Page 138 of Fire and Bones
Baboon Lips reached out and I handed the flowers to her.
I stepped away, then turned back as if suddenly struck by an afterthought. As I hoped, she’d written a room number on a Post-it and stuck it to the florist’s green outer wrapper.
Room 716.
Exiting the elevator on the seventh floor, I needed no direction. Halfway down the corridor, past a station occupied by nurses and orderlies indifferent to my presence, a uniformed cop sat on a folding chair reading a copy of that day’s Post.
I walked toward him, my reflection winking in the small rectangular windows of at least a dozen closed doors. Hearing heels clicking his way, the cop turned his head, then pushed to his feet. His name tag said F. Rassmussen.
After checking my ID, F. Rassmussen pulled out his phone, scrolled, then looked up puzzled.
“You’re not on my list, ma’am.” Tone neither friendly nor unfriendly.
“Seriously? It must be a mistake. They gave me his room number downstairs at reception.” A stretch, but close.
“You’re family?”
“Mm.”
One long, dubious look, then F. Rassmussen nodded and stepped aside.
“Leave it ajar.”
Half expecting a “don’t try anything funny” follow-up, I opened the door and went into the room.
Deery was propped up in bed dozing. A bulky construction of gauze and tape wrapped one side of his neck, forcing his head left at an awkward angle. A needle infused liquids into a vein in one wrist.
Not wanting to wake him, I settled into the single visitor chair. Scrolled through recent emails and texts on my mobile.
Every now and then I glanced up to watch lines jump their erratic zigzag patterns on a machine monitoring Deery’s vitals. Oversized hands and feet aside, he wasn’t a large man. But somehow his body looked smaller than normal. Shrunken. Maybe it was an illusion created by the cast-off glow of the screen.
Time passed.
Muted hospital sounds drifted in through the cracked door. A gurney or cart rattling by in the hall. An elevator bonging its arrival. A speaker paging a code or a name.
Inside the room, just Deery’s steady breathing and the soft pinging of the sensors.
“What time is it?”
“Almost noon.” His words startled me. “How are you feeling?”
“Fit as a fiddle. Weren’t but a scratch.”
“I’m glad to hear that. When can you leave?”
“Waiting on paperwork. They don’t release me by three, I’m pulling a runner.”
“Mm.”
“Raise me up more.” Twirling a finger at the controls clipped to the bed rail.
“Are you sure? Maybe I should call a nurs—”
“Raise it.”
I did.
When fully elevated, Deery gestured that I drag my chair closer to him. I did that, too.