t have a number yet, they’re still cleaning the rooms. If you want to come back in, say, an hour, we should know.”
Ryan nodded, and left the ICU, glancing in at the rows of bedridden patients, each tethered to their iron bed like a prisoner, she thought dourly. Heading for the waiting room, she thought that Pedric must not have known he would be having another scan and then would be moved, or he wouldn’t have called the house asking for Kit.
In the lounge she chose a love seat as far from the three noisy women as she could. The room was furnished with dark rattan chairs, small rattan tables, and three leather love seats. Potted schefflera plants the size of small trees cast the room in gentle shadows. The place smelled of coffee, from an urn sitting on a console against the longer wall. Paper cups, a basket full of artificial creamer and fake sweetener, all the accompaniments a health-conscious hospital would want to furnish. Setting the backpack down beside her on the cushion of the love seat, she fished out her cell phone. The pack shifted only slightly as Kit peered out the top, scowling at the boisterous women, at their frantic exchange as each tried to get in one more word. “Why do women go on like that,” Kit whispered, “tearing their husbands apart? You don’t do that, none of my human friends do that.”
Ryan shrugged, holding her cell phone to her ear. “You said a few things about Pan,” she pointed out.
Kit said nothing. Inside the pack, she curled up again, closed her eyes, and tucked her nose under her paw. Maybe, Ryan thought, after her long and arduous night she would sleep now, would drift off into happier dreams and would wake less angry. Ryan closed her own eyes, but the women’s too-loud voices racketed into her thoughts as sharp as hail on a metal roof; when she did doze off, her dreams were filled with fog and craggy cliffs, with the gleam of a coyote’s eyes and the sharp smell of gunpowder, with regret at the kill but with deep satisfaction that Kit was safe.
WHEN VIC CAME down from the cafeteria into the ER, the nurses were too busy to pay attention to him. He moved on past the nurses’ station glancing into each glass cubicle trying to look like he knew where he was going. He walked the entire square, all four sides, but Birely was not in any of the rooms. At last, revving up his nerve, he asked a nurse.
“I’m his neighbor, I stopped in to see how he’s doing.”
The little blonde was young, her hair tumbled up atop her head like a bird’s nest and secured with a strip of white bandage. “Mr. Miller just returned from surgery, he’s over in the ICU. They repaired his nose. It’ll be some time, after that heals and his breathing’s steadier, that he’ll be ready for surgery to remove the spleen.”
This had to be more than the nurses were supposed to tell a stranger, and Vic smiled at her in a friendly way. “Sounds like he’s getting good care. I’ll stop over there a little later, then, when he’s feeling stronger.”
Leaving the ER, he had a time finding his way to the ICU. The halls led every which way, and many of the heavy double doors were locked. By the time he found Birely his hands were sweating with nerves. The layout was pretty much the same as the ER, big room maybe fifty feet square, nurses’ station in the middle fenced off by open counters with their ever-present computers.
Big chrome machine on the counter near him with spigots for hot and cold water, another machine for brewed coffee, regular and decaffeinated, just like a fancy café. Again he circled the nurses’ station but when at last he found Birely there was too much traffic around him, nurses moving in and out of the other rooms. Beneath the white blanket, Birely looked small and weak. He had a white bandage across his nose, a tube sticking out of each nostril so he could breathe, and the usual IV tube attached at his wrist, held in place by heavy tape. His eyes were closed, as if he slept. Even as Vic watched, a nurse moved past him and inside followed by a white-coated doctor. Vic glanced at them casually and stepped on along as if heading for a room around the corner. Damn place was crawling with doctors and several of them glanced at him, looking him over as if he had no business there. He moved along paying no attention to them, as businesslike as he could manage, until an older nurse stopped him, an overweight redhead in blue scrubs, braces on her teeth, asked what patient he was looking for. He gave her Michael Emory’s name. She carried a trench coat over her arm, and a brown leather purse as if she were headed home. Stepping to a computer, she said Michael Emory was over in the ER, and she told him how to get there. She was pretty nice, she didn’t treat him like scum. It had paid to get cleaned up and wear expensive clothes. It was nearly five, and he was sure the shift had already changed. Eight to four, four to twelve, midnight to eight, that was the way most places broke up their time. He waited until he saw the redhead leave, hurrying down the hall carrying her trench coat and jingling her car keys. When he was sure no one was looking, he slipped into an empty room where he could see they hadn’t cleaned up yet, bedsheets wadded in a heap in the middle of the mattress, trash can overflowing with blue plastic pads of some kind and lengths of used tubing. Metal table cluttered with pieces of bloody gauze and used tape, and two used syringes with no needles in them.
He found the rubber-glove dispenser on the wall beside the door, pull
ed a pair from the section marked LARGE, worked one onto his right hand, and dug into the trash. When he couldn’t find a syringe he turned to the hazardous-waste bin, which was also attached to the wall.
The first three syringes were useless, just the blunt plastic end. Digging deeper, he found one that someone hadn’t broken off the needle. Retrieving it, he hoped to hell he wouldn’t pick up some kind of lethal disease that’d put him in the ER or leave him sick and helpless.
Well, hell, if he didn’t pull this off he’d be looking at worse than a hospital bed, looking at a lumpy metal cot behind steel bars. If the cops went nosing around Emmylou’s after she’d called the ambulance, if she told them she’d had a break-in and they were camping up there, and the cops came up here to the hospital asking Birely questions, and the dumb little twerp started talking about the money, that would put him on the hot seat. Cops picked up even one fingerprint in that stone shack, ran it through the system, they’d have his whole damn record.
Dropping the syringe in his pocket, he left the ICU still trying to look casual. Made his way out to the stairs, thinking to wait a while until maybe there was less action in there and until people forgot they’d seen him looking in the rooms. He was passing the waiting room to the ICU when he saw her again, that dark-haired woman contractor sitting right there only a few feet from him, and he stepped back out of sight.
She sat in there drinking a cup of coffee and talking on her cell phone. Sounded like she was talking to a carpenter, going on about door sizes and the delivery of some kind of flooring. She sat turned away from him, and silently he slipped on by. What was she doing here?
Well, hell, people got sick. Birely didn’t have a corner on the market. He moved on down a long hall to another part of the hospital thinking to wait a while until people forgot about him, then go back and take care of Birely. He knew he was putting it off, he told himself he was being cautious, that he wasn’t scared. He wandered the halls until he’d got himself thoroughly lost again and began to feel shaky.
Cat Bearing Gifts Page 19
