The Missing

Chapter 14

There was one stop Darby wanted to make before heading home.

Scrubbed clean, her hair still damp from the gym shower, Darby stepped into the main lobby of Mass General, Boston's largest hospital. She didn't need to stop by the information desk; she knew her way to the intensive care unit. She had been there once, to say good-bye to her father.

The sign posted outside ICU's double doors read TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES AND ELECTRONIC DEVICES BEFORE ENTERING. Darby shut off her phone, showed her ID to the male nurse sipping coffee behind the reception desk and asked about the condition of a woman brought in last night from Belham. He didn't know – he had just come on shift – and pointed to the patrolman sitting in a chair outside a room at the end of a long corridor.

There is no privacy in ICU. Glass windows look into each room. Family members, faces shocked and scared, wait to take turns holding a loved one's hand or, in most cases, to say good-bye.

Memories of her father crowded Darby's thoughts, growing stronger when she passed the empty room where her father had died.

The old patrolman glanced up from his golfing magazine and examined her ID card. A web of broken blood vessels lined his nose.

'You missed all the excitement,' he said, stretching. 'Porch Lady attacked a nurse.'

'What happened?'

'She stabbed a nurse with a pen. Doc's in there right now. I suggest breathing through your mouth.'

The doctor was leaning over Jane Doe, listening to her heartbeat. Under the bright fluorescent light, Jane Doe appeared even more emaciated. She was on both an IV and a nasogastric tube. Her arms and legs were secured with restraints, and almost every inch of her gray-colored skin was covered with bandages or wrapped in gauze.

Darby moved closer to the bed and saw bright drops of blood on the sheets. The sick wheezing she had heard early this morning in the ambulance now seemed labored, painful.

Jane Doe's eyes fluttered beneath the paper-thin eyelids. What are you dreaming about?

'You're with the crime lab,' the doctor said in a surprisingly soft voice. It didn't go along with her hard, plain face.

Darby introduced herself. The doctor's name was Tina Hathcock.

'I hope you didn't come here for the rape kit,' Hathcock said. 'Someone from the lab already picked it up.'

'No, I just stopped by to see how she's doing.'

'Aren't you the one who helped her out from underneath the stairs?'

'Yes, that's me.'

'I thought so. I recognized your face. You're all over the news.'

Wonderful, Darby thought. 'I heard she attacked a nurse.'

'About two hours ago,' the doctor said. 'The nurse was checking the IV line and was stabbed repeatedly with a pen. She's in surgery right now. Hopefully, they'll save her eye.'

'Where did she get the pen?'

'We think she got it from the clipboard we post at the end of the bed. I understand she bit a police officer.'

Darby nodded. 'He reached inside to help her. She thought she was going to be attacked.'

'Confusion and delirium are symptoms of sepsis – a blood infection caused by toxin-producing bacteria. In this case, it's Staphylococcus aureus. Several of the cuts and sores on her arm are infected with staph. We are treating her with a broad-spectrum IV antibiotic therapy, but staph has become particularly resistant to antibiotics over the past few years. Given her already weakened condition, and her compromised immune system, the prognosis doesn't look good.'

'When she was conscious, did she say anything?'

'No. She ripped out her IV lines and then tried to escape. We had to sedate her again, which has been tricky, given her irregular heartbeat. I don't want to keep her sedated any more than I have to, but we can't afford another psychotic episode. Do you have any idea who she is?'

'We're still trying to find out.'

The doctor turned her attention to the bed. 'As you can see, she's emaciated. At this stage, what happens is vital organs shift into lower gear – the heart rate declines and becomes irregular. Most of her hair has fallen out from lack of protein. The grayish color on her skin is due to severe vitamin deficiencies. You see that fine, almost downy covering on her skin? Almost looks like body hair? That's lanugo. We generally see it during the late stages of anorexia. It's the body's way of reacting to loss of muscle and fat tissue – sort of a last-ditch effort to keep the body warm.'

Darby stared down at the sickly, waiflike creature wheezing in the bed. She thought of the picture of Terry Mastrangelo and tried to see her the same way her abductor did – as an object, a means to an end. How long had she been missing? And what had she endured?

'Can I borrow your penlight?'

'Of course,' the doctor said, reaching inside her pocket.

Darby pulled back the sick tent and examined the woman's left forearm.

Written in blue ink, in tiny letters on the exposed area of skin between the bandages, were a series of letters and numbers: 1 L S 2R L R 3R S 2R 3L.

And underneath it, three more lines: