“Ummm. T. Laine tried to get in the pond. I didn’t. I held the baby and I didn’t get weirded out. I think I’m immune to the magical whatever-it-is that’s going on.”
I could practically hear her mind ticking through the possibilities in the slice of silence between us. “That might keep your ass from getting fired. What do you want to do about it?”
“I want to go talk to the contaminated people at the hospital. And if they can’t talk, then suss around a bit. See what I can learn.”
There was more silence on the other end as JoJo worked things out. “You called me as second in command because Rick’s pissed at you and you think he’d say no just to put you in your place.”
“Yes.”
“You are sneaky. I like that in a woman. Go to the hospital. Talk to whoever will talk to you. Then go to their houses in the neighborhood and see what you can see. I’ll make it right with LaFleur.” The call ended. I put the cell on the seat of the truck and thought about what I was about to do. Then I pulled out and into traffic, heading to my next stop. When I remembered to breathe, I smelled pork, but it was a good smell. Far better than the stink of death that clung to me from the pond.
***
The location of the paranormal unit wasn’t listed anywhere on the website for the University of Tennessee Medical Center, and since I hadn’t made it there when I was a patient in the emergency department, I had no idea where it might be. I flashed my badge and ID to security at the main emergency entrance and was given printed directions to the paranormal unit, on the other side of the hospital campus.
The paranormal unit wasn’t identified as such, for security precautions against paranormal haters and terrorists. It was half of a hallway, sectioned off from a cancer center, via locking doors and security cameras. I showed my ID, made sure mybadge was visible, and asked questions that no one wanted to answer. Patient confidentiality, HIPAA rules, and hospital regs stymied me until someone banged on the windowed wall to a patient’s room and shouted that she wanted to talk to me. The nurse I was talking to ducked her head and said, “Sorry,” before she scuttled away like a dog with its tail between its legs.
The woman in the room was dressed in a uni like PsyLED’s, and beyond her, partially visible behind a privacy curtain, was a patient in a bed. The window banger was a family member of one of the contaminated humans, I guessed. And ticked off, if the hammering and the nurse’s demeanor were any indication.
Still pounding on the window as she stripped out of the white uni with its orange stripe, the woman left the room and caught my arm. I got just enough of a glimpse inside to see that the patient within was restrained to the bed and that she was restless, struggling weakly.
The woman shook my arm. “What in God’s name are my family being held for?” she demanded, her voice hushed but carrying along the hallway.
“Held?” The word sounded clueless, which I was. I wondered if she had been contaminated, some kind of magical psychotic break, and I pulled my arm free, backing away.
“Under arrest?” she said, her voice rising. When I looked blank, she said, “In this hospital? Tied down? I’ve been trying all day to get my girls free and take them home to South Carolina, to a hospital where I can get some answers and decent treatment. They aren’t doinganythingfor my babies here.” She leaned in to me, her tear-filled eyes like daggers, and said, “I want them released to meright now, or charged for whatever crime they’re accused of committing.”
I blinked and understood several things at once. One, no one had told the families about the paranormal part of the incident. They must be trying to keep it quiet. Two, I was the first person from PsyLED who had been on scene in the hospital. Three, we needed someone in authority to talk to the families, not me. Four, I shouldn’t have called JoJo. I should have asked Rick if it was okay for me to come here. And five, the media hadn’t figured out the sick families were connected to the goose pond deaths.
“Oh,” I said, stalling. Needing verification, I asked, “No one has talked to you?”
“No. Not to any of us family members. And we’re ready to go straight to the media if we don’t get answers soon.”
“Ummm.”Soul. Soul was the spox, the spokesperson, the person who should be answering questions. But Soul had been attacked, had transformed and disappeared. I was pretty sure that Soul would have come here after the goose pond, but she had flown away, which wasn’t something I could say aloud. “No one’s under arrest.”
“Then why—”
“Quarantined.”
That gave her pause. “For what?”
“We aren’t sure yet.”
Her tears had dried and her eyes narrowed at me in such a way as to make me need to assure her. “We really,reallydon’t know yet, but that’s why you have to wear the special white suits when you’re in contact with any patient. Truly, they are getting thevery bestcare available.” That last part might be a lie, because I had no idea if another hospital had better paranormal units and better paranormal specialists than UTMC. But at the moment, assurance was as important as breaking down facts about hospitals.
Comforting people hadn’t been a part of the training in Spook School, but it was big part of life in the church. If she had been a churchwoman, I’d have given her a hug and led her to a private place to talk. Instead I said, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
She scratched her fingers through her hair, making it stand up in a faded reddish halo. “Child, I’d kill for a cup.” Then, as if hearing her own words to a law enforcement officer, she said, “Not really. I mean not literally.”
I smiled at her and said, “I understood. Let’s go to the nearest hospital cafeteria or hospital coffee shop. My treat.”
“Let me tell the others that I have someone to talk to. Just a sec.” The middle-aged woman knocked on one door and then another, talking in hushed tones to family members inside. Then she led the way to the coffee shop nearest, where I got us coffees and we introduced ourselves to each other.
The woman’s name was Dougie Howell, pronounced Dug-ee, which was odd but kinda cool. Dougie downed the strong, cheap coffee like she had spent a week in a desert without liquids. She was the mother and grandmother of three of thepatients, the grandmother-in-law of two others, and while her hair had dulled down to a strawberry-blondish gray, she still had the take-charge-and-fight-to-the-death qualities of some redheaded churchwomen I knew.
Most important to me, she was willing to talk. Her daughter’s name was Alisha Henri, and though she didn’t look old enough to be a grandmother in the regular world, Dougie had granddaughters: Kirsten Harrell and Sharon Sayegh. All three had been in Alisha’s house, along with one’s partner and the other’s husband. From Dougie, I learned that her daughter and granddaughters had been hit hard by the... the whatever this was. The two others—the ones not blood related—were, oddly, already asymptomatic, mobile, coherent, and demanding release. Dougie’s girls were in bad shape, and I wondered if the blood relationship might allow something in the paranormal energies access to them. I had studied blood demons in Spook School. If that was what this was, it was going to be a nasty piece of work.
I bought her a second cup while she adapted to being out of her daughter’s room and back in reality. Dougie looked tired and terrified, but was the kind of woman who went to battle when frightened, instead of going into hiding—a warrior instead of a rabbit. When I placed the second paper cup of fresh coffee in front of her, she asked, “What’s wrong with my girls? Why is PsyLED interested in them? Why areyouhere?”
