I felt like I'd been grabbed again, had that hand over my nose, was tasting the sweetness of chloroform.
"Abby? You okay?" Cooper's raspy voice jerked me out of that little fugue quickly, thank God.
"I'm fine." But I was a good five feet behind him and didn't even recall stopping.
"Fine, huh? I'd say that suntan of yours has faded away in less than thirty seconds." He held out his hand to me. "You thinking about last night?"
I walked to him and grabbed his warm, big hand. "Yeah. Tough girl melts under pressure. Let's get out of here and into that meat locker known as a hospital before we really do melt."
Finding JoLynn's neurologist in person was far less challenging than reaching him by phone. He was in the neuro ICU when we arrived, and told us that JoLynn was responding well to the reduction in sedation— apparently she was still JoLynn Richter to them, probably because Elliott was paying the bill. She was far from lucid, but beginning to respond. Before he ran off to save someone else's brain, he told us her private nurse would be out shortly to take us in.
The security guard was sitting nearby and we walked over to him. Cooper extended his hand. "Cooper Boyd, Pineview PD. And this is Abby Rose. We're working on Miss Richter's case. You new?"
Cooper and the fair-skinned, balding guard shook hands. The man seemed ageless, probably due to his chiseled, hard-body physique. "Joe Johnson. I'm day shift now."
"Pretty boring gig, huh?" Cooper said. I'd been around Cooper long enough to sense a certain wariness in his expression.
And my radar was up, too. Hadn't we been here in the daytime before? Damned if I could remember. Last night's incident might have affected my memory more than I realized.
"I'm a people watcher," Joe Johnson said. "I like private jobs like this one." He smiled.
I noticed a book under Johnson's chair, An American Tragedy by Dreiser. Heavy stuff for hospital reading.
"That book is a favorite of mine." I nodded at the floor, remembering my college days when I read literary things like that—books I'd never pick up at Barnes & Noble today. Back then, I'd been questioning my own lifestyle and wondering if I'd end up a materialistic, status-seeking American like those that Dreiser derided.
"Yeah. Good story." Joe Johnson then picked up a USA Today on the table next to him and opened it.
Nice manners, I thought, rolling my eyes at Cooper.
Then a woman in olive green scrubs came through the ICU double doors and introduced herself as JoLynn's nurse. Another new face, not Shelly Young, whom we'd talked to before.
"I'm Maxine Norman," she said. "What do you want?" She addressed only Cooper. Maybe I had "Everyone please ignore me" written on my forehead.
"Didn't the doc tell you we came to visit JoLynn Richter?" Cooper said.
"He did," she replied. "I disagree with him, however. You should come back in a few days. She's in no condition to be interrogated."
"Isn't the doctor in charge?" I tried to sound polite.
Forced to acknowledge my presence, the woman had a stare that made me think she could make an ice cube feel feverish.
"Five minutes." Norman turned on her heel, saying, "Follow me."
"By the way, I found out a little more about the heart surgery." Maybe if I said something medically profound, she'd warm up a little.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Norman said.
"JoLynn had heart surgery, right?" I said.
She put her index finger to her lips. "Keep your voice down. This is an ICU."
I squelched what I wanted to say, which was "Then why are you talking loud enough to be heard in the next zip code?" Instead, I whispered, "The other nurse wanted to know when she had the surgery, and I found out."
"And why is that important?"
So much for making nice with a woman who probably shaved her underarms with a chain saw. "Let's drop the subject. I wouldn't want you deducting minutes from our visit while we go around in circles."
She didn't respond as she directed us into JoLynn's cramped, equipment-filled room and planted herself by the door, arms crossed.
Cooper went directly to JoLynn and I went to the other side of the bed opposite him. Her bruised face was no longer swollen except along her right jaw. Her eyes were closed and thin wires of various colors seemed to sprout from her blond hair and lead to a machine against the wall near where Cooper stood. JoLynn's IV dripped from a bag above my shoulder.
"May I touch her arm?" Cooper asked Norman.
She nodded, but even that small gesture seemed hostile.
He gently placed a hand on JoLynn's forearm and whispered, "JoLynn. My name is Chief Cooper Boyd from the Pineview police. Abby is here, too. You don't know us, but we want to help you."
She raised her eyebrows, but this seemed to hurt, because she grimaced. She didn't open her eyes but said, "Abby?"
"Abby Rose. Your grandfather asked me to help you," I said.
A smile played on her lips. "Grandfather. Yes." Grandfather came out as granfather and her yes went on like a snake's hiss.
Cooper said, "Someone tampered with your car and you crashed into a tree. We want to find out who did that. Do you understand?"
Now a wrinkle of confusion on her forehead cut through the bruises. "Tamper . . . tamper . . . what's that?" Every word seemed like an enormous effort.
"Who might want to hurt you, JoLynn?" I said.
Slowly she opened her eyes. Her irises were as blue as forever, but oddly unbalanced. And then I realized her left pupil was larger than the other. She turned her head ever so slightly my way and her hand reached through the side rail and found mine. She squeezed hard, those crystal eyes alive with fear. "Stop. Please stop."
Then she looked at Cooper. "Stop. Stop. I can't stop."
She was clearly becoming agitated and the nurse came over and told me to step aside. But before that could happen, Nurse Norman had to carefully pry JoLynn's cold, reluctant fingers from my hand.
Meanwhile, the terrified girl kept repeating "Stop," her gaze traveling from Cooper to me and back to Cooper.
Norman said, "This is not helping." She then brushed a few strands of hair off JoLynn's forehead with a tenderness I thought she was incapable of, then soothed her patient with a nearly inaudible "Hush."
The cell in my pocket vibrated against my pelvic bone. Uh-oh. I tried to pretend I didn't hear the buzzing, but clearly everyone did, including JoLynn, who had closed her eyes and in her calmer, sedated slur said, "Is that my phone?"
I almost smiled until the wrath of Nurse Norman was fully visited on me. "Turn that thing off," she whispered.
Having been busted for illegal use of a cell phone in the hospital—not intentional, just a product of what I rationalized had to be memory loss again—I pulled the phone from my pocket. It had already gone over to voice mail and stopped quivering, but I dutifully powered it down.
"Sorry," I said.
"I think it's time you both left anyway," Norman said.
JoLynn again reached for my hand and I put my fingers in hers, saying, "Do you want us to stay?"
"Don't . . . don't go." But she was already drifting off, her hand going limp, her head lolling to the left.
Cooper said, "She obviously needs her rest. We'll be back later."
I didn't want to leave, since we'd gotten next to nothing, but he was right. JoLynn was only beginning to come around. She had smiled when I mentioned her grandfather, though, and seemed happy simply saying the word.
When we emerged from the ICU, Elliott Richter was standing in the waiting area, while Simone was slumped in a chair fiddling with a small camera. A tense-looking Adele stood by her brother. Simone was dressed like she'd just come from a rock concert in her wide-legged cropped cargo pants and black T-shirt, whereas Adele had the Ann Taylor thing going.