“You don’t think—”
“Just for the record.”
“Kurt Shepherd. I met him four months ago, when he lost his mother at the nursing home where I work. He lives in Esquimalt. He’s a mechanic at Barney’s, a really good guy. He’s been so nice to me.”
“We’ll need to come to your house, take a look at Gracie’s room. Is that okay?”
“Yes, yes of course.”
“Does Gracie have a cell phone?”
“An iPhone. I’ve been calling it ever since I saw that terrible stuff on the news. It just kept flipping to voicemail.”
“We’ll need her number and the name of her service provider.”
“I ... uh ... her plan is with ClearWave, I think.” She gave Angie her daughter’s number. As Angie jotted it down, she caught a flash of movement in her peripheral vision. She glanced up to see a flurry of activity outside Gracie Drummond’s room.
A voice, calm, came over the ward paging system. “Code blue, room twelve. Code blue, room twelve.”
Angie’s heart kicked. Lorna Drummond whirled around in her chair. “What isthat? What does that mean?”
The double doors at the end of the corridor blew open. Nurses and a cardiac team in green scrubs came rushing through the doors and down the corridor. Dr.Finlayson ran behind them.
Lorna Drummond lurched to her feet. “Oh my God—that’s Gracie’s room! They’re going into her room—” She lurched in a wild stumble toward them.
“Mrs.Drummond!” Angie surged up and went after her. “Lorna! Wait, please!” Angie caught hold of the woman’s arm outside the room windows, halting her from entering. Through the glass they could see a nurse pumping Gracie’s chest while the defibrillation paddles were being readied.
“Stand back,” another nurse ordered. The paddles were applied to her body. Gracie’s frame juddered as they fought to shock her back to life. But nothing happened. The line on the machine ran flat, not even a blip. They tried again. Again. Still nothing.
Lorna wrenched free of Angie’s grasp and burst into the room. “Oh my God, Gracie—” A nurse stopped her.
“Please,” Lorna Drummond sobbed. “Pleasetell me what’s happening!”
The nurse placed her arm around Lorna Drummond’s shoulders and led her back out into the corridor. “You need to wait here, Mrs.Drummond. Let us do our job. You’ll just be in the way. Okay?”
“Come, Mrs.Drummond,” Angie said gently, trying to steer the woman away from the glass.
But Gracie’s mother broke free again and pressed both her palms flat against the window. “Gracie! Oh my God, Gracie ... Please, please, don’t die. Not now.”
Inside the room, Dr.Finlayson met the eyes of the nurse with the defibrillation paddles. The nurse shook her head. Dr.Finlayson checked her patient, then glanced at her watch and said something. Angie’s heart sank. The doc was pronouncing time of death.
A strange, thin, inhuman wail issued from the throat of Lorna Drummond. She whirled around and attacked Angie, slapping at her chest and arms and face. “You—youdid this!Youtook me away from my baby’s bedside. You let her die without her mother there!”
Angie braced against the feeble assault, emotion hot in her eyes. For a moment she was unable to move, unable to bring herself to grab hold of Lorna Drummond’s wrists and halt the distraught woman’s blows. It was as though Angieneededto be hit, to be punished by this mother. For her neglect of her own mother. For whatever wrongs she’d done in her life.
Finally, a spent Lorna Drummond slid down the length of Angie’s body and crumpled onto the floor at Angie’s biker boots, her body racked with sobs. Two nurses came running to their aid.
Angie swallowed and stepped away, thankful that hospital staff was taking over. Shaken, she made her way down the corridor and stepped outside the ward. She stopped and caught her breath. Then, mouth dry, she called Vedder.
“She passed—she’s dead,” Angie told him when he answered. “Her name was Gracie Marie Drummond. Sixteen years old. In her final year at Duneagle Secondary. Would have been seventeen in a few days.” As she spoke, she caught sight of Holgersen loping angrily down the corridor toward her.
“What the fuck, Pallorino?” Holgersen demanded as he reached her. He pointed his finger at her face. “You do that to me one more time and—”
“She died.”
He stilled. His hand lowered slowly to his side.
“She drowned. Right there in her hospital bed.” Angie’s gaze remained locked with his. “Some things don’t wait for you to take a piss or a smoke.”
