Passage

Richard and Kit looked at each other. “Did she say why she wanted to know that?”

Maisie shook her head. “She just said to write them down, so I did.” She reached over to the nightstand, and the line on her heart monitor began to jump.

“Here, let me,” Kit said hastily, coming around the bed. Maisie lay back against her pillow, and the line steadied. Kit opened the drawer. “I don’t see it,” she said.

“It’s inside the Secret Garden box,” Maisie said. Kit picked up the video, slid the tape out, looked in the box and then shook it. A tightly folded piece of paper fell out.

Kit handed it to Maisie, who unfolded it carefully. “Okay, the first one—I listed them by the times they sent them,” she explained. “The first one was at five after twelve. The last one was at two-ten. It sank at two-twenty.” She stopped to take a breath. “Okay, so the first one said, ‘CQD,’ that means, ‘all stations distress,’ ” another breath, “ ‘MGY,’ that means the Titanic,” yet another breath, “and then where they are.” She handed it to Richard.

He stared blankly at the first message on the page, printed in Maisie’s childish hand. “CQD. CQD. MGY 41.46N, 50.14W. CQD. MGY.”

“The Titanic didn’t use SOS as its distress signal?” he asked, hope roaring up in him.

“Joanna asked me that, too,” Maisie said. “They did later on.” She leaned forward to take the paper from him. “Here it is,” she showed him the place, “ ‘MGY SOS,’ at twelve-fifteen.”

SOS. Had Joanna seen the wireless operator tapping out one of those messages and wanted outside confirmation? Or was she trying to find out something else, and the clue was here, in Maisie’s list? But it couldn’t be, because Joanna had never seen it. “Maisie,” he asked, “when you called Joanna, did you tell her about the messages you’d found?”

“No,” Maisie said. “I just told her I’d found them out. I showed her two of them before.”

“Which two?” Richard asked, handing her back the list.

“This one,” she said, pointing, “and this one.”

“ ‘Come quick. Our engine-room flooded up to the boilers.’ And ‘Sinking. Cannot hear for steam.’ ” Joanna had asked Kit about steam and fires on the Titanic that might have caused smoke.

“Had she asked you other things about the Titanic?” Kit asked.

“Yeah, she asked me did it have an elevator and a swimming pool. And about the Carpathia.”

An elderly nurse poked her head in the door. “It’s been five minutes.” Richard nodded. Kit stood up.

“No, you can’t go yet,” Maisie said and set the monitor zigzagging jerkily. “You haven’t told me what you think she found out or how you’re going to figure it out. Please, Nurse Lucille,” she appealed to the nurse, “just two more minutes, and then I’ll rest, I promise.” She lay obediently back against the pillows as if to prove it. “I’ll drink my Ensure.”

“All right,” Lucille said, defeated. “Two more minutes, and that’s all.” She went out.

As soon as she was gone, Maisie sat up. “Okay, tell me,” she said. “You think she went to see somebody and they told her something, don’t you? That’s why you came to see me, because you thought it was me, right? But it wasn’t. I bet it was one of her NDE people, so the first thing we’ve gotta do—”

“We?” Richard said. “You aren’t doing anything except resting.”

“But I could—” Maisie stopped short and slumped back against the pillows.

“Maisie?” he said, glancing anxiously at Kit, who had looked at the monitor and then back at Maisie. Maisie was watching the door.

Lucille came in with a small can with a straw in it. She set it on the tray across Maisie’s bed. “All of it,” she said.

“This is vanilla,” Maisie said. “Don’t you have any chocolate?”

“All of it,” Lucille said and walked out.

“I hate vanilla,” Maisie muttered, and pushed the can to one side. “I bet Mr. Mandrake knows who all the NDE people are. We could go ask—”

“You aren’t going anywhere, Maisie. I mean it,” Richard said, “you’re not going to do anything except rest and get strong so you’ll be ready for your new heart. Kit and I will find out who Joanna was talking to.”

“I wouldn’t be doing anything,” Maisie said, appealing to Kit. “Just asking people when they come to do stuff if they saw her talking to anybody, the guy who empties the wastebasket and stuff. I wouldn’t even get out of bed.” She looked at Richard. “Please. Joanna said I was really good at finding stuff out.”

And you fully intend to go ahead whether I give you permission or not, he thought. He wondered how Joanna would have handled her, and then realized he knew. She had put her to work looking up wireless messages and Pacific islands. “All right,” he said, looking at Kit, who nodded, “you can help, but you have to promise you’ll rest —”

“And do everything your nurses tell you,” Kit said.

“I will,” Maisie said meekly.

“We mean it,” Richard said. “You’re just to ask questions. You’re not to do anything or go anywhere.”

“They won’t let me anyway,” Maisie said disgustedly, and Richard wondered what the story behind that was. “I promise. I’ll just ask questions.”

“All right,” Richard said. “The time we’re looking for is after eleven and before twelve-fifteen.” Maisie started to reach over to the nightstand, and Kit leaped to get a pencil and tablet for her.

“Eleven and twelve-fifteen,” Maisie said, writing them down. “Do you want me to page you when I find out?”

Richard smiled. “You can just call me,” he said. He fished one of his cards out of the pocket of his lab coat.

“What if you’re not there?”

“You can leave a message on my answering machine,” he said, and, at her skeptical look, “I promise I’ll come the minute I get the message.” He looked at his watch.

“We’d better go,” Kit said, standing up. “It’s been two minutes.”

“You can’t go yet. I don’t have your number,” Maisie said. “In case Dr. Wright’s answering machine doesn’t work.”

The master staller at work. She wrote down Kit’s number and then Vielle’s. “But you’re not to call the ER,” Richard said sternly. “They’re very busy. You call me.”

“I will,” Maisie said meekly.

“Now, you drink your Ensure and rest,” Richard said, and they started for the door.

“You know what this is just like?” Maisie said.

“What?”

“It’s just like the Titanic. They had to figure out what happened to the people, only they were dead, so they had to talk to other people and find out what they did and who saw them and stuff.”

Piecing together the tragedy, bit by bit, conversations and glimpses and last words. “Joanna was crazy about you, you know,” Richard said, and Maisie nodded solemnly.

“I knew she wouldn’t just go off and leave me.”

“Are you going to be all right, Maisie?” Kit asked.

“Uh-huh,” Maisie said. “It’s almost time for the magazine lady to come. She goes all over the hospital giving people magazines. I bet she might have seen Joanna. Kit, can you fluff up my pillows before you go?”

It took them another five minutes and Lucille’s finally coming in to get away. “You’re right,” Kit said as they waited for the elevator. “She’s quite a kid.”

“How did you know I should tell her about Joanna?” Richard asked her.

“She looked just like my uncle Pat the day he got the diagnosis,” she said, staring at the closed elevator door. “There are worse things than death.”

“Like letting someone down.”

Kit looked up at him. “We’re not going to let Joanna down. We’re going to decipher her message.”