Warning Signs

CHAPTER 41

They wheeled her to X-ray. She went out a back door when the tech went to get something."

A young detective whom I'd never met was the one doing the I-can't-believe-it-but-we-lost-her shuffle. Even without glancing at his face, I could tell that Sam Purdy wanted to take someone's head off and was considering whether this young man's noggin would be a good place to start.

Sam said, "We were watching her, right?"

"Yeah, we had someone outside her door for her protection. He followed her wheelchair down to X-ray and checked out the room. He thought the other door in the room went to a place for developing the X-ray film or something. Didn't know it led to a hallway."

"So she went out that other door? That's how she got away from him? She just walked away?"

"Yes."

"What's she wearing? One of those hospital gowns?"

"Probably not. There's a supply closet close by where scrubs are stored. We found a gown on the floor by the scrubs. We think it was hers. So she's probably wearing scrubs. Light purple. You know, like lavender."

Sam glared. My guess was that he was reacting to the detective's use of "lavender."

"She's barefoot?"

"She's wearing a pair of those little foam hospital slippers, as far as we know. They weren't with the gown."

"What kind of head start did she get?"

"A few minutes. Maybe five."

"The building get sealed?"

"Not for another five or so minutes after that."

"Maybe ten?"

"Yeah, maybe ten. Seven or eight, you know."

"She's ambulatory?"

"Unfortunately, yeah. Injuries from the bomb were to her upper body. Worst damage is to her left hand, from shrapnel. That's what she was in surgery for earlier. Her face is cut up, too. She has a bandage on her cheek right here, between her ear and her eye." He touched his own face to demonstrate the spot. "Got patched up by a plastic surgeon."

"So she's ambulatory and she has a ten- to fifteen-minute head start. She could be somewhere in this big hospital or she could be out on the street."

"That's the situation."

"What did you get before she ran?"

"Not much. Her surgeon only gave me about five minutes with her at first. She was still pretty groggy from the anesthesia and the painkillers, said she didn't remember anything at all about the bombing. Kept asking me about her mom as though she couldn't believe she was dead."

"But she knew?"

"She knew."

Sam inhaled like he was about to blow up a balloon. Then he sighed. "Nothing at all about this guy Ramp?"

"I asked, Sam. Said she didn't even know him. Didn't know what the hell I was talking about."

A uniformed officer approached us and waited until Sam said, "What do you want, Officer?"

"Sorry to interrupt but we just discovered that a purse is missing. One of the X-ray techs is telling us that her purse is gone along with her denim jacket. The purse was in a little room where the staff hangs out sometimes at the back of radiology. Kind of like a little lounge."

"What was in the purse?"

"What you'd expect. Wallet, ID, about fifty bucks."

"And the denim? Blue, faded, what?"

"Blue, not too old. From The Gap."

"Great," Sam said. "Just fucking great. Now she has money and street clothes. Has anybody called RTD or the taxi companies?"

"We're on that."

Sam stuck his hands in his pockets, probably to quell his impulse to place them around somebody's neck.

I couldn't see sticking around any longer. I'd been able to convince myself that I might be of some assistance in helping Sam evaluate Marin Bigg. But I didn't see a thing that I could contribute now that the task had evolved into searching for her. Anyway, my ass hurt.

I said, "I'm going to get a cab home, Sam. Call me if there's something else that I can do."

"Yeah," he said.

Reading between the lines, I realized that his words were kind of like "Thanks for your help."

"Wait a second. Before you go, give me your take on all this. She's hurt, she's on the run. Her mother's dead. Her house is surrounded by the good guys. Where would she go? The girl? Where do you think she'd go?"

"That's a tough one. She's young. I'm not sure she'd do anything that you or I might consider predictable."

"Think."

"Assuming that this kid Ramp set off the bomb that killed her mother, she'd try and find him, I think."

"To get even?"

"Possibly. But maybe to join back up with him. It all depends where her allegiance was strongest."

"You mean to him or to her mother?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean. She didn't seem that tight with her mother when I saw her yesterday."

"She could forgive Ramp for killing her mother?" Sam looked a little incredulous at the thought.

"Naomi was about to turn her in to the police. Or at least turn her in to me. Marin may be part of this whole conspiracy with Ramp. She may feel that she was betrayed by her mother. Teenagers make strong alliances with their friends, Sam. Stronger than with their families sometimes."

"So you think that if we find her in the next little while, she could lead us to Ramp?"

I knew Sam was thinking that leading him to Ramp meant leading him to Lucy. "I suppose."

"But you're not sure when she finds this Ramp whether she wants to kill him or kiss him?"

"She may not be sure, either." I was so tired that I wanted to sit down, but my butt screamed at the thought of having weight on it. "The only thing we know for sure is that one of them is going to eventually show up at Nora's house," I said. "To set off that bomb that they left there. That's your best bet of finding one of them. Stake out Nora's house and wait."

"It's not going to happen. Those damn Fox News people have the story about the bomb at Nora's house already. They ran with it on their nine o'clock news. If the kids are paying any attention at all, they'll know we found that bomb."

There's another bomb. That lawyer.

As the echo of Naomi's warning sounded in my head, a new question surfaced. Was the bomb at Nora's house the one that Naomi was warning me about? The hospital hallway felt cold in the way that only hospital hallways can. I wished I had a sweater.

"Go ahead and go home," Sam told me. "If you hear from Lucy…"

"Of course."

I turned to leave, stopped. "Sam? What if there's another bomb? One that you guys didn't find this afternoon? What if the one at Nora's wasn't even the one that Naomi was telling me about?"

He snapped at me as though he was irritated that I wasn't already gone. "What are you saying?"

"I don't know exactly. It's just that-I'm thinking that maybe there might be someone at risk that we haven't thought about. Maybe there are some people on the wouldn't-it-be-cool list that we haven't even considered."

"More lawyers?"

"I guess. Naomi said, 'That lawyer.' "

There's another bomb. That lawyer.

"You mean besides Nora and Royal?"

"That's what I'm thinking."

Sam's voice took on the timbre of debate. "We checked for bombs around the judge who accepted the plea on Marin's rape. Negative. We checked Cozy Maitlin's house and office. He was the rapist's defense attorney. Negative. We checked everything on Lauren, who was assisting Nora with the prosecution. Negative. We checked and found devices at Nora's and at Royal Peterson's home. So who's left?"

"Maybe Lauren and Nora can answer that. I don't know the system well enough to know who else might have been involved."

He took a step away from me before he stopped and faced me again. "How come every time I think you're going to bring clarity to a process, you end up clouding everything up like a damn fog machine? Why do you think that is?"