Chapter Thirteen

Joe circled the lot twice, cursing, before spotting a battered green Gremlin pulling out of a spot near the end of a row. He darted into it and they ran toward the emergency room entrance. In the transition area they startled an orderly pushing a woman in a wheelchair, brushed past them through the automatic door, and hurried through the crowded waiting room toward the admissions desk.

While they waited impatiently to talk to the clerk, they craned their necks, taking in the room of green tile, brown linoleum, and row upon row of orange plastic seats, all lit by the sickly glare of fluorescent lights. In one seat, an old woman in a threadbare coat sagged against a younger woman who was absorbed in a fashion magazine. A few women in ill-fitting second-hand clothes rocked crying babies while older children whined and swung their legs from the edge of the chairs. In the front row, a stringy-haired blonde in jeans and a studded jacket leaned over her tattooed boyfriend, clutching a dirty rag over his hand and whispering to him as the blood seeped through. Toward the back of the room, an elderly man, nattily dressed in khakis, golf jacket and cap, leaned over a cane, coughing great racking phlegm-filled coughs.

Brent's lip curled in distaste.

"What 's the matter," Joe said. "Is it sick people or poor people you can't stand?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Joe scoffed. "Why are you looking around like you're someplace that's contaminated, then?"

"It is contaminated. Everyone knows you can get sick hanging around a hospital."

Joe's eyebrows flickered and he turned away. The line had moved forward a little, and he waited while the young woman in front of him gasped to the clerk that she couldn't breathe. The clerk was unimpressed and gave her a form to fill out. "Got insurance?" When the girl shook her head, she handed her another form and told her to fill that one out, too.

Joe now moved to the front of the line. "I'm looking for a woman who came in earlier tonight. Elise Riddisee. I'm her husband."

The woman tapped at her keyboard. "Could you spell the name, please?" she asked. She typed the letters as Joe spelled it for her. "No one by that name."

"I bet she used the name Perry gave her," Brent muttered.

Joe stared at the clerk, nonplussed. "Maybe you remember her from earlier tonight. Skinny girl with short black hair and brown eyes? About 5'2" or so."

"Lots of people have been through here tonight," the woman said. "I don't remember what they all look like."

"She would've come in a few hours ago."

"I'm telling you, I don't keep up with all that. If you don't have a name or social security number, I can't help you."

Joe pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. "Try the social security number, then." He took out a slip of paper and read off a number.

The clerk tapped some more keys, then shook her head again.

"Can I talk to a doctor or a nurse?" Joe asked. "Someone who might've handled her case?"

The clerk sighed. "If she's not in my computer, she didn't come through here. Are you sure she came to this hospital? There are two other charity hospitals in town, you know."

"Yes," Joe said. "They told me they brought her here."

"Well, if they did, she wasn't admitted." Her attention turned to the next person in line. "Can I help you?"

A man pushed his way to the counter, an arm wrapped protectively around a woman's shoulders. "She's been throwing up since around ten o'clock tonight."

Brent jumped out of their way and moved toward the aisle leading from the waiting room to where a pair of swinging doors had been steadily opening and closing on nurses and patients. "Let's wait here and see if we can catch someone who knows something."

Joe nodded. "She may even still be here, for all we know."

"She probably doesn't have a ride, since some stranger brought her here. I wonder where she was thinking of going afterward."

Joe's face fell. "I hadn't even thought of that. You don't think she'd go back to Sylvia's place?"

Brent shrugged. "I doubt it. They said she had taken her bags, remember?" He paced in front of the swinging doors. "Why should she go back? She got what she went there for. And even if she did go back, she wouldn't stay two minutes once she heard we'd been there. They wouldn't lie to cover for us like they did for her. There's a twisted sort of unity among their kind."

"But where would she go instead, especially if she's sick?"

"She's got other friends," Brent reminded him. "If she doesn't want to go to one of them, she could always call a cab and go to a hotel. She's got enough cash to go just about anywhere she wants."

Joe shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. "I guess we'll just have to hope we'll see her or find a doctor or nurse who remembers her."

Brent scanned the waiting room again, then he turned his gaze back to the double doors, a crafty smile playing about his lips. "Think anybody would notice if we went back there?"

"They'd probably throw us out."

"I don't think so," Brent said. "I mean, if they say something to us, we could just play dumb, act like we didn't know we weren't supposed to be back there or something. This is a charity hospital, so I'm sure they're used to seeing all kinds of weirdos. It's worth a shot."

Joe shook his head. "We're going to have a tough enough time explaining why I don't even know my wife's name. I don't want to make them more suspicious by going where we've got no business going."

"Suit yourself. I'm going to go back there and ask, though. You can wait out here."

"No," Joe said with a sigh. "If this is what we're going to do, I should be the one to go. She's my wife, after all."

Brent threw up his hands. "Fine." He headed toward the waiting area, scanning the room for an empty seat far enough away from all the sick people to provide a buffer. Finding one at the end of a row, he slumped into it and folded his arms across his chest.