She mentioned that her spine could no longer carry messages from the brain about heating and cooling, so she did not sweat below her shoulders. That meant that maintaining a normal body temperature was a concern-her body temperature would fall or rise with the environmental temperature. She needed assistance with coughing. There were exercises that were needed on a daily basis to prevent a host of problems. There were complex concerns about her blood pressure, which might rise dangerously in response to pain stimuli signaled to a brain that could not get the message; the potential for injuries she could not feel; and other issues.
It was time to apply lotion to her skin and move her-pressure sores are a serious problem for anyone who is immobilized. I did my best.
I didn’t kid myself that her brief instructions qualified me to take care of her, but making the better-than-nothing cutoff eased some of the guilt I felt over my lack of expertise.
She fell asleep not long after that, and after sitting in her room for a few moments, wondering how the hell I was going to get out of this mess and what would become of her if I somehow managed to escape, I decided to go back to “my” room.
I thought again about the contents of the duffel and went through every item in it, including the pockets, wondering if tucked away in one of them I might discover a message from Donovan, one that would explain everything. Sorry about drugging you and leaving you with a serial killer, but if you look under the floorboards, you’ll find a bazooka.
Alas, nothing. Not even lint.
I searched the room again, found nothing I had not found before, and realized that, between activity and anxiety and perhaps the residual effects of being drugged, I was tired. I decided Parrish was unlikely to find many thrills in killing me while I slept and lay down. I avoided the half of the bed he had touched.
I prayed that someone would find out where we were. That Kai might have been seen driving a van up here, or might have gone shopping or otherwise appeared in public before our story about him broke.
I knew Frank would already be looking for me. I just had to stay alive until he found me.
THIRTY-SIX
Frank Harriman knocked the clock radio off the nightstand as he reached a fumbling hand to find the cell phone. He answered groggily but came more awake when he realized what his lieutenant, Jake Matsuda, was saying to him.
Jake wasn’t a ranter, but by the time he had killed you with kindness and long explanations of how you might be compromising a case, you wished he would have just yelled and gotten it all over and done with in one tenth of the time and one one hundredth of the guilt.
At one point, Frank said, “Reed and Vince knew I was going to talk to him.”
“Yes, they told me, when I talked to them after Mr. Moore’s attorney called me.”
“I didn’t harm him or threaten him or anything of that nature.”
“No. You’re far too professional for that sort of thing, I’m sure.”
“I hear the warning in that, Jake, but I promise you, I talked everything over with Reed and Vince, before and after. All I really did with Quinn Moore was look for his reactions to a couple things, like the art.”
“Under other circumstances, I think it would have been an excellent line of investigation to pursue. Perhaps without tipping our hand to him, however.”
“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t see it that way.”
“Nothing to forgive. Still, I find I have to ask you to choose one of two options here, Frank, or this will end badly for all of us. Either take some time off or let me load you up with so much other work you won’t have time to get involved in Reed and Vince’s cases.”
“If you think I can just sit this out-”
“Oh no, I don’t,” Jake said mildly.
“I’ve got three more weeks of vacation time coming to me this year. I’ll take a couple of weeks of that now.”
“You don’t have to use up vacation time. We can call it administrative leave.”
“I find myself not wanting to be in the department’s debt.”
There was a long pause, then Jake said, “All right. Have a good vacation, Frank.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Donovan woke late in the day, momentarily disoriented to find himself in a dimly lit space, staring up at rafters. He listened carefully before slowly sitting up.
He was in the attic of one of the cabins, having easily defeated Quinn’s and Kai’s pathetic attempts at creating an improved security system.
A few hours earlier, he’d used a disposable cell phone to make the anonymous 911 call that would ensure Quinn got to a hospital. He’d then destroyed the phone and driven to a street in Las Piernas, parked the Escape, and after one brief detour, walked a mile to the place where he had earlier parked a used Subaru Forester. Like the Escape, it had been purchased with cash given to him by Quinn.
He had then made a journey of several hours to the desert. Although by this time he was feeling tired, he stopped by a storage building he owned, picked up equipment and supplies he had not been willing to put in a vehicle parked on the street, no matter how safe the neighborhood, and stored them in the Forester in compartments he had specially built into it, compartments that would not be easily detected. He left his own Honda Accord behind, locking up the building. He realized it was a weakness on his part to keep the Accord, but it was one of a few symbols of what he was reluctantly recognizing as his optimism. His hope-no, his belief-that somehow he would prevail over the mounting odds against him.
He had of course known that the Escape could not be used past a certain point, although it had served its purpose well and would perhaps provide one additional bit of help in the coming days.
He’d driven closer to the mountain camp in the Forester. Despite his exhaustion, he’d parked it at what he considered a reasonable distance and hid it. Then, donning a pack that held a portion of the equipment he had brought with him, he’d hiked back.
He had reached the property just as the sky began to softly lighten in the east.
He had briefly considered simply returning to the main lodge. It had been a long and arduous night. Parrish would doubtless have welcomed him. It would have been easy to accept a comfortable bed inside-but not if he calculated in the odds of being murdered in his sleep.
So instead he had checked the garage near the currently unoccupied caretaker’s cabin, assured himself that neither Kai’s van nor Quinn’s Lexus-which he himself had moved into the garage on the previous night-had been driven recently, then hiked a short distance to one of the more remote cabins on the property.
He had climbed into this dusty attic after obscuring all signs of his arrival, set a few booby traps for anyone who might come too near, and no sooner crawled into his sleeping bag than he had fallen deeply asleep.
Now he awakened among the recreational odds and ends stored and forgotten here-a badminton set, a volleyball net, a raft that did not look seaworthy.
He did not know if Irene Kelly was still alive. His check of the van had told him that, as of this morning, Parrish had not left, or driven it elsewhere and returned, but that was all he had been able to determine.
He disarmed the traps leading to the attic, lowered himself into the cabin itself, and took a shower. He dressed, disarmed the outdoor traps, and made his way back to the lodge.
He heard voices as he approached the lodge, then realized they were coming from a television. A news program, apparently. He cautiously went in through the kitchen under the cover of its noise. As he peered into the main hall, he saw Parrish asleep on the couch, and after a quick look around to see that Kai was not in the room, he entered.