"No. They don't have any way of getting him back to prison without the authorities asking questions they can't answer-what they were doing in Los Angeles, why they would look for Shelby, and how they found him when the police couldn't. And of course, they can't let me go. Kidnapping and torture would mean life sentences for them."
"Oh, my God." The girl walked a few paces and sat down on the chair at the desk. "All this is such heavy stuff, out of nowhere. They just told the doctor there was a private patient who had an injury and wanted to pay for special care."
"That's the way trouble always comes-out of nowhere, with no warning. When it does you have to decide quickly." She waited, watching the girl sitting at the desk, staring at the wall. "Will you please let me use your cell phone"
"You just said it was a kidnapping and torture thing. Everybody would go to prison."
"Not you. You'll be the hero."
She looked sideways at Jane. "How do I know you'll twist it that way, and not the other way"
"Someone who helps me will be my friend. They're just getting started on me." She waited, but the girl didn't seem to be able to make up her mind. She looked paralyzed. "Are you worried about your boyfriend"
"I told you, he's not officially my boyfriend." She was irritated. She started to walk away, and it seemed to make her remember why she was there. She hurried back to the bathroom and returned with cold, damp hand towels she put on Jane's bruises.
Jane watched her. It doesn't matter if he hasn't declared himself to be your boyfriend. You've had a big fat crush on him for a long time, and one slow day in the office, he came on to you in an examining room. Or he came to the office one day with flowers and asked you to dinner. Whatever it was, you're committed to him, and you have an intimate relationship now. I can hear it in your voice.
The nurse went to the medical supplies and returned with Neosporin, which she gently applied to the scrapes left by the bamboo sticks.
Jane said, "I'm perfectly happy to include the doctor in the hero category too. I'll say that the next time he comes in is the first time I was conscious when he visited, and as soon as he knew what was up, he helped you save me. I know he has nothing to do with these men or framing Jim Shelby. But you've got to help me. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to make up a story that keeps him innocent."
"I've got to have time to think. I should talk to him, too." She looked at Jane again. "Are you married"
Jane wasn't wearing the ring, but there was still a pale line on her ring finger, and the young nurse must have seen it. "Yes." After a second she added, "I wouldn't ordinarily tell anyone that."
"I knew already, because there's an indentation on your ring finger. I'm glad you didn't lie."
"Sometimes a person in my position has to lie. I've got to lie to those men. I don't want to lie to you, though. Will you please help me"
"I need time to think."
"We don't have much time. The next stage of this is going to come pretty quickly."
"The next stage What's the next stage"
"They'll think of things to do to me that hurt, that will make me so afraid I'll talk. The next stage will be heat-hot irons, or fire. You may be used to seeing things others haven't, but you don't want to see this."
"Why can't you just tell them, and we can all go home"
"These men are implicated in a murder. No matter what I tell them, nobody's going home but them. They can't let any of us go."
"You're scaring me."
"We have to save ourselves. Either let me use your phone right now, or you use it as soon as you're a mile or two from here and positive you haven't been followed."
The woman took a deep breath, and let it out. "All right. Here."
She came to Jane's bed and held her cell phone out to Jane. They both heard the door at the end of the building swing open. Jane shook her head and the girl pulled back her cell phone and retreated to the desk and the computer. She pretended to be composing an e-mail.
Jane looked up at the men coming in the door. First came the tall man with the western accent who seemed to be in charge, and the others trooped in after him. He eyed the nurse as he passed her, then stopped at Jane's bed. "I see you're awake again. That's convenient."
"Why"
"I didn't want to wake you up." He turned to the nurse and said, "Okay, honey. Why don't you go take a break We'll call you if we need you."
"Yes, sir," the girl said. She stood up, walked to the door, and went outside. Jane saw that the parking lot was dark.
Jane watched the tall man. He took his time appraising the progress of her decline. He stared at her bruised and swollen arms and hands above the sheet. "Do you have anything to tell me yet"
She moved her head from side to side slowly, not taking her eyes from him.
"The thing is, we're in a bit of a bind here. You've taken something of mine. Not to mention hurting several friends of mine in a public place, where they couldn't really give you an idea of the consequences."
"You're persuading yourself that whatever you do to me, I deserve it, and that you'll just be paying me back. That's not true. Nothing you or your friends have done was legal or justified."
His eyes narrowed. "I don't think you're going to help your cause any by pissing me off. Fair warning."
"I don't have a cause."
He looked angry. "Not much of one. So, before things get a hell of a lot worse, I'd advise you to listen to me for a minute. The doctor tells me you're too weak to run away, even if you could get out of your bed by yourself. What you've managed to do by getting shot is to delay things by three days. Your boy Jim Shelby has had seventy-two hours. He could be anywhere in the country by now. Isn't that true"
"If he drove most of the time and didn't stop long, sure."
"What that means isn't what you seem to think. His arriving where he was going doesn't take the responsibility to talk off you. It makes you even more important. You're going to have to tell us where he is."
"I still don't know."
"Tonight, I expect to find out if that's true. Each time you don't answer is going to cost you. Maybe it will be a finger. Maybe the next thing will be an ear, a toe, or an eye. I can tell you that it's best to give in early."
"I don't have anything I can tell you," she said, "so it will be a very unpleasant waste of time."
"Well, in a little while the others will get here with the tools, and we can get started. So sit tight." He walked off.
Jane tightened the muscles in her uninjured left leg. That was still strong, and so were her hands and arms. But her right leg would barely hold her, and she was too weak to put up much resistance.
The air where the tall man had stood still held his smell. A smoker. He had probably just gone out for a cigarette. He certainly would before he began to torture her. That was the way the habit seemed to work-a cigarette before anything and one after.
She wondered where her purse was now. She had sacrificed it when she had fought on the courthouse steps to buy time for Jim Shelby to get away. Inside it was a bottle of a particularly strong batch of water hemlock she had harvested and processed last summer.
Some people in upstate New York called the plant cowbane, because now and then a cow would eat a bit and die. The Latin name for the plant was Cicuta maculata, and it was related to the carrot, but the water hemlock was the most deadly plant on the continent. The traditional Seneca method of suicide was to take two bites of the root. About once a year Jane went to swampy places to look for the tall plant with tiny white flowers arranged in a flat circular group. She cut the roots from the stems and mashed them to get the clear yellowish liquid that held the strongest cicutoxin. Then she repeatedly strained the liquid until the particles were gone, and distilled it to remove most of the water. One swallow from the cut-glass perfume bottle she carried in her purse would have killed her in minutes.