Michael scribbled his signature with the red Sharpie he still held in his hand.
Bloodred, he thought.
Tina snatched the paper off the desk as if he might yet change his mind. “Thanks,” she tossed back over her shoulder as she disappeared out the door.
Michael picked up the remote and started the footage one more time, once again unable to turn away from the horror unfolding on the screen. He tried to imagine what kind of nightmares the poor kid who found that mess would have for the rest of his life, but already knew what they would be.
Endless replays of the horror he was watching.
A shiver ran through him as he played the clip yet again.
This was no murder of passion by a jealous lover, and this was no random robbery.
This was something only a monster could have done.
A monster who was on the loose right now somewhere in the vastness of Los Angeles.
Tina was right. The public had a right to know. This was a big story.
The phone rang. For a moment Michael thought of letting it ring through to voice mail while he watched the footage one more time, but instead he picked up the receiver. “Hello?” “Hey, sexy.”
Michael smiled and relaxed back into his chair. “Hi, yourself.”
“I’m thinking we should have a drink after work tonight.”
He glanced over at the frozen last frame of carnage on the television screen. “I think I’m going to need more than a drink.” “In that case, how about my place at six-thirty?”
“See you then,” Michael said, and replaced the receiver, making a mental note to call Risa and tell her he’d be home late.
4
CONRAD DUNN FINISHED DICTATING THE DAY’S SURGICAL NOTES, then checked his watch. Two-thirty: plenty of time for the afternoon rounds before heading home.
He paged Twyla to let her know he was on his way, then took the stairs down to the second floor of Le Chateau. As usual, the nurse was already waiting for him in front of the Rose Suite, apparently having once more anticipated his page. As he approached, she attempted a dance step the choreographer she’d been named after would have been ashamed of, and handed him Patricia Rothstein’s chart.
The kind of routine facelift that kept the place going, but in which he had little interest. Still, Patricia Rothstein had as much right to his full attention as anyone else, so he scanned the chart quickly to make sure nothing negative had happened since he’d seen her early this morning, knocked twice on the door, then opened it and walked in. Patricia Rothstein gazed up at him in obvious misery. Bruised eyes and a shock of dark hair were the only things visible amid the bandages that swathed her head.
“How are you doing today?” Conrad asked, resting a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder.
Patricia’s daughter sat in a chair next to her mother’s bed, holding a cup of water with a drinking straw, but the dinner tray was untouched, which didn’t surprise him.
“No appetite?” he asked.
“Not kosher,” the woman mumbled through swollen lips. “Not Atkins.”
Conrad turned to Twyla, who stood just behind him with a clipboard. “Make a note for the kitchen,” he said. “Kosher and lean.” Then he turned back to his patient. “I’m sorry about the confusion. I’ll have a fresh meal brought up right away. How’s your pain level, on a scale of one to ten?”
“Twenty,” the woman said.
Conrad flipped through the pages on her chart. “Well, we can certainly fix that. And tomorrow we’ll get those bandages off your face.”
The woman grunted, and he smiled at the daughter, who smiled back.
Next door in the Magnolia Suite, Conrad found Imee Abeya looking far tinier than the average thirteen-year- old in the big hospital bed. The lower half of her face was lost behind massive white bandages, but her mother — not much larger than Imee — smiled and stood as Conrad entered, taking the doctor’s hand in both of hers and bowing.
Conrad gently disentangled his hand from Mrs. Abeya’s. “How’s our patient this afternoon?”
“She good,” Imelda Abeya said in her recently acquired and still very uncertain English. “Very good.”
“That’s what we want to hear.” He turned to the girl. “Imee, I’m going to take your bandages off now and we’ll see how everything looks, all right?”
The girl nodded, her eyes showing both excitement and fear.
Conrad wheeled over a stool, and as Twyla opened a sterile tray of instruments, he pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. Picking a pair of scissors from the tray, he carefully cut the bandages and gently unwound them. The gauze was stained with a little seepage, but the girl’s bleeding had completely stopped, which was unusual for a cleft palette reconstruction.
He gave Mrs. Abeya an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up before proceeding.
The woman only kept chewing nervously on a knuckle.
Very slowly, Conrad unwrapped the gauze, and bared the repaired face of the young Filipina. Imee’s lips were still bruised and swollen, and a dark scab covered the stitch line from her nose to her lip, but the wound was healing very well. He peered inside the girl’s mouth with a small mirror and even smaller flashlight, then smiled at Imee.
Imee tried to return the smile, wincing when her lips moved.
“Easy,” Conrad cautioned, then turned to Imelda Abeya. “Much better.”
“Ah!
“She’s beautiful,” he said, eyeing Imee appraisingly.
“Beautiful,” the girl whispered.
“I’m going to rebandage this,” Conrad said quietly to Twyla, then went on speaking as he worked. “Keep her on liquids and pain meds for the rest of the night. Tomorrow I’ll have her start on a liquid diet, and she can go home the next day, so Sandra can go ahead and get their plane tickets. Make an appointment for her follow-up with Dr. Sabayan in Manila. Fax him and have him bill the foundation. Arrange for the translator to come tomorrow to explain all the post-op instructions to Mrs. Abeya, and make certain she understands that she must send us good, clear photos in three months.”
As Twyla finished with her notes there was a soft knock on the door and the office manager stepped into the room. “Dr. Dunn?” she said softly.
“I’m with a patient, Sandra,” Conrad said.
The woman bit her lip but didn’t move. “You’re needed in your office right away.”
Conrad Dunn frowned darkly. “I’m with a patient,” he repeated.
“I can finish bandaging,” Twyla offered.
“I’ll do it,” Conrad said. Sandra knew as well as the rest of the staff that he was never to be interrupted when he was with a patient. What was she thinking? “Whatever is in my office can wait five minutes.” Refusing to be hurried by even so much as a second, he carefully finished the bandaging, then smiled at the young girl and checked her IV drip. Only after a few last words with Imelda Abeya did he finally leave the room and head for his office on the third floor.
Sandra was waiting outside his door, her face pale, her expression strained. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she held the door open for him to go in.
A man stood looking out the window at the view that swept down from Le Chateau over the hills above Westwood then on to encompass most of the greater Los Angeles basin. The morning haze had cleared, the outline of Catalina Island was barely visible on the horizon.
“May I help you?” Conrad asked.
