one who cares. I need you.'
38
The flower woman was setting up at her station in the shade across the street from Our Lady, her pipe clenched between her teeth. The groundskeeper prowled the boulevard, a growling Weed Eater clutched in his hands.
'Here's the police gonna come arrest you, old witchy woman!' he screamed as Annie turned in the drive. He charged at the Jeep. 'Police girl! You gonna get her dis time or what?'
'Not me!' Annie called, driving past.
She parked the Jeep and, with the scarf and brooch in her pocketbook, headed for the building. If Pam had shown Renard's gifts to anyone, it would have been Lindsay. Annie hoped she was improved enough to tell her whether or not the things Renard had given her were the same tokens of affection being recycled to a new object of fixation.
The hospital was bustling with morning rounds for meals and medications. The strange plastic smell of antiseptics commingled with toast and oatmeal. The clang of meal trays and bedpans accented the hushed conversations and occasional moans as Annie walked down the halls.
The long, sleepless night hung heavy on her shoulders. The day stretched out in front of her like eighty miles of bad road. She would have to face an interview with the detective assigned to her shooting incident, and had already concocted a worst-case scenario in which Chaz Stokes caught the case and she would have to go to the sheriff and ask Stokes to be removed because she not only believed he was a suspect, but she also thought he could be a rapist and a murderer. She wouldn't have to worry about Stokes or anyone else killing her. She'd never make it out of Gus Noblier's office alive.
For a second or two she tried again to imagine Stokes sneaking up to her apartment to nail a dead cat to her wall, but she couldn't see it. He might have had the temperament for it, but she couldn't believe he would take the risk. She couldn't imagine anyone in the SO would.
Who then? Who could have slipped into the store, found those stairs, made it up to her apartment and down again unnoticed?
Renard had been to the Corners to leave gifts for her- twice. Fanchon hadn't noticed him either time. If he had stalked Pam, he'd done so without detection.
Annie turned the corner to the ICU, and stepped directly into the path of Stokes.
His scowl was ferocious. He descended on her like a hawk, clamping a hand on her forearm and driving her away from the traffic flow in the hall.
'What the fuck are you doing here, Broussard?'
'Who put you in charge of visitors? I came to see my real estate agent.'
'Oh, really?' he sneered. 'Is she showing you something in a nice little two-bed room on the second floor?'
'She's an acquaintance and she's in the hospital. Why shouldn't I see her?' Annie challenged.
'Because I say so!' he barked. 'Because I know you ain't nothing but trouble, Broussard. I told you to stay the hell away from my cases.' His grip tightening on her arm, he pushed her another step toward the corner. 'You think I just like to hear myself talk? You think I won't come down on you like a ton of bricks?'
'Don't threaten me, Stokes,' Annie returned as she tried to wrench her arm free. 'You're in no position to-'
Alarms sounded at the ICU desk.
'Oh, shit!' someone yelled. 'She's seizing! Call Unser!'
Two nurses dashed for a room. Lindsay Faulkner's room.
Jerking free of Stokes, Annie rushed to the room and stared in horror at the scene. Faulkner's arms and legs were flailing, jerking like a marionette on the strings of a mad puppet master. A horrible, unearthly wail tore from her, accompanied by the shrieks of the monitors. Three nurses swarmed around her, trying to restrain her. One grabbed a padded tongue blade from the nurse server and worked to get it in Faulkner's mouth.
'Get an airway!'
'Got it!'
A doctor in blue scrubs burst past Annie into the room, calling, 'Diazepam: 10-milligram IV push!'
'Jesus H.,' Stokes breathed, pressing in close behind Annie. 'Jesus Fucking Christ.'
Annie glanced at him over her shoulder. His expression was likely no different from hers-shock, horror, anxious anticipation.
Another monitor began to bleat in warning and another round of expletives went up from the staff.
'She's in arrest!'
'Standard ACLS,' Unser snapped, thumping the woman on the chest. 'Phenytoin: 250 IV push. Phenobarbital: 55 IV push. I want a chem 7 and blood gases STAT! Tube and bag her!'
'She's in fine v-fib.'
'Shit!'
'Charge it up!'
One of the nurses spun around, a tube of blood in her hands. 'I'm sorry, we need you people out of here.' She herded Annie and Stokes from the door. 'Please go to the waiting area.'
Stokes's face was chalky. He rubbed his goatee. 'Jesus H.,' he said again, pulling his porkpie hat off and crumpling it with his fingers.
Annie hit him in the chest with both hands. 'What did you do to her?'
He looked as if she'd smacked him across the face with a dead carp. 'What? Nothing!'
'You come out of her room and two minutes later this happens!'
'Keep your voice down!' he ordered, reaching for her arm.
She jerked away from him. What if Stokes was the rapist? What if he was something worse?
'I went in to talk to her,' he said, as they entered the waiting area. 'She wasn't awake. Ask the nurse.'
'I win.'
'Christ, Broussard, what's the matter with you? You think I'm a killer?' he demanded, a flush creeping up his neck. 'Is that what you think? You think I'd walk into a hospital and kill a woman? You're out of your fucking mind!'
He sank down onto a chair and hung his long hands and the smashed hat between his knees.
'Maybe you oughta check yourself into this place,' he said. 'You need your damn head examined. First you go after Fourcade, now me. You're some kinda goddamn lunatic. You're like that crazy broad in
'She was better yesterday,' Annie insisted. 'I talked to her. Why would this happen?'
Stokes gave a helpless shrug. 'Do I look like George Fucking Clooney? I ain't no ER doc. It was some kind of seizure, that's all I know. Jesus, somebody bashed her head in with a telephone. What'd you expect?'
'If she dies, it's murder,' Annie declared.
Stokes pushed to his feet. 'I told you, Broussard-'
'It's murder,' she repeated. 'If she dies as a result of her injuries, the assault becomes a murder rap.'
'Well, yeah.' He dragged a jacket sleeve across his sweating forehead.
Annie stepped toward Faulkner's room again, trying to get a glimpse of her between the bodies of her rescue crew. The electric buzz and snap of the defibrillator was followed by another barrage of orders.
'Epinephrine and lidocaine! Dobutamine-run it wide open! Labs?'
'Not back.'
'Charging!'
'Clear!'
'Flat line!'
'We're losing her!'
