“Until she dies, you mean. Even if we do everything right, she may not get her memory back while she’s alive.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I mean. I know that’s hard to hear, but it’s one possibility. Lily, there’s a lot more affected than your mom. A lot more than you’ve found so far.”
God, could it get any worse? “How many? Who are they?”
“Can’t tell you that. And remember, when I say can’t, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“What can you do?” she cried, frustrated.
“Not much. I can watch your back. I think I’ll know if I get near the object. It has . . . I don’t know what to call it. A spiritual signature or color or . . . see, on this side we use spirit instead of light to see things. Sort of. It isn’t really seeing, but you can think of it that way, and that’s how I’ll know if the artifact is nearby. Otherwise . . . they didn’t exactly give me a training manual, so I don’t know what all I can do. No, wait, there’s one more thing. I should be able to let you know when your saint shows up.”
“My saint? What the hell are you—”
He smirked at her. “You wanted one. Pissed you off that you got me instead.”
“Yes, but—hold on a minute.” Lily’s phone dinged to let her know she had a text. Her heart started pounding. She snatched her phone from her purse.
It was from Rule. She read his message quickly, then read it again. Her shoulders slumped in relief.
“Good news?”
“My mother . . . Julia agreed to let Sam help her. They’re checking her out of the hospital now.”
NINE
THERE were thirty-one hospitals in the Greater San Diego area. By 2:45 A.M. Lily had been to eleven of them and was pulling into the ER parking of hospital twelve. Drummond had accompanied her at first, but after the fourth stop he’d said he had stuff to do “on his side.” He hadn’t explained and she hadn’t seen him since.
Eleven hospitals meant two false alarms and fourteen victims that she’d confirmed by touch. None of them had an obvious connection to the others. Fourteen victims, and they had no idea what they were dealing with or how many more might be out there.
Lily had talked to Ruben again on the way here. He’d decided it was time to wake the president up.
Hospital twelve was City Heights. She’d put it next on her list because it was more or less on her way back to St. Margaret’s, where they had two more possible cases.
Her mother wasn’t at St. Margaret’s anymore. She was at Sam’s lair. Lily had heard from Rule about that. She’d also heard from her father about it. She’d heard him out, then she’d shut what he said out of her mind so she could do the job.
Things get to be clichés by being true over and over. The ER at City Heights Hospital fit every cliché of an inner city emergency room. Even at this hour, it was crowded and noisy. It reeked of disinfectant with a whiff of eau de homeless guy, and the overworked staff got through their shifts on a mix of adrenaline, bad coffee, and black humor. Some were burned out. Some were still fiercely idealistic, though they hid it behind a heavy veil of cynicism.
In other words, it was a lot like a cop shop. Lily felt right at home as she walked up to the nurses’ station. “I’m here to see Festus Liddel,” she told one of the women behind the counter, holding out the folder with her ID.
“Liddel?” The woman’s braids flared as she turned her head sharply. “God, Denise, don’t tell me you called the FBI about Liddel! Plackett is gonna have a cow.”
The other nurse was twenty years younger than the first and at least twenty pounds heavier. She propped her hands on her ample hips. “And why shouldn’t I call them? That’s what that bulletin said to do, isn’t it?”
“Liddel’s memory got washed away by alcohol years ago.”
“This isn’t the same. You know it’s not the same. He doesn’t even sound like himself. And Hardy says—”
“Hardy!” The first woman rolled her eyes. “Now, listen, sweetie, I know you like Hardy—though God knows why. He creeps me out. But—”
“That was a coincidence! He couldn’t have known.”
“I’m not talking about that, though it was pretty damn weird. I’m talking about the way he looks at you. As if . . . well, it creeps me out, that’s all. What are you going to tell Dr. Plackett when he finds out you called this nice agent? You going to explain that Hardy thought we should call in the FBI?”
The second woman giggled. “It would almost be worth it to see his face.”
The first woman sighed and shook her head and looked at Lily. “I’m afraid you got dragged out here for nothing, Special Agent. Festus Liddel is one of our regulars. He can’t remember what day of the week it is most times. Denise thinks his poor, pickled brain is malfunctioning worse than usual tonight, and maybe it is, but that’s not saying much.”
“I’m here, so I might as well see him.” And touch him. That was the quickest way to know for sure if Festus Liddel was victim fifteen.
“I’ll take you to him,” Denise said. “You can see what you think, but he is not his usual self.”
“What kind of unusual is he?”
“You’ll see.” Denise came out from behind the counter and started down a well-scrubbed aisle between examination cubicles separated by curtains. A Spanish-speaking family were clustered in the first one, spilling partly out into the aisle, all of them talking at once. “He’s this way, down at the end. Hardy’s with him.”
“The message I got said your patient didn’t know what year it is.”
“He thinks it’s 1998. To be fair, his memory’s always iffy, so I understand why Hillary thinks I shouldn’t have called you.”
“That’s exactly the sort of memory problem I need to know about. I’ll need to talk to that doctor—the attending?” Lily searched her tired brain and couldn’t come up with the name. “He won’t be happy that you called me, I take it.”
Denise snorted. “Plackett doesn’t want us to take a piss without his say-so.”
In the next cubicle a baby cried, thin and sad, in his mother’s arms. The mother looked about fifteen and exhausted. They passed an emaciated young man with gang tats being hooked up to an IV, an old man on a heart monitor, and a middle-aged couple exchanging worried words in what sounded like Vietnamese.
“I ought to tell you about Hardy,” the nurse went on. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with his cognition.” Her defensiveness suggested that others did. “But he can’t communicate normally. He was beaten real badly several years ago, see. Brain damage.”
They had to stop and move aside to let an enormously obese woman make her way slowly down the hall with the aid of a walker, breathing heavily. She wore two hospital gowns—one to cover her backside and one her front—and a look of grim determination. As the woman struggled by, music arrived. Harmonica music.
It was a hymn of some sort. Lily knew that much, even if she couldn’t put words to it. Lily had been exposed to religion as a child, but the battle between her parents over which faith system their daughters would be raised in—Christian or Buddhist—had made her decide to opt out of the whole subject. She’d been studious in her inattention whether dragged to church or to temple, and eventually her parents dropped the subject, too.
The woman beside her obviously recognized the song. She was humming along, smiling. “That Hardy,” Denise said as the obese woman finally passed them. “He can sing most anything—well, old songs, anyway. I never heard him sing any of the newer ones. But he only ever plays the same three hymns on that harmonica of his—‘Blessed Assurance,’ ‘Amazing Grace,’ and ‘In the Garden.’ We hear those over and over. He does a real pretty job with them, though.”