Valley of Lights

SIXTEEN

They made a radio check and told me that the helicopter had taken Loretta to the Lincoln Samaritan hospital in the north-west of the city. The patrolman had to wait around for his incident team to arrive and start taking photographs and measurements, but the Deputy gave me a ride down to the nearest truck stop so that I could ask around for someone to take me the rest of the way. They let me have my gun back, as well. Technically it was now up to the bus company if they wanted to pursue the matter – I had, after all, identified myself as a police officer before showing the revolver, and showing it was all that I'd done… no pointing, no threatening, just a hurried attempt to establish my identity at a time of emergency.

It was bullshit and we all knew it, but it would probably get me by.

He took me as far as Rock Springs, just short of the county line, where he flagged down a silver-blue Fury that had a loosely bouncing trunk lid. The driver was in stained kitchen whites, and before he got out I saw him slip on a little paper hat as if to say Hey, I'm a working guy too. The result of the negotiation was that the driver got a warning but no coupon in return for taking me on to the hospital. He drove all the way from there at a steady fifty, and I don't think that we exchanged more than four words in all of that time.

The Lincoln Samaritan was a new hospital, built right out on the northern edge of town to serve the expanding fringe of the city. I walked in the wrong door and couldn't find my way, but was eventually directed towards the surgical facility. Loretta was still in the operating room, I was told by the nurse on desk duty, but I was welcome to wait around. I didn't know whether to take this as good news or bad. Now that I knew she'd come through the helicopter lift, I had to wonder what kind of mess she was in. A part of me didn't even want to be told.

There was a little waiting area with low chairs and unread magazines. I got a coffee from the machine, set it down, and forgot all about it.

I had to face the possibility that he'd taken Georgie. I only hoped that he was bright enough to see that she' d be of more use to him safe and in one piece; maimed and dead, she'd be useless as bait or leverage. If he'd taken her. There could be some other explanation, but I sat there and I tried and I couldn't come up with one.

Where had I gone wrong?

After a while, I wandered back over to the desk. The nurse on station, a trim-looking middle-aged woman, gave me a smile. Things seemed quiet, so it seemed like a good time to get her to talk. I'd already let her know that I was with the police. When it's likely to help, I try to work it into the conversation early.

I said, 'I've got a weird question for you.'

'We get 'em all the time,' she said.

'Say you get somebody brought in dead, and suddenly his eyes open and he's okay. Maybe a guy who'd had an accident, something like a shock that stopped his heart but didn't damage him much. Would that be unusual enough to be news?'

'No,' she said.

'It wouldn't?'

'Nobody here's dead until they get a certificate. Nobody gets a certificate until the medical staff have used up every trick they know. We get people right on the brink, practically shaking hands with the angels, and still we pull them back. Not every day, but it happens.'

I decided to go for broke. 'How about three days ago, early in the afternoon?'

She didn't have to think for more than a moment. 'No,' she said. 'I was here, it was a quiet shift. What's your interest?'

'Just academic. Say somebody down in the morgue climbed out of his drawer and disappeared. Wouldn't that be news?'

'That would be a George Romero movie, and I'd be on the first plane out of here.'

But it was something worth pursuing. After being told that it would be another hour or more before they'd be able to tell me anything about Loretta's condition, I spent the next thirty minutes trying to get the loan of a pool car for the afternoon out of one of the hospital's administrative officers. It was like trying to dig a pebble out of a lump of set concrete, but in the end I managed it. I drove into nearby Peoria and picked up one of those giveaway magazines that are actually thinly-veiled ads for new housing developments; what I really wanted was the list of all the valley's hospitals and their services that I found under the heading of 'Caring for our Lives'. I could have found the basics in the phone book, but this way I got all the background and a map as well.

I was away from the Lincoln Samaritan for more than the hour. When I got back, Loretta was out.

I had to wait around a while longer for the doctor to come out and talk to me; in the absence of any immediate kin, I'd have to suffice. This high-school kid in glasses had taken my arm and was hustling me down the Surgical corridor before I belatedly realised that this was the doctor.

'Okay,' he said. 'She's conscious, but she's well-doped. Tell her she's doing fine, tell her she's still got her looks, and then get yourself out of there.'

They'd wheeled her out into a low-lit recovery room prior to transfer to the intensive care unit. I saw sheets and IVs and machines and, almost as an incidental in the middle of it all, one fragile but recognisable form. They'd fixed her in some kind of body brace that immobilised her head.

I crouched down alongside her. 'Loretta?' I said softly. 'You hear me?'

She took a moment to respond, like somebody swimming up from the depths.

'Nick?' she said.

'It's Alex, Loretta. Don't try to turn your head.' Now that I was closer, I could see the silver screws that were holding the arrangement in place like a crown. I moved around a little so that she'd be able to see me.

'Alex?' she said. 'I'm sorry.'

'That's okay.'

'He found us. I think he'd been waiting. He followed us all the way down.'

I said, 'Did you get a look at him?'

For a moment I thought she hadn't heard, but then she said, 'You were right. I couldn't believe it, but you were. He had a different face, but it was him. He'd thought you were in the jeep, and then he thought you were trying to make a fool of him because you weren't. You've scared him, Alex.'

'Scared him how?'

'He stood over me and he kept asking, how much does he know?' And then she frowned, as her doped memory dredged up something new. 'Then he said he was going to take Georgie… did he, Alex? Did he take her?'

'No,' I said, feeling ashamed of myself. 'No, he didn't.'

'Thank God,' she said, closing her eyes. She was as pale as the sheet beneath her, and I could see a blue pulse of life beating at her temple. 'Is she hurt?'

'She's fine,' I said.

Loretta opened her eyes and looked at me again, and I was afraid that she'd be able to see right through my lie; but the pain and the drugs had clouded what was normally so sharp, and she only said, 'Don't bring her here. I don't want her to see me like this. Tell her… think of something to tell her, Alex.'

'I will,' I said.

God Almighty, I was thinking as I walked away.

Imagine the bill.