Passage

get back to the ER.”

“But—” Maisie said.

“Promise,” Richard said. “Cross your heart.”

“Okay,” she said grudgingly. She smiled at Vielle. “I’ll talk to the lady who empties the wastebaskets and the guy who runs the dust vacuum thing,” she said. “And rest,” she added hastily.

“And drink your Ensure,” Richard said.

“What if nobody else was in the room and heard them?” Maisie asked.

“Maybe Mrs. Aspinall will change her mind,” Kit said.

“That’s right,” Richard said, though he didn’t believe it for a moment. Her only concern was her husband, and his only concern was survival. And nothing, nothing could make him go back there, not even to save Joanna.

“But what if she doesn’t change her mind?” Maisie said.

“Then we have to hope the lab technician knows something,” Richard said. “Do you know his name, Maisie?”

“Yeah,” Maisie said. “I saw it on his badge thing when he bent over to stick the needle in my IV line, and —”

“Maisie,” Richard said sternly. “No stalling. You promised.”

“I promised Vielle,” Maisie said, and at his look, “Okay. Rudy Wenck. But what if he doesn’t know anything?”

“Then we’ll find somebody who did,” he said.

“But what if there isn’t anybody?” Maisie persisted. “What if nobody else heard them talking?”

I don’t know, he thought. I don’t know. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said cheerfully, thinking, You sound just like Maisie’s mother.

And speak of the devil. Here she was, standing in the doorway with a yellow stuffed duck, a beribboned video-shaped package, and a blindingly bright smile. “Dr. Wright!” Mrs. Nellis said. “And Ms. Gardiner. Just the people I needed to see.” She beamed at Vielle. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“This is Nurse Howard,” Richard said.

“She works in the ER,” Maisie said.

“We were just leaving.” Kit and Vielle took the cue and started for the door.

“Oh, but you can’t go yet, Dr. Wright,” Mrs. Nellis said.

Well, now he knew where Maisie had gotten it from. He nodded at Kit and Vielle to keep going and said, “I’m afraid I’ve got a meeting.”

“This will only take a minute,” Mrs. Nellis said, setting the present and duck on the foot of the bed. She began rummaging through her purse. “I’ve got the project release forms and the minor-child permissions for you, all signed and notarized.” She pulled out a manila envelope and handed it to Richard. “My lawyer is working on a living will and resuscitation orders. Has he talked to you?”

“Yes,” Richard said. “I really have to go.”

“Can I open my present now?” Maisie piped up, and Mrs. Nellis, momentarily distracted, moved to get her the package.

Good girl, Richard thought, and ducked out, but not fast enough. Mrs. Nellis caught him just outside the door. “I wanted to ask you about Nurse Howard,” she said eagerly. “You said she worked in the ER, and I assume that means she’s an expert on coding procedures. Is she working with you on the treatment? Does that mean you’ve had a breakthrough?”

“No,” Richard said.

“But you’re getting close, right?”

“Mommy, come here!” Maisie said excitedly. “I can’t get my video open!” Mrs. Nellis glanced toward the room, and then back at Richard, hesitating. “Mommy! I want to watch it right away!”

“Excuse me,” Mrs. Nellis said and hurried into the room. Richard didn’t hesitate. He hotfooted it down the hall. Behind him he could hear Mrs. Nellis asking, “You like your video, sunbeam?” and Maisie saying, “I love it! Heidi is my favoritest movie in the whole world!”

Kit and Vielle were waiting for him outside the CICU. “We thought we were going to have to send the cavalry in after you,” Kit said.

“No, Maisie rescued me. At considerable sacrifice to herself.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Vielle asked.

“Kit, I want you to go through Carl Aspinall’s transcripts again and see if there’s anything in them about a sword or…” he cast around, trying to think of what else you could be stabbed with, “…a letter-opener or something. And then see if there’s any reference to a stabbing the night of the Titanic. Vielle, see if you can find out who all was on four-east that day. I’ll talk to Rudy Wenck.”

“I thought Maisie said he didn’t remember hearing anything,” Vielle said.

“She did,” Richard said, “but one thing I learned from Joanna is that people remember more than they think they do. And he has to have heard or seen something.”

But Rudy Wenck, even when pressed, didn’t remember anything. “He was scared of my drawing blood, that’s all I remember, like I was trying to kill him or something. He seemed kind of out of it.”

“Can you be more specific?” Richard asked.

“No, just, you know, kind of wild-eyed and scared.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No.”

“What about Dr. Lander? Did she say anything?”

“Yeah, she asked me if I wanted her to move, and I said, no, I could do it from that side.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“To me?”

“Or to Mr. Aspinall, anything at all.”

He shrugged. “She might have. I wasn’t really listening.”

“If you could try to remember,” Richard said, “it’s very important.”

He shook his head. “People are always talking when I’m in the room. I’ve learned to just shut it out.”

Guadalupe was even less helpful. “I didn’t know Joanna had even been in to see him,” she said.

“But you saw her on the floor that day?” Richard asked.

She nodded. “I’d paged her because we couldn’t find Mr. Aspinall’s wife and I thought Joanna might know where she was. She didn’t, but she came up to the floor, and I talked to her for a couple of minutes. She asked about Mr. Aspinall’s condition, and she suggested a couple of places his wife might be, and then I assumed she left.”

“But you didn’t see her leave?”

“No. Things were so crazy right then. We didn’t expect Co—Mr. Aspinall to regain consciousness. He’d been steadily sinking for several days, and then suddenly, he popped awake and we all started running around trying to find his wife and his doctor, so it’s entirely possible Joanna was here. Why is it important?”

He explained. “Did Mr. Aspinall say anything to you about what he experienced while he was in the coma?”

“No. I asked him, because he’d flailed around so much—”

Drowning, Richard thought. He was drowning.

“—and he’d cry out. Mostly it was after we’d had to do something, like redo his IV, and I wondered if he was aware of what we were doing, but he said, no, there wasn’t anybody else there, he was all alone.”

“Did he say where ‘there’ was?”

She shook her head. “Just talking about it seemed to upset him. I asked him if he’d had bad dreams—a lot of our coma patients remember dreaming—but he said no.”

Because it wasn’t a dream, Richard thought.

“Have you tried talking to Mr. Aspinall?” Guadalupe asked.

“He says he doesn’t remember anything.”

She nodded. “He was on a lot of drugs, which can really mess up your memory, and comas are funny. Some patients remember hearing voices and being aware of being moved or intubated, and then others can’t remember anything.”