“Bee!You’re awake!” She got out of bed, slowly, and leaned in for a hug that kept her injured torso clear of contact. “I was so afraid this whole time. I thought ...”
“Me too,” Beatrix said, choking up. “How … how are you?”
“So much better now that you’re safe.”
Beatrix kissed Lydia’s cheek, still unable to quite believe it. All of them were safe.Allof them.
“You realize that now every one of us has been hospitalized within the past six months?” Lydia gave a small shake of the head. “I was lying here yesterday, wondering how we’d pay the latest bills?—”
“Oh,no,” said Beatrix, who’d been too consumed by other worries in the past week for that one to occur to her.
“No, no, it’s OK.” Lydia sat down on her bed, grinning. “Wizard Hillier told us this morning that the U.S. government agreed to cover it.” She paused, cocking her head, eyes widening. “Bee—what are youwearing?”
Beatrix laughed. Several doctors and nurses she’d passed on the way here had worn exactly that scandalized expression as they took in her shirt and pants.
“Rescue attire,” Peter said. He put an arm around her waist and grinned at her. “It suits you.”
“It’s certainly far more comfortable than what I usually wear.”
“We should get you more outfits like this.”
Lydia looked horrified. “What?”
“Don’t tease her,” Beatrix whispered, elbowing him.
“I’m dead serious,” he murmured back.
Partly to change the subject but mostly because she owed them a debt of gratitude, Beatrix turned to Joan, Dot and Marilyn. “Thank you,” she said, hugging them in turn. “If you hadn’t been here—thank you, thank you,thankyou.”
“Happy to do it,” Marilyn said.
Dot squeezed her hand. “Even happier that you’re back.”
“When you disappeared from the holding cell—well, we thought the worst,” Joan said quietly. “Senator Gray spent all last week pressing the police to investigate. That’s how we found Rosemarie, you know. One of the detectives told him yesterday that an emergency-room patient in West Virginia was claiming to have information about the case, and Gray got her transferred here so fast you wouldn’t believe it.”
“West Virginia?”
“That’s where she was found. She lay at the bottom of a mountain for more than a day before anyone discovered her. It was a while before she was well enough to explain her situation, and even then, no one took her seriously at first.”
Beatrix shuddered. She glanced over her shoulder at Rosemarie and was reassured to see her poking Peter in the arm, looking thoroughly like herself.
“Where is Senator Gray?” Beatrix asked, turning back to Joan.
“We convinced him to go home when you both got here last night. He needed the rest.”
Beatrix nodded. She held all sorts of conflicting feelings about the man, but he’d certainly come through when they needed him most. She owed him a debt of gratitude, too.
“Youmust desperately need rest as well,” she said to the women. “Why don’t you take Gray’s example? It’s safe to go home now.”
Dot and Marilyn looked at Joan. Joan bit her lip.
“What?” Beatrix’s heart sank. “What is it?”
“Come to the restroom with us,” Joan murmured.
She followed them into the hall, struck by memories of all her previous times going to bathrooms with these women. Of Plan B. What had Joan said to her a week ago as Lydia was in surgery? “We’ve kept on practicing”?
She was the last one through the door. She closed it and leaned against it as Dot checked the stalls, all empty.
