* * *
"Think," Barb demanded an hour later as they sat sprawled in Timmie's living room with sodas and ice packs. "You have something somebody in that hospital wants pretty badly."
"Nothing!" Timmie insisted again. "Not if they haven't changed the M and M sheets."
"He didn't hurt you in any way."
"No. I think he just wasn't good enough at his job to lift my bag earlier." She hoped he just wasn't good enough. "He probably saw that running-a-car-off-a-road stunt in a Sylvester Stallone movie somewhere."
"Seems pretty stupid."
"So did he."
Barb finished her soda like a shot and grimaced. "So, what do we do now?"
Timmie pushed herself off her chair and tried not to groan. She was not a very good victim, especially when she ached. She was a worse target, though. "I need to catch Conrad before he disappears with that list. Maybe he's spotted something I missed."
But Conrad had already disappeared. All Timmie had to talk to was his answering machine, which pleaded for her to make him a happy man with a message and then wished everyone a musical "Ciao, bambini."
Timmie left her message. Standing there doing it, she saw that her answering machine was blinking and instinctively hit the Replay button. There was a message to call her insurance company and the leftover one from Murphy, who had wanted to warn her about new phone threats. Then there was one other.
"What games are you playing now, Timmie?" an aggrieved male voice demanded, making Timmie flush so hard her head spun again. "You telling the courts I gave Meghan drugs? Got her drunk? I've had a little trouble and you get righteous and vindictive. Well, I have my rights. I'm here, I'm going to see my daughter, and then I'll show everyone just what pain you've caused me. Think about it, Timmie."
Timmie just stood there as the machine beeped, clicked, and went silent.
"Obviously the ex," Barb suggested dryly. "He does have the West Coast concession on rationalization, doesn't he?"
Well, at least it washed out the fear for a while. Timmie was so angry she could hardly speak. "The pain I've caused him?" she demanded, not realizing how much she sounded like Barb had with the court order in her hand. "The games I've played? He's got almost three million stashed away somewhere and I haven't seen a penny's child support since he walked out the door, and he's dragged me through court for thirteen months just to do it, and I'm playing games with him? How dare he!"
She was trembling now. Barb, her own rage buried along with her ex, leaned back and smiled. "He's a man. That's how dare he. Because, like most men, he's never grown up. And you want to know why? I've thought about this a lot lately, you know."
Not in the mood to be anybody's straight man, Timmie just glared.
Barb grinned. "Because we never wean them off the breast, that's why."
The doorbell didn't even ring. The door just flew open and hurried footsteps echoed in the hallway. Timmie had been expecting Meghan. But unless Megs had graduated to size thirteen large overnight, this wasn't Megs. It wasn't. Like the perfect punctuation to a senseless conversation, there stood Murphy.
Timmie couldn't help it. She laughed. She laughed so hard her ribs hurt where the seat belt had bruised them, and she had to sit down. "I never thought of it that way, Barb. You're right."
"About what?" Murphy demanded, panting.
"That you never grew up," Barb said over her shoulder.
"If I'd grown up, I wouldn't have been a reporter," Murphy assured her, then turned to Timmie. "You okay?"
Timmie smiled more than she'd intended. "I look worse than you. I got staples."
He faltered to a halt right at the edge of the section of floor where he'd spent the other night sprawled. "I got more."
"You win. What are you doing here?"
He grimaced and leaned over, hands on knees, panting a little. "You kidding? There's a police scanner at the paper. The minute Sherilee heard who was involved, she made it a point to call me personally. She still smells an expose. Is this expose material, or did you just fall asleep at the wheel?"
Amazing how many words he could fit between panting breaths. Timmie motioned him to the couch. "You sure you jog?"
That made him glare. "You know how much fun it is to run with busted ribs?"
"What about that fancy-ass Cabriolet you have?"
Barb finally lost her temper. "Just sit down, for God's sake. You're both idiots."
So Murphy sat down, and Timmie gave him the Cliff Notes version of her amazing feat of aerodynamics. She also filled both of them in on what her mother had said about Restcrest and Conrad had said about the deaths. Which led her inevitably back to her aborted ride home.
"But who's doing it?" Timmie asked. "Who told that guy to get... whatever it is he was after?"
"What about old Mary Jane Arlington?" Murphy offered. "Remember how I tried to tell you she'd worked with the golden boy before? She has, in fact, been promoted from floor nurse to supervisor to vice president since the first unit failed."
Barb sat right down.
Timmie blinked. "She's worked in all three of the units?"
Murphy's smile was on a par with a shark's. "It pays to have drunk the best editors in the country under the table. I found out that Mary Jane has managed to parlay a nursing degree and a night school bachelor's in generic science to a hundred-thousand-dollar-plus-a-year job as senior vice president of the Alzheimer's Research Unit and Restcrest Nursing Home. Pretty heady stuff, don't you think?"
Barb whistled. "Pretty big stakes to forfeit just because one nurse and a reporter don't like the way she does business."
Murphy leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Bigger when you consider that she'd rather poke her eyes out with a stick than disappoint Dr. Perfect. She's been known to toss patients out and scythe through staff like the reaper if they weren't properly respectful."
Timmie was feeling sicker by the minute. "Imagine what she might do if she thought a third unit might have problems due to patient cost."
"Or a bad reputation." Barb wagged a finger at both of them. "What'd I tell you? Rabbit stew all the way."
"I'll find out when I'm there," Timmie said.
"Carefully," Murphy warned. "We're both limping already, and we don't even know what the hell it is we know."
"Don't worry. I had that impressed on me this afternoon. Barb, can you get next-of-kin addresses from those victims?"
"Sure."
Timmie nodded, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. "Then it's time we visit a few of them to see what they have to say about those sudden deaths."
"I'll do it," Murphy said.
Timmie shook her head. "I don't trust you alone. You don't know what to ask."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Leary," he said. "Ought to really help me on my road back."
Timmie snorted without opening her eyes. "You're not on the road back, Murphy. You're just on the road."
Murphy laughed. Barb climbed back to her feet. "On that note," she said, "Timmie, you need a nap. I need to get back to work, and Mr. Murphy needs a ride back to wherever he ran from."
"We need to send our kids to camp somewhere, Barb," Timmie said, still not opening her eyes. "Until this blows over."
Barb stalled at the edge of the room, a looming shadow of condensed energy. "I can take care of my kids," she said.