The first door opened an itty-bit more. “That’s been the rumor for a month.”
“But Violet’s moved into Rose’s place,” a third woman volunteered.
“Anyone remember Daisy?” squeaked a fourth voice, from yet another barely opened door.
“Oh, she was a piece of work,” the first voice said.
“She was?” the third voice said, and her door opened a crack farther, too. “Rita’s the one I always thought was hiding something.”
“Yeah,” came the second voice. “And look—cops are still knockin’.”
Perhaps it was the aches and pains of age that had these women up early. Or maybe they’d just fallen asleep in front of their televisions at six-thirty the night before and were full up on sleep and looking for some excitement. (Or, at least, gossip.) Regardless, it was not yet eight a.m. and Sergeant Borsch was already in the thick of it, surrounded by twitching noses and squeaking voices. Under normal circumstances he would have insisted that the associated faces and bodies show themselves, but he suspected he was probably better off with this limited view of things. So he simply asked, “Did any of you hear or see someone come down this hallway last night?”
His question was met with twitchy silence.
“It would have been sometime after nine o’clock,” he added.
The twitchy silence continued until the wrinkles behind Door #1 finally said, “I was asleep,” which brought a chorus of similar comments from the others, and a bonus remark from Door #3: “Haven’t seen nine o’clock since they removed my gall bladder.”
And after another minute of conversation that went nowhere, the voices came together in one final piece of advice: “Go see Mr. Garnucci.”
Gil Borsch was not a fan of Vince Garnucci. Garnucci was the building’s manager, and although he did seem to know all the residents, he shouted when he spoke, he injected off-topic stories about his wacky grandmother, and he was skinny.
Gil Borsch wasn’t comfortable around skinny.
But he had a job to do, and that trumped any annoyance he might feel over a loud, skinny fella whose ninety-five-year-old grandmother still rode a bicycle.
So after inspecting both the stairway and the elevator for clues (and determining that, like the exterior of the building, the interior didn’t offer a single surface from which he’d be able to lift fingerprints), he found himself in the lobby.
“Officer Borsch!” the manager shouted from behind his desk.
The greeting was clearly meant to convey warmth and welcome, but the lawman noted the underlying nervousness that always seemed present when he dealt with Vince Garnucci.
Part of that whole skinny thing.
Plus, Gil Borsch was no longer an officer. His promotion to sergeant had been over a year ago, and Vince Garnucci knew it.
The lawman let it slide. “Morning, Garnucci. I understand you gave a report on the events of last night, but I’m just following up.”
“Sure, sure,” the manager said, and then proceeded to spend the next five minutes talking his way down a long, winding road to nowhere.
“So to sum up,” Sergeant Borsch finally said, “nobody came through the lobby, you heard nothing either inside or outside, and none of the residents reported anything.”
“That sums it up, yeah,” Mr. Garnucci said, then cocked his head a little and asked, “Has the victim died? And what were they doing on the fire escape?”
Sergeant Borsch sucked on a tooth for a moment, debating whether to break the news of the victim’s identity. He knew the manager was fond of Sammy, but she was a minor and there were rules. Laws, even. Besides, something about the man’s demeanor was … troubling.
Instead, he simply said, “We don’t know.”
“But … wait … how did you get inside the building?”
“I used the back entrance,” the lawman said, surprised by how easily the lie had slipped off his tongue.
“It’s unlocked?”
Sergeant Borsch moved toward the front door. “Have a good day, Garnucci.” And before the manager could protest, he was gone.
5—PRAYERS
So where were Sammy’s mother and father in all of this?
Rita did try to reach Lana while she was waiting at the ER, but couldn’t connect to her daughter in person and couldn’t bring herself to leave a message that said more than “Call me as soon as you can.”
Which Lana, being Lana, didn’t.
So after Rita and Hudson returned to their Cypress Street home around midnight, Rita steadied herself and tried once again to reach her daughter.
This time, Lana answered.
There’s a certain level of disbelief that occurs when a person’s hit with bad news. Questions like Are you sure? Is she okay? What happened? shoot from the mouth.
Unless, of course, you’re Lana Keyes. Then your disbelief comes out this way:
“Are you a tabloid reporter trying to get a reaction out of me?”
And if you’re Rita Keyes and your daughter’s pulled one too many diva reversals on you (where somehow the drama became all about her), and you’re exhausted from hours at the hospital and feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, what might (and very well should) shoot from your mouth is, “No, you self-absorbed ditz. This is your mother and you need to get here now.”
But that’s not what Rita said.
As you probably already know, Rita Keyes is a class act. And although her trigger finger was twitching, she managed to keep her fully loaded arsenal of retorts holstered. “Lana,” she said wearily. “I am not a tabloid reporter. I am your mother.”
“Prove it.”
Rita’s tired eyebrow perked to life.
Lana had asked for it.
So Rita shot straight to the heart. “You were born in the year—”
“Stop! Fine! Okay!” Lana sputtered, clearly worried that some tabloid reporter might be listening in. But with the legitimacy of the call resolved, the urgency behind it seemed to finally sink in. “Now, what happened to Samantha?”
Rita was through trying to break the news gently. “She fell three floors off the side of the Highrise. Fortunately, she landed in a thick hedge.”
“So … is she all right?”
“We don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know? How can you not know?” And then with a sudden gasp she asked, “Was there blood?”
The pitch of Lana’s voice had risen considerably, and since blood was one of those faint-inducing triggers that seemed to plague the actress, Rita did not fire off with, “She fell three floors! What do you think?” She instead struggled to remain calm and stick to the big picture: Sammy was in the hospital, unconscious. Lana needed to get to Santa Martina right away.
And Darren needed to be told.
“Do you want me to call him?” Rita asked, and in some ways she dreaded the thought of breaking the news to Samantha’s father more than breaking it to her own daughter. Darren had only known Sammy (or that he even had a daughter) for a few months, but in that time she had become the sunshine of his life, the high harmony of a song that now played in his heart.
Witnessing this had brought great joy to Rita. Especially since it seemed that, for Lana, Sammy had been more like the stormy cloud covering the sunshine, the dissonant chord in the movie score that crescendoed through the life she had always imagined for herself.
A life that she was, ironically, finally realizing now that she’d told the truth and reunited with Sammy’s father.
“Lana?” Rita asked, because her question had been met with silence.
“He’s in the middle of a show,” Lana replied. “It’ll be two or three a.m. before I can reach him.”
“Is he in Las Vegas?” Rita asked.
“No, he’s here in LA. Is Samantha at Community?”
“Yes. In ICU.”
“In ICU?!” Lana gasped.
To which Rita could easily have snapped, “She fell three floors! Be glad she’s
not at the morgue!” but she didn’t. She instead gave Lana the hospital’s number and visiting hours and told her to get to town as soon as possible, then went to bed.
She could not, however, fall asleep. So when the phone rang an hour later, she snatched it up right away, praying it was good news about her granddaughter. “Yes?”
But it wasn’t news about Sammy. It was Lana, and she was in full diva mode. “I can’t get information out of anybody!” she cried (without so much as a hello or an I’m-sorry-if-I-woke-you). “All I can get out of the hospital is that she’s stable!”
“Has she woken up?”
“No!”
Hudson was wide awake now, too, and asked Rita, “Is that the doctor? Has she woken up?”
Rita’s rapid head wobbling and verbal reply into the phone answered both his questions simultaneously. “But stable is a positive thing, Lana. Calm down.”
“Calm down?” Lana cried. “Calm down? I can’t get through to anybody! Marissa’s number is disconnected—”
“They’ve moved, Lana.”
“Nobody told me that! And that police officer? The one Samantha was a bridesmaid for? His first name’s Gilbert, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, he’s not listed—”
“He’s a police officer, Lana. Of course he’s not listed.”
“Well, I couldn’t find a number for Casey, either! And I sure wasn’t calling Warren or Candi! So I tried the Doggy Den, but it’s not listed, either! It’s a business! Why isn’t it listed?”
“Because it’s the Pup Parlor, not the Doggy Den, Lana. And what good would that have done you? No business would answer the phone at this hour!”
“But her friend who saw what happened lives there!”
“She lives in the apartment above the Pup Parlor, Lana. It’s a separate number.”
“WHY DON’T I HAVE ANYBODY’S NUMBER?”
After it was safe to put the phone back to her ear, Rita did so and said, “I think that’s a question you might want to ask yourself,” and hung up with a hrmph.
Of course the phone rang again five seconds later, but this time Hudson picked up, giving his wife a gentle “Let me.”
And Hudson, being Hudson, managed to defuse the situation and help Lana focus on what could be done (like packing and making travel plans) instead of what served no purpose (like calling people in the middle of the night). He also promised her she’d be the first person they’d call if they got news about Sammy, and asked her to do likewise. “We’ll meet you at the hospital,” he told her. And after a small hesitation during which he tried to balance the reality of the situation with the needs of a desperate mother, he added, “She’s got a strong spirit, Lana. We all just have to pray that she pulls through this.”
Once off the phone, Hudson assured his wife that Lana and Darren would arrive as soon as possible and that the best thing they could do for Sammy was to get some rest so they wouldn’t be too exhausted to be useful when Sammy awoke. Then he went to the kitchen, rummaged through the herbal teas Rita had moved in with her, and selected chamomile (as the box boasted calming properties and showed a cozy bear in a nightcap).
Unfortunately, the brew had no effect on either Rita or Hudson, and by five-thirty, both had given up on sleep and were on their way to St. Mary’s Church.
Having never gone to pray at this early hour before, the couple were a little surprised to find the door to the main church unlocked. Inside, there were a few candles burning at the altar, but the lights were off and the large room was ominously still.
Rita whispered, “Let’s just go to the side chapel,” but then through the darkness came the ticky-tacking of toenails on tile.
Hudson let out a soft whistle and whispered, “Gregory! Here, boy!” Soon a Welsh terrier appeared from between the pews. “Where’s your master, huh?” Hudson asked as the dog approached.
“Why, good mornin’,” came a voice that instantly conjured up visions of rolling green hills and four-leaf clovers. “What brings you two here at this hour?”
“Father Mayhew!” Rita cried, and suddenly she was in tears. “Oh, please. Pray with us.”
“My dear, what is wrong?” the priest asked, hurrying over (while Gregory took the opportunity to fetch his favorite chew—a carrot).
And so it came out. About Sammy and the fall and the stranger on the stairs and her condition in the hospital.
Father Mayhew had had his own escapades with Sammy and knew her to be the sort of girl you wished were your own (well, if you weren’t a priest, and you didn’t mind all the trouble that seemed to follow her). So he got on his knees beside Rita and Hudson and prayed with an earnest heart (and a lilting Irish brogue), begging God for mercy and compassion and reason.
And Gregory, who seemed to understand that this was serious, did not press the slobbery carrot he’d retrieved on Hudson in an effort to get him to play fetch, but rather sat quietly with his paws touching, as if doing what he could to help get the word up to God.
When they’d all murmured “Amen” (and Gregory was free to focus again on the wonders of his carrot), Rita and Hudson gave Father Mayhew their sincere thanks and the priest, in turn, assured them that he would “continue to pray for young Samantha.”
Then the seniors stepped out into the cool dawn air and drove toward the hospital, unaware that Sergeant Borsch had kept a night watch or that Billy Pratt had snuck into Room 411.
It was a new day.
A new shift would soon begin in the ICU.
And the hospital staff were about to realize that, although they’d attended to everyone from gang lords to the governor, they’d never experienced anyone like Samantha Josephine Keyes.
Even in a coma, the girl was trouble.
6—DITCHERS
Before it flared up again at Community Hospital, trouble sparked to life at William Rose Junior High School. It began with concern—with Holly and Marissa and their good friend Dot DeVries worrying aloud among other classmates.
It ended with students ditching school.
After all, who cared about mathematics or history or the rules of constructing a multi-paragraph essay? When a life hung in the balance, it was hard to fathom how mastering negative exponents or understanding the framework of an agrarian society or even how to write a general statement of commentary could possibly matter. (It was hard to fathom regardless!)
It didn’t seem important to these students that the life in question belonged to someone most of them didn’t really know. Or someone they’d spent most of seventh grade (and a good stretch of eighth) ridiculing.
Or whispering about.
(Or, at least, tolerating the whispers about.)
It was still … upsetting.
Sammy was one of them. And she’d been thrown seven floors (according to the growing rumors) to her near (and impending) death! It was unreasonable for anyone to expect them to concentrate on schoolwork at a time like this! They needed to support their classmate!
So by midmorning an exodus had begun. And as texts flew and word got around, the vacant seats grew in number until some classrooms were so woefully empty that by lunchtime teachers began questioning the use of being at school themselves.
Now, many of these students (ditchers though they were) did go to the hospital. But the reality of being inside even the main lobby of an institution for the injured and infirm freaked them out. Tears welled. Friends hugged. Whispers swirled.
And then they got the heck out of there.
And regrouped at the mall.
In the food court.
Where fries were cheap and Pepsi refills were free.
Marissa, Holly, and Dot were not the first ones to reach the hospital (because Dot had never ditched and it took some real convincing). So the senior volunteers sitting behind the reception desk had already seen a revolving cast of teens and had a good idea what these three girls wanted.
“Here about Samantha Keyes?” one of the volunteers asked.
/> “Yes, ma’am,” Holly replied.
“Are you actually staying?” the volunteer pressed. “Because if you’re not, save me the name badges, would you? I’m getting tired of throwing them away.”
When you’re a volunteer, you can get away with being a little snippy (especially to teenagers). But after the girls assured her that they were indeed staying, the volunteer lightened up a little and instructed them to sign in, then issued those valuable badges (which were nothing more than your basic Avery #8395 label with VISITOR printed in blue across the top). “The elevator’s down that way,” she said, motioning to her left. “Go up to the fourth floor, follow the signs to ICU. She’s in Room 411.”
For anyone who has not done it before, moving beyond the reception desk of Santa Martina’s Community Hospital is like stepping over a threshold into a different realm. The paint scheme changes from warm, earthen tones to a pale (or—let’s just say it, shall we—ghastly) green. The flooring switches from carpeting to a hard, epoxied surface (probably cement), and instead of large, bold murals of local landscapes, Sani-Foam dispensers adorn the walls.
The smell also changes.
As do the sounds.
“It’s so quiet,” Marissa whispered as they waited for the elevator. “And … sterile.”
Holly whispered, “Well, you want a hospital to be sterile, right?”
“Maybe we should have brought something?” Dot said. “Like flowers? Or balloons?”
Marissa gasped. “We should go back and get something!”
But just then the wide steel elevator door opened, and the cool, gaping hole it exposed seemed to suck them forward. Any thoughts of flowers and balloons were abandoned in the hallway.
“Even the elevator’s creepy,” Marissa whispered after Holly had pressed the 4 button.
Holly nodded. “Big enough for a gurney.”
Dot’s eyes darted around. “Do you think Sammy was brought up in here?”
It was a thought that sent shivers down the three girls’ spines, and all three were glad to step out of the giant steel box and into a fourth-floor hallway, where there was (at first) only one direction to go: