impeding his ability to clear ammonia. The combination left him woozy and mildly disassociated. They gave him a few boluses of saline and called ahead to the pediatric intensive care unit at the UCLA Medical Center. Sam seemed to regain clarity, wearing a grim expression and offering the paramedics one-word responses. The ambulance screamed into the bay, and Tim and Kaitlin jogged beside the gurney as it banged through three sets of double doors and landed in a procedure suite. The ER doc declared Sam stable almost immediately, and Tim and Kaitlin rode up on the elevator with Sam, a nurse, and a resident, Sam looking up at their drawn faces as if he found the gravitas mildly amusing.
Kaitlin kept her hand balled and pressed to her mouth. Finally her worry got the better of her. 'Why are you so calm, Sammy?'
Sam said, 'Because there's nothing I can do.'
They got him set up with a private bed in the PICU, Tim waiting outside in the hall while Kaitlin settled him in. An extensive Mexican family had gathered at the far end of the hall. The kids were playing jacks, and the adults spooned posole out of thermoses and ate it with crisped corn tortillas. Tim wondered how long they'd been there. He grabbed a doctor leaving Sam's room and got the rundown. Sam had significant coagulopathy and elevated ammonia, which meant he was now in full-blown liver failure. The liver team could put in a request to upgrade Sam's status on the transplant list, but there were already two Status Ones ahead of him. His prognosis looked ominous.
Bear brought Tim up a fresh shirt from the gift shop. They checked in with Guerrera at the command post, and then Bear went back to his rig to retrieve some information from the field files. Thomas and Freed showed up, having had no luck with the pursuit. They kept near the elevators, walking tight circles with their cell phones pressed to their ears. Tim sat some more, a set of matte black handcuffs resting against his thigh.
Kaitlin finally came out. She'd pulled her hair back taut into a ponytail and changed into scrubs. She took note of the handcuffs. 'He wants to see you,' she said.
Tim slid the handcuffs back into their belt pouch, stood, and nodded at Thomas and Freed. Thomas squared himself so he was facing Kaitlin.
'Don't go anywhere,' Tim said.
Sam was sweating, sheet thrown back from his bloated legs. His skin, so dry in places that it had cracked, had darkened to an olive-yellow shade.
Tim sat bedside and said, 'Hey, Sam.'
Sam coughed a bit. He sounded dry and raspy. 'Kaitlin's not being all dramatic still, is she?'
'She's doing okay.'
Sam's upper lids were puffy, more jaundiced even than the rest of his face. 'I was thinking…' he said. Tim waited him out. He coughed some more, then said, 'If any of my other organs are any good, maybe some other kid could get 'em so his eyes don't have to turn yellow.'
Tim lowered his head. Took a deep breath. Said, 'Sure, I can have the doctor come talk to you about that.'
'I wanted to tell you before Kaitlin. She's too emotional.'
'I'll make sure she knows what you want.'
Sam scratched his shoulder, leaving red tracks through the flaky skin, and drowsed off. The sleeve of his gown stayed shoved up. High on his flimsy biceps, Tim made out a Magic Marker tattoo, days faded. It was an imitation of Walker's-all yin, no yang. The tattoo was not featured on any of the photos of Walker they'd released to the press, nor in any of Walker's files.
Kaitlin was on the bench where Tim had left her, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She'd loosed her ponytail, her hair falling in sheets, hiding her face. Between her shoes, a few clear drops blurred the tile. She gripped the pager in both hands, just below the fringe of hair. Another tear tapped the floor.
Tim sat down beside her. 'How long have you been in touch with Walker?'
'Just this night.'
Not according to Sam's faded Magic Marker tattoo. Tim clenched his jaw, weighing the variables that had collided. He said, 'Do not lie to me. I'm your friend here for about five more seconds. Then I'm not.'
The anger in his voice snapped Freed's head around up the hall, but Kaitlin kept hers down. Tim counted to five, then pulled the handcuffs out. 'Sam needs you right now. But if you won't cooperate, I'll take you out of here.' He grabbed her right wrist and cinched metal around it.
'We never wanted any part of it,' Kaitlin said quietly. She still hadn't raised her head. Tim keyed the cuff, releasing her wrist. She rubbed it like a weathered con, an instinctive reaction she'd likely picked up from TV. 'He never told me anything specific about what he was up to. He broke into the house a few times to root through Tess's stuff, find clues, I guess, like you. He left when he was ready. Finally I told him he couldn't involve me and Sammy. That we never wanted to see him again.'
'And tonight?'
'I went there to say good-bye. And to let Sammy do the same. I thought everyone deserves a good- bye.'
'He bonded with Sam?'
'Yeah. Despite himself.'
'When's the first time you saw him?'
'The morning after he got out.'
Tim made a noise and sank back in his chair. 'What else do you know? About where he was staying, what he was doing? Anything?'
'I don't know any more than what I saw on the news. He didn't tell me, and I knew better than to ask.' Kaitlin spoke in a monotone. 'He poked around in Tess's room and wanted revenge on the people he thought had killed her. That's it.'
'If you're not being straight-'
'It's the truth.' At last she sat up, swept the hair out of her face. She placed the pager on the bench beside her delicately, as if it were made of glass. 'So what are you gonna do? Let Sam die alone? Put me in jail?'
'People are dead because you aided and abetted a fugitive.'
She clutched her beat-up purse in both hands, as if holding on to it to stay afloat. A label on the worn leather read PURSE. She managed only a whisper. 'What are you gonna do to me?'
'The cell phone Walker gave you…?' Tim nodded at her purse, but Kaitlin didn't respond. 'We're putting a trace on it.'
Kaitlin removed the disposable phone from her purse, snapped off the cheap flip top, and threw it down the hall. It skittered across the tile, past the Mexican family, past Thomas. Freed, stepping out of the elevator, stopped it with a Ferragamo loafer.
Tim looked at her incredulously. 'Why?'
'What do you know? How can I explain a thing like that? Why. Because I'm stupid. Because he picked me in a smoky bar with Merle on the jukebox and me with my two beautiful friends and he picked me. And he picked me every day, every day till he didn't. You have to do that. You make a choice every day, and you pick your spouse every day.' Her dishwater hair, tired brown streaked with gray at the temples, hung lank. She glanced at Tim's ring. 'I'm not sure if you know that or you don't. But that's how it works. Every day. He fought something out there in the desert he shouldn't have fought, and it's not fair, but that's how it is. But he's still my husband, and I still picked him. Every day. Even when he didn't pick me.'
'Kaitlin-'
'I knew you'd never understand. You probably have a sweet wife and a quiet life with a bunch of healthy kids and they're great and they jump on you when you get home from work. And it makes sense, your world. There are laws. There are answers. There are solutions. Maybe we're too dumb to figure it out, or maybe we're too busy feeling sorry for ourselves. Me and Tess and Walk. We just can't get the fucking answers right. I had six miscarriages before the doctor told us to stop trying. Six. Every one like a piece of me bleeding away. I tried so hard, but I couldn't. The last one-I knew it would be the last-I went to the bathroom and there was blood everywhere, blood on the toilet and the tile, like today, today with Sam, and I sat on the toilet because I didn't know what else to do. I must've sat four, five hours before Walker came home. He put his hands here'-she gripped Tim's forearms so he faced her, their foreheads almost touching-'and he looked at me. Didn't say anything. And then he got some towels. And he wiped the floor. And he ran the water, ran it warm. And he cleaned me, the blood,
