Richie led me down past the nurses’ station to a room at the end of the wing, where another guard stood watch in front of a room I knew must belong to Andrew Z. Thomas.
The guards must’ve known each other because they bumped knuckles but thankfully restrained themselves from exploding. What was up with guys and doing that? Maybe I didn’t get the memo because I didn’t have testicles.
My guard said, “What’s the hap-hap, Tone?”
“You know, just pulling the door duty. All’s quiet.”
“Same here. And I like it quiet. This is my last day, man. Retirement, here I come.”
“You and the missus buy that beach house in Florida?”
“You betcha. Gonna spend my golden years fishing for hammerheads and drinking rum punch.”
“Who’s this, Richie?” Andrew’s guard motioned to me.
“I’m Jack Daniels,” I said, extending my hand.
“Officer Tony Satori. Pleasure to meet you.”
“Is he up?” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “I’d like a few words.”
“Doc said no one goes in.”
“It’s okay, Tone,” Richie said. “She’s the one who saved him.”
Tony sized me up. “Yeah. You used to be that cop, outta Chi-town.”
“Used to be,” I said.
“Sure. Go on in. You want us in there with you?”
“I outweigh him by fifty pounds. I think I’ll be okay.”
Richie nodded, and I entered the room, closing the door behind me.
Andrew was lying in bed, the covers tucked under his bony arms. They’d given him a haircut and shaved off the Rip Van Winkle beard, but that only made him look even more like a corpse. His eyes were closed, and I immediately felt like I was attending a wake rather than visiting a live patient.
“Mr. Thomas?”
He opened his dark eyes. “What year is this?”
I told him.
“I’ve been gone a long time,” he said. Not a trace of self-pity or bitterness.
“I’m sorry about what he did to you.”
He made a small motion that might have been a shrug. “You reap what you sow.”
“Do you know who I am?”
He nodded, so slowly I figured it must have hurt him to do so. “I overheard some of the police talking. They filled me in. I have you to thank, they tell me.”
But he didn’t thank me. He didn’t say anything.
“He has my baby,” I finally said.
“I heard that as well.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
I tried a different tract. “You know him. Probably better than anyone else. What do you think he did with her?”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen him do terrible things. Many of them to me. He has no empathy. No mercy. He’s the perfect killing machine. I have a pretty active imagination, but I could barely comprehend the depths of depravity he reached.”
Thomas wasn’t helping me. In fact, he was creeping me out.
I wondered if the years of abuse and captivity had destroyed his mind.
What was I thinking? Of course they had. This guy actually knowing something was beyond a long shot.
But a long shot was better than no shot at all.
“If you have any ideas about what he did with my little girl, I’d like to hear them.”
“I have some ideas. Like putting your baby on a skillet, the stove turned on low. A newborn couldn’t flip out of the pan. Just slowly cook, screaming, wondering why this terrible thing was happening after nine months of floating in bliss.”
I was so revolted, so outraged by the suggestion, that I almost struck him. I had to remind myself that this guy was insane, had endured things no one should have ever been forced to endure. It wasn’t his fault.
“I’m…” I pushed it back. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Thomas.”
I turned, ready to get the hell out of there.
“Hold on,” he called to me.
I stopped. Waited.
“Try to think like him,” Thomas said. “He wants to hurt you. Right?”
I nodded.
“What would hurt you more? Him killing your baby? Or him keeping your baby alive?”
I had no idea. They were both too horrible to comprehend.
“If he kills her, it’ll be a one-time pain. But if he keeps her alive…sends you photos every once and a while…perhaps photos of the terrible things he’s doing to her…wouldn’t that hurt more?”
I felt the tears coming. “Yes.”
Thomas spread out his palms.
“Then that’s what he’ll do.”
I was about to reply when I noticed Thomas’s fingers for the first time.
The tips were missing.
And I knew what that meant.
He shuts off some moronic game show playing on the television and climbs out of bed, padding to the bathroom. The mirror reveals the truth.
He’s hideous.
A swollen, discolored, scabby face. Split lips. A nose packed with cotton.
The contact lenses and the black wig are gone, and for good measure he also shaved his head in a gas station bathroom a few miles outside of Detroit.
Luther opens his mouth, wincing at the missing teeth, the black and scarlet gums.
He looks like a Halloween jack-o’-lantern.
But it’s the perfect disguise, ideal for hiding in plain sight. He almost wants to thank Phin for it.
Perhaps he will. Phin is just one floor above him in the ICU.
Luther was admitted into the hospital in the wee hours of the morning. He had to endure a clumsy doctor’s attempt at stitches, a CT, and an X-ray, and after three hours of waiting and testing was diagnosed with a concussion.
That’s courtesy of Jack. He plans on visiting her as well.
Earlier, with the use of a wheelchair the helpful nursing staff provided him, Luther found Jack’s room, along with Herb’s and Harry’s, Phin’s, and Andrew’s. Each had an armed cop guarding their door. It had taken Luther a few late-night phone calls to find out which of Detroit’s many hospitals they’d been brought to, but he’d hit the jackpot on the fourth try.
He isn’t concerned about being spotted—his own dead mother wouldn’t recognize him with all the swelling. And the best thing about wearing a memorable outfit—cowboy boots, black jeans, long hair—is that people tend to remember that more than actual features.
Being the object of a statewide manhunt, Luther figures the safest place to be is hiding right under their noses.
Besides the four cops on guard duty, there are two more downstairs, and various cops and Feds are constantly coming and going. On one of his excursions, Luther overheard one of Jack’s doctors talking to the Sheriff’s Department, explaining she wouldn’t be fit to answer questions for at least another day.
The doctor was wrong.
Jack would never answer any questions.
“Goodbye, Luther,” he tells his reflection. “It was fun being you.”
Luther climbs into his wheelchair, drapes a blanket over his lap, and once again sets off prowling through the halls. It doesn’t take him long to find a janitor’s closet, and when he’s made sure no one is looking, he pops in and quickly finds what he needs.
Next stop is locating a laundry cart.
He waits for an orderly to pop into a room to change sheets, then helps himself.
Finally, it’s a quick elevator ride to the ICU floor.
As he hoped, there are new cops on duty. There’s been a shift change, which means there won’t be another for a few hours.
Perfect.
Unfortunately, along with Phin’s guard, Andrew now has two. Luckily, they’re on opposite sides, not within each other’s line of sight. From eavesdropping on fifteen seconds of their banter, he picks up on their names.
Tony and Richie.
Luther rolls slowly past Andrew’s room, taking a surreptitious glance through the window of the closed door, and realizes the reason for the double guard.