‘You missed all the excitement,’ he said, stretching. ‘Porch Lady attacked a nurse.’

‘What happened?’

‘She stabbed a nurse with a pen. Doc’s in there right now. I suggest breathing through your mouth.’

The doctor was leaning over Jane Doe, listening to her heartbeat. Under the bright fluorescent light, Jane Doe appeared even more emaciated. She was on both an IV and a nasogastric tube. Her arms and legs were secured with restraints, and almost every inch of her gray-colored skin was covered with bandages or wrapped in gauze.

Darby moved closer to the bed and saw bright drops of blood on the sheets. The sick wheezing she had heard early this morning in the ambulance now seemed labored, painful.

Jane Doe’s eyes fluttered beneath the paper-thin eyelids. What are you dreaming about?

‘You’re with the crime lab,’ the doctor said in a surprisingly soft voice. It didn’t go along with her hard, plain face.

Darby introduced herself. The doctor’s name was Tina Hathcock.

‘I hope you didn’t come here for the rape kit,’ Hathcock said. ‘Someone from the lab already picked it up.’

‘No, I just stopped by to see how she’s doing.’

‘Aren’t you the one who helped her out from underneath the stairs?’

‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘I thought so. I recognized your face. You’re all over the news.’

Wonderful, Darby thought. ‘I heard she attacked a nurse.’

‘About two hours ago,’ the doctor said. ‘The nurse was checking the IV line and was stabbed repeatedly with a pen. She’s in surgery right now. Hopefully, they’ll save her eye.’

‘Where did she get the pen?’

‘We think she got it from the clipboard we post at the end of the bed. I understand she bit a police officer.’

Darby nodded. ‘He reached inside to help her. She thought she was going to be attacked.’

‘Confusion and delirium are symptoms of sepsis – a blood infection caused by toxin-producing bacteria. In this case, it’s Staphylococcus aureus. Several of the cuts and sores on her arm are infected with staph. We are treating her with a broad-spectrum IV antibiotic therapy, but staph has become particularly resistant to antibiotics over the past few years. Given her already weakened condition, and her compromised immune system, the prognosis doesn’t look good.’

‘When she was conscious, did she say anything?’

‘No. She ripped out her IV lines and then tried to escape. We had to sedate her again, which has been tricky, given her irregular heartbeat. I don’t want to keep her sedated any more than I have to, but we can’t afford another psychotic episode. Do you have any idea who she is?’

‘We’re still trying to find out.’

The doctor turned her attention to the bed. ‘As you can see, she’s emaciated. At this stage, what happens is vital organs shift into lower gear – the heart rate declines and becomes irregular. Most of her hair has fallen out from lack of protein. The grayish color on her skin is due to severe vitamin deficiencies. You see that fine, almost downy covering on her skin? Almost looks like body hair? That’s lanugo. We generally see it during the late stages of anorexia. It’s the body’s way of reacting to loss of muscle and fat tissue – sort of a last-ditch effort to keep the body warm.’

Darby stared down at the sickly, waiflike creature wheezing in the bed. She thought of the picture of Terry Mastrangelo and tried to see her the same way her abductor did – as an object, a means to an end. How long had she been missing? And what had she endured?

‘Can I borrow your penlight?’

‘Of course,’ the doctor said, reaching inside her pocket.

Darby pulled back the sick tent and examined the woman’s left forearm.

Written in blue ink, in tiny letters on the exposed area of skin between the bandages, were a series of letters and numbers: 1 L S 2R L R 3R S 2R 3L.

And underneath it, three more lines:

2 R R S 2L S R R L 3R S

3 L 2R S S 2R L R 4 R

The fourth line was illegible.

The doctor leaned in. ‘What in God’s name is that?’

‘Directions would be my first guess – L for left, R for right.’

‘That last letter, or number, whatever it was, it looks like she was writing and then had to stop,’ the doctor said. ‘Maybe that was when the nurse came in.’

Darby had been wondering the same thing. ‘Excuse me for a moment.’

ID was gone for the day. Darby called Operations and crossed her fingers, hoping that Mary Beth was on call. She was.

It would be at least an hour before Mary Beth arrived with her equipment. Darby took pictures with her digital camera for her files.

Jane Doe was heavily sedated, so the doctor was willing to undo the restraints so Darby could take close-up pictures. She examined the rest of Jane Doe’s body and didn’t find any other writing.

‘Someone from the lab is going to be here to take more photographs,’ Darby said after she finished. ‘You might have to undo the restraints again.’

‘As long as she’s sedated. I meant to ask you this earlier: Do you know why she didn’t attack you?’

‘I think I reminded her of someone.’ Darby took out a business card and wrote down her home number. She handed the card to the doctor. ‘That’s my home number. When she wakes up, I’d appreciate if you’d call me, even if it’s late. I’ll leave my cell on, too.’

‘When you find the person who did this to her,’ the doctor said, ‘I hope you all have the good sense to string the son of a bitch up by his balls.’

Chapter 15

Darby did the documentation work for Mary Beth. When they stepped back outside the ICU, Darby turned on her phone and checked her messages. There was another one from Sheila, asking her to call. She was worried; Darby could tell by the tone of her mother’s voice. The second message was from Banville.

Her cell phone battery was almost dead. Darby found a pay phone on the wall next to a pair of vending machines. Across the hall was the ICU waiting room, a small area with stiff plastic chairs and magazines wrinkled by sweat. A man with rosary beads stared at the floor while a woman cried in the corner underneath the TV playing a news report on the war in Iraq.

When Banville answered his phone, Darby brought him up to date on the day’s events.

‘I agree, the letters do sound like directions,’ Banville said after she finished. ‘I wonder how the numbers factor into it.’

‘It could be a shorthand of some sort.’

‘And the only person who can decipher it is still sedated.’

‘I asked the doctor to call me when she wakes up. I want to be there when you question her.’

‘I think that’s a good idea. It might help keep her calm. Let’s hope she wakes up soon.’

‘I hear I’m all over the news.’

‘Some reporter got footage of you climbing under the porch with Jane Doe,’ Banville said. ‘I bet our boy is getting real nervous.’

‘How’s the mother holding up?’

‘About the same as any mother would hold up in this situation,’ Banville said. The Lynn police went to Little Baby Cool’s last known address. He doesn’t live there anymore and – imagine this – he forgot to notify his parole officer. I’ll tell them about the footwear impression.’

‘I want to talk to you about that,’ Darby said, and launched into her reasons for hiring the footwear consultant.

‘It’s something to consider,’ Banville said.

‘The last FedEx drop is at seven. Emmerich said he’d work on it first thing in the morning.’

‘That’s a hell of a lot of money to gamble on something that might not pan out.’

‘What would Carol want you to do?’

‘I didn’t realize you were on a first-name basis with the vic,’ Banville said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

Darby heard the sting of the dial tone. She hung up the phone, her face burning. Her attention drifted back over to the man holding the rosary beads.

In a flash she saw herself at fourteen, rosary beads in hand, pacing the worn-out carpet, waiting for her mother to come out of ICU where she was talking to the surgeon. Her father was going to be okay. Big Red had been in plenty of tough spots before; he was going to pull through this. God always protected the good.