As she reached the side door near the hospital’s seminar room, where she ran her memoir workshops, she pulled out her hospital volunteer ID and passed it over the scanner, holding her breath. In her imagination, she beeped it and a SWAT team surrounded her and screamed at her to put her hands where they could see them. In reality, the red light switched to green and the door unlocked with a faint click. She filled her lungs, sucking the mask against her mouth. This would save her navigating the more intense security of the main entrance—assuming it hadn’t triggered any alerts.
The cap, mask and glasses gave her a thin veil of confidence as she walked along corridors that felt both familiar and a wholenew world, but she was breathing way too heavily, and had to keep raising the glasses to let them defog. Every second person she passed looked like an undercover FBI agent or Russian sleeper agent or former CIA security guard turned assassin. How the hell did Nika and Carter do this kind of thing for so long?Seeing ghosts, Nika had called it. Alice took the stairwell that led up from the back of the building toward the oncology unit on the fourth floor. On the second floor, she halted. If this was a trap, oncology would be exactly where they’d expect her to go. That or the ER. She spun, nearly colliding with a couple of nurses, muttered an apology involving having left something in a room, and headed for the nearest ward like she knew exactly where she was going. She walked into the first empty room she found, closed the door behind her, picked up the patient phone and dialed an extension.
“Oncology, this is Trish.”
“Oh, hi,” Alice said, trying to disguise her voice behind a Southern accent, “I’m just wanting to talk to one of your patients, a Kimberly Thornton?”
“That you, Alice? You sound funny. What the heck is going on—I saw you on the TV! I said to my husband, ‘There’s no way that woman is on the wrong side of the law.’Somethingis going on.”
“Hard to explain over the phone. Kimberly? Is she there?”
“No, hon. Was she supposed to be in today? She’s not on our list.”
“Would you mind checking if she’s anywhere in the hospital? The ER maybe?”
“Hold on a sec, I’ll just log in… No, she’s not showing up as in today. Is it an emergency? Could she still be en route? I could patch you through to the ER? If she’s in an ambulance, they may know.”
“No, that’s okay, thanks for your help.”
Alice hung up and began to dial another number, then had a mental image of the SWAT team standing around Trish and communicating in hand signals about their target’s location, saying things like, “Keep her talking,” and “We’ve got her!” She returned the phone to its cradle and left the room, pulling her cap down. Today, she was doubling down on paranoia. She jogged down one flight of stairs, for once grateful for the maze-like layout that had evolved like a living organism over a hundred years. After sanitizing her hands outside Orthopedics, she shoved the glasses in her purse. Walking around in a fog wasn’t helping matters. She almost had to complete a U-shaped circuit of the ward before finding what she was looking for: a room with no name outside and no one inside. She checked that no one was watching, walked in, shut the door behind her and leaned back on it a second. Much more of this and she was going to need the cardiac ward.
She used the phone to dial Kimberly’s home number. After a few rings, Malik answered. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or furious.
“You lied?” she said.
“You’re calling from the hospital?”
“Where did you think I’d be calling from—a police cell? Where’s Kimberly? And no bullshit this time.”
“Have they caught you?”
“Not yet. Where’s Kimberly?”
“She’s fine—well, I mean, she’s notfine, but she’s here, taking a bath. I’m not gonna apologize, Alice. Kimberly might be fearless but I’m not. They said that if you came forward now you wouldn’t be in trouble. Goddammit, Alice, they threatened to arrest us for harboring fugitives. I couldn’t let that happen to Kimberly. It’s my job to protect her.”
“Does she know that you?—”
“No. But I stand by it. She figured they were just trying to play hardball, but I seriously doubt she’s thinking straight right now. And if they are playing hardball, well, it’s working. It’s too much, with everything else that’s going on. I’m out.”
“Malik, I get that you’re worried, but I can’t believe you’d make me think that she was?—”
“Turn yourself in, Alice. They said they’d be waiting for you there. For God’s sake, go and find them with your hands up before they find you. All of this shit—it’s not your problem. I don’t know what kind of an impression this guy’s given you, but if you think this is some kind of relationship, well that’s some messed-up Bonnie and Clyde bullshit. This is not you, Alice. I can’t see what possible use you could be to a guy like that. If he’s just dragging you along because it’s fun to have some wide-eyed groupie?—”
“Awide-eyed…? Jesus, Malik. It isnotlike that. He needed my help, and I helped him.”
“You gave him everything you’ve got on this spy shit. Now, leave. He is not your problem. I’ll tell you who actually needs you, and that’s Kimberly. Remember her? Your sister who isdyingright now.”
“Don’t you dare?—”
“Not some guy you don’t even know who’s literally on a wanted poster and doesn’t give a damn what kind of trouble he drags you into.”
“It’s my choice to be with him. I opened this Pandora’s box.”
“You did not. If that’s the line he’s feeding you… Don’t forget that it once was his job to trick people, to convince people to help him. You’re an innocent bystander who got sucked in. And you can choose not to be with him. I want my smart, sensible sister-in-law back. Turn. Yourself. In.”
“I’ll be back home soon enough. I have to help him.” She checked the wall clock. It was close to half an hour since Carter had dropped her off.
“No, you don’t. You always think you have to help everyone. All those people at the hospital, Nika, now this… The only people you need to help are your family. I can’t prop Kimberly up alone, Alice.Sheneeds you. Hell,Ineed you.” His voice cracked. “I don’t want to lose her, Alice. You know what she said to me today? She gave me a speech about how she wants me to meet someone else after she’s gone, get married again. I’m not even married toheryet. God, we should have done it straight away, as soon as we talked about it.”
