She’d seen the most pious, timid of men turn out to be cold-blooded killers.
“So, is this Jocelyn Wallis?” Alvarez asked as she slid a couple of pictures of the battered woman to him.
O’Halleran swept in a breath. “God, I hope not,” he said fervently but studied each of the two shots. “I–I don’t know. Maybe. Jesus.”
“I’ve got a few pictures of Jocelyn Wallis,” Alvarez said.
“From the school’s Web site?” Pescoli guessed.
“Motor vehicle division.” Alvarez clicked on her keyboard, and a driver’s license appeared on the screen. The woman in the picture was somewhere in her early thirties with a bright smile and long reddish brown hair.
“Could be.” Pescoli looked at O’Halleran. “Any identifying marks? Tattoos? Scars? Birthmarks?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Don’t know.”
“You didn’t see her naked?” Pescoli questioned. “She didn’t talk about any surgeries or injuries as a kid? Or getting a tattoo?”
“We didn’t get that far.”
“You didn’t sleep with her?” Pescoli asked.
He hesitated and looked down at his hands before meeting her eyes again. “Once. At her place. I didn’t see anything. She didn’t tell me about anything like that, but she did wear earrings. Three in one ear, I think, and two in the other.”
“That’s something,” Pescoli said. “So why don’t you come down and see if you know her?”
“The hospital will allow it?” he asked.
“We’ve got friends in high places.”
He was already climbing to his full six feet two inches, and Alvarez was reaching for her jacket, purse, and sidearm. “I’ll drive,” Pescoli said. She wanted to see his reaction to the injured woman, and then she’d double-check his story.
And if the woman turned out to be someone other than Jocelyn Wallis, there was still the problem that the schoolteacher was missing.
If what O’Halleran had told them was true.
“Oh, thank God, Doctor Lambert! I was so afraid…. Oh, sweet Jesus!” Rosie Alsgaard said, the fingers of one hand theatrically splayed over her chest as she hurried along the hallway of the second floor of the small hospital. Dressed in scrubs, the ear tips of the coiled stethoscope peeking out of her pocket like the tiny twin faces of a double-headed snake, the ER nurse jogged over the shiny linoleum as she met Kacey. “Oh, man, I was worried. We all were.”
“Worried? What’re you talking about?”
“Because of the patient who was admitted last night, before my shift! She’s a dead ringer for you, and Cleo, she was certain it was you! The Jane Doe.”
“Cleo?”
“The nurse’s aide who was working ER last night. And not just her. Me, too. I saw the patient and… and it’s freaky!” Rosie was breathing hard, her words tumbling out of her mouth in no sensible order. “I mean, of course her face is swollen and bruised, her nose broken, but her hair… and she looks like you. I was sure when I saw her this morning… I mean, I was worried sick that you had fallen and—”
“Rosie! Slow down,” Kacey ordered, one hand up. “Let’s start over.”
An aide pushing a medication cart passed by, while another nurse whipped past them and hurried toward the bank of elevators located at this end of the small building housing the newly reopened St. Bart’s Hospital.
“Okay, okay!” Some of Rosie’s color was coming back, and she took a long, deep breath. “Last night a patient came into the ER by ambulance. Apparently she was out jogging and fell down the ravine by the river. She didn’t have any ID on her, and she was — is — in bad shape. Head trauma, broken pelvis, fractured tibia in two places, sprained wrist, two cracked ribs, ruptured spleen, and cuts and contusions. I mean, she’s a mess, must’ve rolled down that hill, hitting rocks and roots and God knows what else. But the thing is, she does resemble you. She’s got the same build, and we all know that you jog, sometimes up in the park…. We all were hoping that it wasn’t you, but we were worried just the same.”
“Someone could have called.”
“Too busy last night. The police were here, too. And there were two multiple-car accidents with the snow, so there wasn’t any time. Cleo and I, we figured if you didn’t show up for rounds today, that we’d call the clinic.”
“Where’s the Jane Doe now?”
“In ICU, but she might have to be sent to Missoula or Spokane, depending. Right now, no one wants to move her.”
“I’ll check on her when my rounds are finished.”
Rosie offered a tentative smile. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
As Kacey went about her rounds, she wondered just how “okay” she was. For the second time in a week she’d heard that someone who looked like her was either dead or fighting for her life. Weird. But until she saw the woman in the ICU, she couldn’t be certain that Rosie’s imagination wasn’t working overtime.
An hour later, after she’d finished checking on the few patients who were under her care in the hospital, she made her way to the ICU.
Anita Bellows was the nurse on duty. Barely five feet, Anita, at forty, was as lithe and agile as a woman half her age. A gymnast in college, she now ran marathons and trained year-round to keep in shape. With short brown hair, a quick smile, and large eyes surrounded by lashes caked in mascara, she had moved from Missoula when St. Bart’s opened this past year, giving the aging Pinewood Community Hospital a run for its money.
Today, like Rosie Alsgaard, Anita, spying Kacey push open the door to the ICU, was visibly relieved. Anita was situated at the large circular desk from which private, curtained “rooms” radiated, much like the petals of a sunflower. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered, making a quick sign of the cross over her thin chest, where a tiny gold cross was suspended on a fragile chain. “I thought… I mean, I was worried that. .” She sighed and hitched her chin toward a woman lying in one of the two occupied beds. “I’m just glad she’s not you.”
“She’s the Jane Doe?”
“Uh-huh. Brought in last night.”
Kacey approached the private, curtained area for the patient.
The muscles in her torso tensed as she stared down at the patient’s swollen face. Kacey saw the resemblance despite the contusions and probable broken nose. High cheekbones, deep-set eyes, which were now closed, a heart-shaped face, a few freckles still visible were like her own. The patient’s hair was a deep auburn hue, and it fell in unruly waves to her shoulders, just as Kacey’s did, even though a part of Jane’s head had been shaved to allow an intracerebral pressure catheter to be inserted into her skull. The ICP monitored pressure inside the skull and drained off excess fluid.
Not a good sign. Heart monitor, ICP, IVs, urinary catheter were just a start. Jane Doe’s body was draped beneath a sheet, one leg splinted, but Kacey already knew from Rosie and Anita the patient was a similar size and body type.
She touched the woman’s hand. Who are you?
An eerie whisper swept over the back of her neck, and she told herself she was being foolish and unprofessional. Just because Rosie, who wasn’t known for being rock steady, thought there was a resemblance, so what? Yet, as she looked at the comatose woman, just for a second she imagined her own self in this woman’s place. In her mind’s eye she saw herself helpless, comatose, on the cusp of death, while nurses and doctors scurried around to try and save her life.
“See what I mean?” Anita asked.
Kacey lifted a shoulder. “Maybe she does look a little like me.”