‘I don’t know his mailing address. He’d just started at Hopkins before the accident and hadn’t found a place to live yet, so he was living in a motel while a realtor helped him find a condo. The lab’s been incredibly understanding. They’re holding the job for him until he gets back on his feet. Wait a minute!’ I heard papers rustling. ‘I knew it was here somewhere. Before the accident, Nick was staying at a Night and Day Suites, near Laurel.
‘Where on earth have they discharged him to, Hannah? I wish he’d told me!’ she rattled on, almost without taking a breath. ‘But then, we haven’t been close for years. I’m trying, I really am, but after all the baggage that we both bring into the relationship, it’s unrealistic to expect changes overnight.’ Lilith paused for air, then asked, ‘Do you want me to go to Kernan and see what I can find out?’
‘No, no, I’ll be happy to do it. I’m a hundred miles closer than you are, Lilith. Try to relax. I’ll let you know when I find out anything.’
‘Thanks, Hannah.’ Her voice faltered. ‘You’re the first real friend I’ve had in… well, just thanks.’
After that unsolicited endorsement, I got a little misty-eyed, too.
Two minutes after saying goodbye to Lilith, I telephoned Kernan Hospital and asked to speak to Nicholas Aupry.
‘I’m sorry, he’s no longer a patient here,’ the operator informed me.
‘Oh my gosh! I’m his aunt, and I was planning to send him this big box of chocolates, his favorites, dark chocolate with caramel. I can’t believe he left the hospital without telling me. Can you tell me his forwarding address?’
I figured the woman wouldn’t be a pushover, and I was right. ‘Sorry, dear. Even if I had it, which I don’t, I couldn’t give it out to you. Patient confidentiality. I’m sure you understand.’
I lowered my voice, spoke softly and slowly, adding a snuffly sniffle in the middle of the sentence for effect. ‘Sure. I understand. I understand completely. I’ve tried him on his cell, too, but he doesn’t pick up. Frankly, I’m worried. Nick isn’t in the best of shape.’
The woman on the other end of the line brightened, her next words sounding positively chipper. ‘You shouldn’t worry about that for a minute. Your nephew is listed as an outpatient now. He’s due here for physical therapy at three thirty this afternoon. Why don’t you come and wait for him here?’
I clucked my tongue. ‘You are kidding me! I go away for a couple of days… Men! They never tell you anything, do they? He probably thinks he can manage all by himself, but you know what that means. Living on Hungry Jack frozen entrées delivered by Pea Pod or something. I am going to make him the biggest lasagne…’ And I hung up.
I left Annapolis in plenty of time to arrive at Kernan in order to waylay Nick when he appeared for therapy. I sat in a waiting-room chair for a while, thumbing through copies of People magazine, then I paced. Thirty minutes, forty, an hour went by. Still no Nick.
The volunteer watch changed at four o’clock, and I was elated when the same woman who had been on duty the first time I visited the hospital strolled out from a staff area and took a seat behind the desk. I waited until she got settled, then approached her. ‘Hi. Remember me?’ I flapped my hand in an ‘aw shucks’ way and laughed. ‘Oh, of course you don’t. You see hundreds of people every day. I’m Nicholas Aupry’s aunt. He was supposed to come in for his physical therapy session today.’ I tapped the face on my watch. ‘But he’s over an hour late! Did he call or anything? I’m kinda worried.’
‘Sorry, honey. We don’t have that kind of information.’
In spite of how I felt about Hoffner, over the past several months he had been the closest thing Nick had to a friend and confidant. Grinding my teeth with distaste, I dialed 1-800-GOTALAW, but it rang once and went over to voicemail, making me wonder if the man had any partners at all. Where the heck was Smith? Where was Gallagher? Where was the receptionist, for that matter? The same smarmy syrupy voice that made my skin crawl came on the line. ‘Got a phone? Got a Lawyer! This is James Hoffner and I’m not available to take your call right now. But your call is important to me, so stay on the line and leave your message at the beep. And remember: Got a phone? Got a Lawyer!’
‘This is Hannah Ives,’ I told his machine. ‘You’ve got my number. Call me.’
Following the directions of the volunteer behind the desk, I found a vending machine and bought a Coke, popped the cap and carried it out to my car where I could think. What would I do at this point if I were the delectable Detective Hughes? I’d start where Nick last lived, I told myself; at the Night and Day Suites near Laurel.
Laurel is only about twenty-five miles from northwest Baltimore, but I got snarled in rush-hour traffic on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, arriving at the Night and Day Suites behind a group of seven businessmen who’d just been deposited in the lobby by a Blue Shuttle van from BWI. I stood in line at eighth position as they began checking in one by one with a registration desk staffer.
Three people had received their key cards and headed for the elevators before it occurred to me to find a house phone. I located one near the rack of tourist brochures – The Baltimore Aquarium! The National Zoo! Luray Caverns! – dialed ‘0’ and asked the harried receptionist to put me through to Nicholas Aupry.
‘Can you hold, please?’
After a long silence in which I watched the receptionist hand over a key card to the next person in line, she came back on the line. ‘Sorry, but we have no guests by that name.’
So I got back in a line which had grown by another two hotel guests in my absence. One step forward, Hannah, and two steps back.
When I finally made it to the desk, the receptionist, a mouse of a girl, smiled in a way that transformed her face, as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud. She wore a brass name tag that said ‘Julie. Racine, Wisc.’
‘Checking in?’
I rested both hands on the counter, spread my fingers. ‘No, thanks, Julie. I’m trying to get some information. My nephew was staying here a couple of months ago, Nicholas Aupry, but he was badly injured in that terrible Metro crash.’
Julie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Didn’t you just call and ask about him?’
Ooops! I shifted gears. ‘Yes, I did. It was such a long line and I thought… well, I have your full attention now!’
‘I do remember your nephew,’ Julie said with a sad little smile that made it all the way up to her eyes. ‘I’d just started working here then. How’s he doing?’
‘It was touch and go for a while, but he’s finally out of the woods. Nick’s still in the hospital, but we hope he’ll be released to rehab before long. That’s why I’m here, actually. I can’t believe Nick didn’t think about the luggage he left behind here until just yesterday! He’s asked me to come pick it up for him. Do you have it in storage somewhere?’
‘That’s really not my department,’ Julie from Racine told me. ‘Hold on a minute.’ She picked up the phone, spoke a few words to someone who appeared almost immediately from a cubbyhole of a room behind the reception desk. Rick – from San Diego – shook my hand, told me how sorry he was to hear about my nephew’s accident and then got right down to the nitty gritty. ‘Sorry, you made the trip for nothing, but we already sent your nephew’s luggage on.’
I made a production of rolling my eyes. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! I told Nick I’m coming to take care of it! What was he thinking? Did it go to my apartment on Cathedral Street in Baltimore?
Rick’s brow wrinkled in concentration. ‘No, I distinctly remember sending it to a Night and Day Suites up in Baltimore.’
‘The one near Kernan Hospital?’
He pointed a finger like a gun. ‘That’s the one.’