by Diane Noble
I probed my forehead with my right hand and winced when I reached my left temple. It felt like someone had gone after me with a baseball bat.
I looked up at the IV, considering what was running through my veins. If this was La Vida Pura, it might be poison. But if this was La Vida Pura, why would they bother to take care of the head wound? Knowing their record, all they needed was to give me a giant injection of vitamin butterfly.
Or they could have finished me off in the ocean.
Then it all came rushing back to me. The gunshots. The boat. Max!
I looked around for the buzzer to call for a nurse. Found it. Pressed it frantically. Then I looked toward the door and saw a guard just outside. All I could see was a few inches of his right shoulder and torso, but I could tell he was in uniform. Playa Negra police. I breathed easier.
A young, dark-haired woman brushed past him and hurried to my bedside. She spoke in rapid-fire Spanish, and I said, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
She stepped closer. “Señora, I speak a little English. How can I help you?”
“Where is the boy? Max?”
“I’m sorry. No one by that name was brought in.”
I turned my head away, remembering the blood. He didn’t make it.
“There was another man who came in at the same time.”
Great. If it was one of the assailants, I’d get out of this bed, no matter what shape I was in, and give him a taste of some vitamin butterfly of my own. The nurse touched my shoulder, and I wearily turned back to her.
“This other man’s name is Maxmillian. Señor Maxmillian Pribble. He is also from your country.” She pronounced the double l with the Spanish y sound, but I knew who she meant. I had never heard such a beautiful sound.
I grinned. “That would be him. Is he okay?”
“Never better,” Max said from the doorway. He wore a hospital gown and was holding the back closed with one hand, maneuvering his portable IV with the other. Even so, he kept his back to the wall as he came into the room. He was much too tall for the baby blue gown they’d put him in, and his knobby knees stuck out from underneath.
He almost fell into the chair by my bed, looking weary beyond words. “So, what’s new?” He gave me a weak smile.
I laughed. “Some vacation we’re having.” I paused, solemn thoughts penetrating the temporary emotional wall I’d already erected. “What happened? Do you know how we got here?”
“I was told that the Interpol liaison was part of the rescue, and she’ll be here later to fill us in on the gory details. All I know is that the harbor patrol was out looking for us, heard the gunshots, and headed there just in time to save us.”
“Sound amplified over water,” I said.
“Yeah.” He looked thoughtful, probably thinking the same thing I was. That amplified sound had almost done us in. It had also saved us.
“How about the assailants? Were they caught?”
“They got away clean. Harbor patrol boats roared to the rescue with spotlights, sirens, all the bells and whistles going full force. Gave the bad guys plenty of warning they were coming.”
“Also saved our lives. A few seconds longer and …” I didn’t finish. He knew. “Max, were you hurt? I thought I saw blood.”
“Nah, just dehydrated they tell me. The blood was yours.” I must have looked confused, because he added, “Grazed,” and tapped his temple.
I didn’t have time to contemplate the difference a fraction of an inch would have made.
There was a knock on the doorjamb. “May I come in?”
We both turned to see Monica Oliverio standing in the doorway. The nurse scurried past her on the way out.
“Of course,” I said. “Please do.”
She pulled up a chair from the empty bed space next to mine. “Do you feel like talking?”
“Other than feeling like I’ve been run over by a 26.9 ton combat earthmover, yeah, I’m ready.” Ms. Oliverio might have been instrumental in saving my life, but I was still annoyed with her.
“How are you feeling? You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”
No kidding. “It’s good to be back among the living. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Amen,” Max said.
She gave him a nod, then focused on me again. “You’ve been filled in on what happened out there?”
“How you came to the rescue, yes.” I should have sounded more grateful, but the truth was, I wouldn’t have been out there—endangering my life and Max’s—if the authorities had paid attention to what I had discovered about the grand Dr. Baptiste and acted like they were the least bit interested.
“Look, I know you’re upset about what happened at the meeting yesterday, but we had no reason to believe there was any truth in what you told us.”
“And do you now? Have reason to believe me, that is?” Now that I’ve almost had my head blown off? The more I thought about what we’d been through, the madder I got.
“Someone thinks you’re too close to the truth. In my book, if it’s Baptiste, then he’s just dug his own grave.”
I tried to lift my head, grimaced, and fell back against my pillow. Ms. Oliverio hurried to give me a sip of ice water from the pitcher on the bedside table. I took a sip, enjoying the moment.
“We’ve met again—the same group that convened yesterday—and we’re taking preliminary steps to do a full investigation of Dr. Baptiste, including a visit to his island.”
“Preliminary steps? What does that mean?”
“In Costa Rica, as in the U.S., a search warrant is required. We have to prove just cause.” She paused. “We’ll need to depose you about what you overheard in the clinic. It’s not much, especially because there are no other witnesses, but it’s a start for building our case.”
“What about the people who tried to kill us yesterday?”
“There’s no proof that Baptiste was involved. And how would he have known you were on to him? We have no direct link from you to his actions. My gut feeling is yeah, the guy is somehow linked to all this, but there’s no concrete proof. We’re building this thing on hearsay.”
“I was there,” Max said. “So that part of it is no longer hearsay. I’m a witness.”
Ms. Oliverio turned to him. “You were where?”
He glanced at me, then back to her. “La Vida Pura. The night Baptiste was telling a patient’s mother that he was keeping his daughter alive through—how did he say it?—through ‘unorthodox medical practices.’ ”
Ms. Oliverio frowned at me. “Is this true?”
I nodded. “I didn’t want to implicate him in our own rather unorthodox means of getting to the clinic or disclose that he was with me when I found Adam Hartsfield’s note.” I paused. “I went to see Adam that night to tell him what we had discovered. That’s when I found he’d obviously made some discoveries of his own—‘It’s Baptiste.’ ”
She looked thoughtful, then said, “That helps, but what you—what we—have put together is still based on hearsay. But I’ll do what I can. I promise.” She stood to leave.
“One more thing,” I said.
“Yes?”
“I want to go to the island with you. I need to see for myself what Baptiste has done to the girls.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “What he’s done to them in order to keep his own daughter alive.”
She stared at me for a moment without speaking, then said, “You are in grave danger, Ms. MacIver. You may not take the threat seriously, but believe me, we do. If Baptiste knows you’re with us, and if he is indeed behind some sort of ghoulish plot, your presence could send him over the edge. Your life would be at risk. We can’t properly investigate and watch over you as well. I hope you understand.”
She stepped closer to the bed. “The U.S. government is breathing down our necks because of yesterday’s little incident.” She glanced at Max, then back at me. “Suffice it to say, we are committed to keeping you both safe until the investigation is completed, arrests
made, and you are safely back in your own country. Whichever comes first.”
I lifted my head from the pillow, trying not to wince. “I understand all that, and now that you’ve said what you needed to, let me say this: I still want to go.”
Ms. Oliverio surprised me by laughing. “Anybody ever tell you how stubborn you are?”
I smiled. “You might ask my kids.”
“One more thing,” she said from the doorway. “Adam Hartsfield is here—in ICU. He is still on life support, but his vital signs are stabilizing.”
I fell back against my pillow. “Thank you,” I said. “That’s good news.”
But her somber expression didn’t match the news. There was something she wasn’t telling me.
I must have slipped into a dreamless sleep right after Max and Ms. Oliverio left my room. When I awoke after what felt like only a few minutes, beyond the window I could see that the sun was on its downward arc. I had obviously been out for hours.
I tried to sit up. The pain was less intense than before, so I swung my feet over the side of the bed and padded to the bathroom. I peered into the mirror and almost laughed at my image. Feeling like I’d been run over by an earthmover was one thing; looking like I’d been run over was something else entirely. I lifted the gauzy bandage, touched the bruise around my eye, and drew in a sharp breath.
My ball cap was often reserved for bad hair days, but it was going to take more than a ball cap to camouflage this shiner. Besides, my favorite cap had probably floated all the way to South America by now.
Behind me, the door to my room was open a crack, and I froze, remembering Ms. Oliverio’s warnings. The door was closed when I awoke, and I assumed that the guard was still outside. What if he wasn’t?
I backed farther into the bathroom, closing the door. I stood with my back to it, almost afraid to breathe.
“Harriet?” came a voice from the other side of the door. “You in there?” The words were followed by staccato taps.
Relief flooded through me. Only one person I knew would be so bold as to knock on an ailing person’s bathroom door.
I threw open the door. “Hey, Tange.”
She stared at me, clearly shocked at my appearance. Finally she said, “You’re looking good, Harriet.”
“So are you.” I looked pointedly at the cast covering her broken ankle.
We both laughed, then she started to cry, and I wrapped my arms around her. “We’ll find her, Tange. I promise you.”
“Or die trying,” she said, pulling back to blow her nose. “You look like you’re halfway there.”
“Did you hear the details?”
She nodded. “Everyone feels terrible about it. Dr. Williams and Zoë Shire picked me up at the airport this morning. They filled me in—at least on what they knew.” She hobbled to the bed and patted the mattress. “You look like you’ve been run over by a Mack truck. Better climb back in bed, then you can tell me everything.”
“Earthmover,” I amended, “make that a combat earthmover.”
She laughed as she dropped into a chair and propped her crutches nearby. As she wiped her eyes again, I noticed how her laughter and tears seemed indistinguishable from each other. We’d known each other for decades. I knew of her heartache when her marriage broke up and she faced raising Carly by herself. She knew about mine when Hollis’s plane went down. She knew of the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, yet she had never printed a word of it when she covered the news of his death.
On our mantels we had matching photographs of Joey and Carly taken on their prom night—Joey in his black tux, Carly in a fuchsia tux of her own, the silk-lapelled jacket draped over a peach-lace camisole, her short red hair spiked and gleaming.
I studied Tangi as she struggled to get her emotions in hand, thinking how like Carly she was. Her daughter had let her hair grow out, and now it was Tangi who wore the messy, bird’s-nest spikes. But their smiles had always been the same. Dazzling. Until now.
It would be some time before Tangi smiled that way again. Right now the only smile she seemed capable of was filled with soul-weary sorrow. She looked like she hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours. With her cast and crutches and my bandaged head and black eye, we made quite a pair.
“Tell me everything that’s happened … everything you know about the case, everything you suspect,” she said.
And I did.
“You’ve put this all together, Harriet,” she said. “And already you’ve risked your life. Thank you.”
“I’m going to the island when they go out with the search warrant. I want to be there when they arrest Baptiste.”
She hesitated. “It’s still not all that certain, is it?” I must have registered my surprise because she quickly added, “I spoke to the Playa Negra authorities before I came to see you. They are still looking at other suspects.” Her eyes filled. “Neither option is good. They’re looking at ‘human trafficking,’ as they call it. You’re looking at medical experimentation …” Her voice broke and she looked away. “I’m not going to think the unthinkable. I’m not going to consider what the local police told me. I’m pinning all my hopes on your hunch, Harriet.”
Unspoken were the words don’t let me down. I could see the pleading in her eyes.
“I can’t be wrong,” I said softly. “I can’t be.” She met my gaze, and I felt every burden of her heart weighing heavily on mine.
By ten the following morning, the two Costa Rican doctors who had admitted me—one a heart specialist, the other the ER doctor—signed my release. I asked the ER doctor to clear the way for me to visit Adam.
My guard, a young man named Rodolfo, was at my side as I made my way to ICU. I asked Rodolfo to wait in the hall, and he grumpily nodded his okay. I left him standing woodenly next to Adam’s armed guard who sported an identical uniform.
I stepped through the door, then stopped to let my eyes adjust to the dim light. After a moment I walked over to Adam’s bed, trying to ignore the beeps and whirs of the monitors he was hooked up to. He was pale, deathly so, and his breathing came in shallow puffs. He lay utterly still. He was on an IV, but not a respirator. For that I was thankful.
I touched his forearm just above his wrist. “Adam, it’s Harriet. You don’t remember, but I’m the one who found you. And I found your note. You’re quite the hero in my book. You’ve put all this together, and I know you’re right. I’ll give you all the details when you wake up.”
I smiled down at him. “You wouldn’t believe all that’s happened. I really misconnected the dots about you and that morpho. You gave me quite a fright. That dot business of mine may not be so reliable after all.
“But I’ll tell you all about it later. You’ve got to get strong fast and wake up. It’s not fair. I’m having to keep all this intrigue and excitement to myself. And hey, I’d really rather be sharing it with you. After all, you’re the expert.”
I patted his arm. “I don’t want to wear you out with our conversation. But I’ll be back to chat tomorrow. It’s not often I don’t have to worry about being interrupted.” I chuckled and glanced at his face, hoping to see one of those tiny twitches at the corner of his mouth.
Nothing.
My eyes stung, and I started to turn away, then stopped, remembering all those old black-and-white movies with heroes in comas. It was worth a shot. “Hey, big guy,” I said, “if you can hear me, blink an eyelid. Left or right; it doesn’t matter.”
Nothing.
I lifted his hand, held it between both of mine, and squeezed it gently. “Okay, let’s try again. It you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”
I waited, praying for a response. There was nothing but the solid, still warmth of his hand in mine. “That’s okay,” I whispered. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Outside the door to Adam’s room, Rodolfo joined me and we walked to a back entrance of the hospital. Max had been released the night before and had already returned to the Sun Spirit, still at anchor.
The
local authorities had given me the choice of taking accommodations in town or returning to the ship. I chose the ship even though Tangi and Kate Rivers’s parents were staying in Playa Negra. I hadn’t given up hope that I would find Gus.
The students welcomed me like a hero returning from battle. The reception by the Sun Spirit crew and Shepparton faculty was a different matter. I had barely settled into my stateroom when I was summoned to the bridge.
Captain Richter stood waiting for me near the control panel. Dean Williams was next to him, his expression grim. I knew I was in trouble the moment I saw their faces. I was escorted to the captain’s office just behind the bridge. Rodolfo waited just outside the closed door.
I took a seat in front of Richter’s desk. Dean Williams sat to one side and back a ways, legs crossed.
“You endangered the life of one of our student passengers,” the captain said. “He could have died out there.”
“I’m well aware of that, Captain,” I said. “Believe me.”
Dean Williams sat forward. “I think you don’t know, or perhaps aren’t capable of understanding, the gravity of what you did.”
Capable of understanding? As in brain capacity? I felt the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise. I didn’t dare speak for fear of saying something I would regret.
“You have put the entire program at risk,” Williams said. “We could be sued. Max Pribble’s father is an—”
“—an attorney,” I snapped. “I am aware of that as well. He understood the risks. I tried to get him to stay on the ship, but he would have nothing of it.”
“Excuse me, Ms. MacIver,” Williams thundered. “But who is the adult here?”
“Max is legally an adult. I couldn’t stop him from coming.”
“You didn’t have to continue your pursuit of this supposed scheme,” Williams said. Then he dropped his voice to a patronizing tone, which was worse. “I know you meant well. We all heard your reasons. You are certain Dr. Baptiste is behind these unfortunate abductions. You were out to prove you were right—no matter what the authorities concluded. No matter whose life you endangered.”
