“What time is it?” she asked, wondering if school had already let out.
“Almost one o’clock. And don’t worry,” Ms. Rothhammer said (clearly reading her mind). “I found people to cover my last two classes, but if you ask me, school should have just been canceled today.” Then she studied Sammy a minute and addressed her directly. “No homework tonight, Sammy. I gave everyone the night off in your honor. But tomorrow? Tomorrow you need to be back with us, okay? I can’t have you falling behind after all the progress you’ve made catching up.” And then dropping her voice to speak to Holly again, she asked, “Have they given any indication when she might wake up?”
Holly shook her head. “It’s all wait-and-see. But I know the longer this goes on, the worse it is.”
Sarah Rothhammer gave a knowing nod. She didn’t mean to, but scientific sensibilities controlled her head, and her head was closer to her neck than it was to her heart. So the nod confirmed Holly’s statement before she could consider its emotional impact. But then, seeing her normally stoic student’s new wave of tears, she quickly added, “But it’s early still—give her a chance.” And then, in an effort to turn the mood around, she addressed Sammy again with “You wouldn’t believe what a commotion you’ve caused. The waiting room’s a zoo! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“Yeah,” Holly said, catching on. “Madame Nashira’s out there. And so is Slammin’ Dave. And André. And Justice Jack! Jack says he’s ready to give whoever did this to you a tour of Stomp City!”
“And all your friends are out there, too,” Sarah added. “Including the miraculously converted Heather Acosta.” She shook her head. “You have to tell me what you did to that girl. I thought she was a goner, but what a turnaround.” Then she eyed Holly and said, “I hope.”
“Yeah,” Holly said with a frown. “I’m not a true believer yet.”
The science teacher laughed. “It’ll take all of us a while, I think.” Then she shifted gears, saying, “I was surprised I could even get up here to the room, but nobody stopped me, or even questioned me. Maybe because of all the commotion?”
But security concerns were immediately forgotten as a primordial squeal emanated from a nurse mid-hallway.
Fortunately, it was not a squeal of pain or danger.
It was a squeal of sheer delight.
Darren Cole had entered the ICU.
11—TEDDY BEARS
The delay in Darren getting from the cafeteria to the ICU was not Lana’s doing.
It was Marko’s.
“Dude!” he’d suddenly said as they were waiting for the elevator. “I need to bring Sammy something.”
“She’s unconscious,” Darren reminded him.
“But she’s gonna wake up! And when she does, there needs to be something from her uncle Marko! Right there! Center front!”
“Her uncle Marko?” Lana choked out, and the already present knot in her stomach tightened.
There was, in fact, no biological relationship between Sammy and the drummer, but Lana’s reaction stemmed from the clear (and painful) truth:
Sammy liked Marko.
Really-really liked him.
And it was clear (and also painful) to Lana that Sammy didn’t like her.
Really-really didn’t like her.
So as Lana and Darren followed Marko to the gift shop, Lana’s eyes filled with tears, which Darren noticed. “She’s going to be all right,” the rocker said, wrapping an arm around her. “We have to believe she’s going to be all right.”
Lana just shook her head, and Darren (to his credit) could see that there was something more on her mind. He stopped, letting Marko go into the gift shop alone. “What is it?” he asked softly.
So with the swipe of a spilled tear and a little cringe, Lana confessed, “I feel so left out.”
“Left out?”
“She’s only known you and Marko a few months, and it’s like she’s known you her whole life. Me she’s known her whole life, but we’re practically strangers. She doesn’t want to do anything with me, she’ll barely text me back, and she never returns my calls. But you? You’re like her best friend!”
Darren looked away and tried not to acknowledge the truth in Lana’s words. “Well, we took that cruise together and—”
“That’s not it. You two just clicked. You laugh and joke and talk for hours. Do you realize how long you’re on the phone with her? And Marko’s got that same ease with her. But me? I feel like I’m in the way. I’m uptight and no fun and too worried about every little thing.” She gave him a pleading look. “I know Marko hates that I’m back in your life.”
“He does not.”
“Oh, Darren …”
Darren studied her a moment, then gathered some resolve. “Look, he knows you make me happy.” He dropped his voice even further. “But it would help if you could relax a little around him.… Maybe try not to be so disapproving of his, you know … youthful qualities?”
Lana cringed. “It’s that obvious?”
Darren laughed. “Yes, my love.”
She cringed harder. “With Samantha, too?”
Now, a weak (or cowardly) man would have lied. Or given a diplomatic (or spineless) response. But Darren Cole was not fainthearted, so out came the simple truth. “Yes.”
Rather than be defensive (which would have been a very natural reaction and almost required of a more seasoned diva), Lana instead broke down. “Why am I like that? I don’t want to be judgmental. I don’t want to be uptight. It just … it just happens!”
Darren gave her a scrutinizing look. “Are we really discussing this right now?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, then.” He thought for a few seconds, then just came out with it. “Marko thinks it’s because you’re insecure.”
“Marko does?” Lana asked, arching an eyebrow.
The archy eyebrow (although a small gesture) elicited a big reaction from Darren. “That right there?” he said (pointing to the archy eyebrow). “That’s condescending. Marko is a smart guy. He may be a child at heart, but that’s part of his intelligence. He knows how to connect with the truth.” He calmed himself with a deep breath, then continued. “You need people around you who keep you anchored to the truth, Lana.”
“But … how can he think I’m a diva—which I know he does—and say I’m insecure?”
Darren gave her a wry smile. “In our experience they usually go together.”
“What?”
“It’s true! It’s an overcompensation thing.” But since Lana was obviously not buying what he was saying, he sighed and explained, “Look, you were basically a kid when you had Sammy. And I was off being an oblivious rock star, which I’m sure made you feel abandoned and betrayed and all of that. Then your dad bailed on your mom for some biker chick because he couldn’t take the idea of being a grandpa, and he crashed his Harley and died. So you felt abandoned and betrayed and guilty, and you’ve spent all the years since then trying to be perfect to prove you could rise above the … mess.” He looked at her directly. “But real life is messy. Being perfect won’t change the past. And it won’t get you anywhere real.”
Lana looked down, quiet. And after a long minute had gone by, she said, “All that from Marko?”
Darren hesitated. “Let’s just say he set the rhythm and I put in the notes.” Then he tipped up Lana’s chin and said, “Those of us out front shouldn’t undervalue the rock-solid people behind us.” He looked into the gift shop. “Even if mine just bought seventeen stuffed bears.”
“Dude!” Marko cried as he waddled out of the gift shop. And although it seemed impossible that he could see where he was going through all the synthetic fur he was hugging, he made a beeline for Darren and dumped his load of bears (along with a stowaway unicorn) at Darren’s feet, then dashed back to the gift shop, where he retrieved a dozen helium balloons and a gift-shop bag containing Sharpie markers and rolls of extra-wide ribbon. “Flowers are not allowed in the ICU,” he announced, then started p
icking up bears and shoving them at Darren. “Help me out, man!”
Lana wanted to tell the drummer that there was no room for seventeen stuffed bears (and a stowaway unicorn) in her daughter’s room, but she bit her tongue. And while she was biting her tongue (and Darren was picking up bears), a bubble of regret percolated through her.
Did she really have to be uptight about teddy bears?
“Here, I’ll carry some,” she volunteered.
Now, the simple truth was, Lana had never been mistaken for a roadie. Or even a distant friend of a roadie. It was fully understood that Lana Keyes didn’t carry stuff.
Well, her purse.
And boutique bags.
But guitars or amps or drums or even cables?
Her fingerprints on those were nowhere to be found.
And although teddy bears were certainly not guitars or amps or drums (or even cables), it was the simple act of volunteering to carry anything that stunned Marko. His arms froze. His eyes bugged. His jaw dropped.
And then, when Lana actually stooped down to pick up bears and said, “This is very sweet of you, Marko,” it seemed that the rim-shot-slammin’ drummer might just fall over.
Fortunately, he had a dozen helium balloons helping to keep him upright. “I’m thinkin’ everyone can write a message,” he explained (once his jaw was back in socket). “Her friends, her grandparents, us … maybe a teacher or two.”
“Write a message?” Lana asked.
So Marko showed her the ribbons and the packs of Sharpie markers. “I’m thinkin’ the bears could use some message bows, you know?”
Lana’s eyes were suddenly stinging with tears. “Like the shoes,” she choked out.
“Aw, Lana,” Marko said, and he would have dropped everything to hug her, only he’d learned a long time ago that Lana Keyes was not the hugging type. So instead he simply said, “She’s going to be okay, okay?”
“Please tell me that again,” she said with a quivery smile.
“She’s going to be okay, okay?”
Lana made a noise somewhere between a sniff and a laugh, then picked up the unicorn and said, “She is going to hate this one.”
Marko gave Darren a quick look that clearly conveyed Uh-oh, because he’d picked out the unicorn specifically for Lana.
Something Lana had already figured out.
“I don’t want to be a unicorn in a forest of bears,” she said quietly.
“But a unicorn is a beautiful, magical creature,” Marko said. Then he quickly added, “Besides, the surface on that is going to be awesome to write on. Check it out. See how smooth it is?”
Lana found herself laughing (in the best of ways) at Marko’s exuberance. And being considered beautiful and magical was not a bad thing.
Still. Beauty and magic didn’t matter now unless she had some magic that would bring Sammy back.
Which she didn’t.
And really, at this point, no other kind of magic mattered. She just wanted Sammy to wake up.
She wanted the chance to start over with her.
To relax and accept and … and appreciate.
So she took a deep breath and told Marko, “Maybe we’ll get some of her friends to write on this one. I think I’d rather have a bear.”
“All righty, then!” Marko said, giving Darren a very pleased bro-grin. “Let’s get these woodland creatures up to Sammy!”
So off they went with their balloons and bears (and a stowaway unicorn) to the elevator and up to the ICU.
Which (with one skunk reporter, four odd ducks, and six testy teens) was (as Sarah Rothhammer was just sharing) already quite a zoo.
12—DIRTY LAUNDRY
Hudson and Rita weren’t part of the waiting-room hubbub, being instead sidetracked by the suspicious activities taking place inside the Highrise laundry room.
“Why in the world would we call Gil Borsch?” Hudson whispered after Rita suggested it.
“Because that,” Rita said, “is the Nightie-Napper.”
“Vince Garnucci is the Nightie-Napper?”
Now, ordinarily a man with a … let’s just call it an affinity for old-ladies’ nightgowns (or muumuus, or bedsheets of floral design) would not seem like a threatening figure.
It was clear from his quick, furtive actions as he rummaged through the dryer and held up articles of clothing before tossing them back in that the Highrise manager was doing more than checking the moisture content of processed laundry. Still, to Hudson, a call to a psychiatrist seemed more appropriate than a call to the police.
But there was the unsettling issue of Holly’s mention of Sammy’s mention of the Nightie-Napper shortly before the attack.
And, slight as the man rummaging through the dryer was, maybe secrets of this sort brought out the beast inside.
Maybe there was danger in confronting him.
Especially since Rita no longer lived in the building and nobody knew they were there.
Now, please don’t jump to the conclusion that Hudson Graham was wimping out.
He most certainly was not.
But Hudson Graham, being an intelligent man, was considering the options before springing into action. It was not in his DNA (or his CIA training) to call the police (or, for that matter, ask for help). It was in his nature (as well as his training) to handle things himself.
But he had just decided that a call to Sergeant Borsch would be wise when Rita suddenly stepped out from behind cover and into the laundry room.
“Vince!” Rita snapped as she moved quickly across the room. “All this time it’s been you.”
The dryers in the basement of the Senior Highrise are (like everything else in the building) old. They are giant tumblers with large, porthole-style doors that swing open for easy access (and are still only fifty cents for forty minutes).
“Rita!” Vince Garnucci gasped as he ditched a shortsleeved, 100 percent cotton, primrose-patterned nightgown into the dryer. “What brings you back to the Highrise?”
But Rita cut straight to the point. “All this time we residents suspected each other—but it was you.”
“Me?” Vince Garnucci let out a forced laugh. “Rita, what are you talking about?”
“You know darned well what I’m talking about! You’re the Nightie-Napper!”
“Me?” The manager produced another laugh. “I was just trying to figure out whose clothes these were so I could call and say they’re done so the Nightie-Napper won’t get them!”
It was true that some residents had taken to marking their names inside their garments to discourage their disappearance (which is never a bad practice in institutions where memories are slipping anyway), but Rita wasn’t buying. “Nice try, Vince.”
Rita had always been a lady around the building manager. A (comparatively) calm, level-headed lady. But she had a look in her eye now. A serious, you-are-mine look in her eye. And instead of ladylike shoes, she was wearing red, kick-tush shoes, and the combination was clearly throwing Vince Garnucci for a loop.
“Now, Rita,” he said, backing away from her as she approached.
“Don’t you now-Rita me! I know what I saw!”
“Why would I steal nightgowns?” the manager choked out, backpedaling as Rita chased him.
“For your grandmother!” Rita cried (because two plus two was definitely equaling four).
“Hudson!” the manager cried. “Stop her! This is all a misunderstanding!”
But Hudson knew a guilty man when he saw one and instead said, “Give it up, m’man.”
Panic flashed across Vince Garnucci’s face. But rather than just give it up (as well he should have), he continued moving backward, praying for a way out.
Instead, he found a way in.
Into an open dryer, that is.
The minute he crashed into it and stumbled backward, Rita pounced forward, shoved him in the rest of the way (swinging his legs around with a mighty heave-ho), and closed the door. “Call Gil!” she commanded Hudson, and leaned her weight against t
he big portal window while the Highrise manager slammed his palms against the glass and cried (muffled though it was), “Let me out! Let me out!”
Having both a cell phone and the presence of mind not to argue with a woman whom he’d just discovered possessed not only the vim but also the vigor to lock a grown man inside a clothes dryer, Hudson dialed the number. And when the call was answered with a hopeful “Is there news?” instead of the stoic “Gil Borsch here,” Hudson felt almost guilty about the news he did have. “No,” he replied, then quickly added, “Any chance you could get to the Senior Highrise? Rita’s trapped Vince Garnucci in a dryer. Looks like he’s the Nightie-Napper.”
“She’s … wait … what?”
“You heard me, Gil.”
After a short hesitation, the lawman said, “That sounds like something Sammy would do.”
Hudson frowned as he eyed his wife, wedged up against the dryer. “Must be the shoes.”
“What’s that?”
“Can you just get here? We’re in the basement. I don’t know how long a man can breathe inside a closed dryer.”
“On my way,” Gil said, and clicked off.
Inside the dryer, Vince Garnucci had collapsed into a wretched puddle of pleas. And although the pleas themselves were not quite discernible through the glass (or the tears), it was clear that the man was losing it.
“Let him out, Rita. He’s harmless.”
“He’s a thief!” Rita countered.
Hudson nodded. “Let him out.”
Rita turned and studied the manager through the glass, then opened the door ever so slightly. “Confess,” she said through the crack. “Or get tumbled!”
What came through the opening was a long, gaspriddled barrage of incoherent (and very weepy) verbiage. And when the manager collapsed back into a balled-up position at the bottom of the dryer, Hudson asked, “What did he say?”
Rita shook her head. “Something about his grandmother being demanding and unreasonable.”
Hudson Graham had an exquisite opportunity to make a joke at Rita’s expense, but instead simply said, “Rita, the man’s in obvious pain. I don’t know how long he can breathe in there, and we’re not going to tumble a confession out of him. Let him out.”