“Matt,” Nesbitt then went on, “any chance you can swing by? You know the Benjamins better than I do. They could use a friendly face to maybe answer any questions.”

“What kind of questions, Chad?”

“Hell, I don’t know. What kind of fucking questions go through a parent’s mind when their daughter’s just suffered through an explosion and now lies in a burn unit ICU? And the parent has no idea what’s happened and what may happen.” He paused. “I’d guess those kinds of fucking questions. Maybe if you were a parent, Matt, you’d understand.”

Nesbitt saw that Police Officer Kowenski had looked up from her magazine, and he realized how loud he’d been. He looked down the other corridor; luckily, it appeared that the Benjamins hadn’t overheard him.

“Sorry, Matt,” he said more quietly. “Can you come?”

“I’m maybe ten minutes out. Just coming up on Broad and Race now. See you shortly.”

“Thanks, pal.”

Omar Quintanilla was at the wheel of the rusty white Plymouth minivan as it drove up Broad Street. The Temple Burn Center was no more than a fifteen-minute drive from the row house on Hancock Street and about a dozen blocks north of Susquehanna, where Juan Paulo Delgado had delivered Ana’s head at the laundromat. Quintanilla made a right turn onto West Tiago Street and pulled to the curb just shy of Germantown Avenue.

Jes?s Jim?nez opened the front passenger door, stepped out, and slammed the door shut without any formalities.

The minivan drove off.

Jim?nez was nineteen years old, stood five-feet-one, and weighed just over a hundred pounds. He kept his dark hair cut somewhat short, and his attempt at growing a mustache left it looking a bit ragged. On occasion, El Gato called him “El Gigante”-but always from a distance and always with a smile. Jim?nez could have a vicious temper.

He wore a top and bottom of royal blue cotton hospital scrubs over a pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt. A black nine-millimeter Beretta Model 92 was hidden inside the front of his waistband. The 92 was the civilian variant of the M9 semiautomatic pistol that was standard U.S. military issue.

Jim?nez started back toward Broad Street, setting a slow pace until he saw a clump of four others in hospital scrubs moving toward the Temple Burn Clinic entrance. He quickened his pace so that he more or less joined their flow. The group of men and women entered the building.

Once inside, he headed for the bank of elevators and there joined a mix of visitors in street clothing and others in various colored scrubs.

In the elevator, one of the female visitors pushed the button for the third floor, then quickly corrected herself and pushed the one for four. He slipped to the back of the car.

At the second floor, all but two visitors got off.

The elevator doors closed, and it rose to the third floor.

When the doors next opened, the visitors did not move. But then they realized there was a hospital worker behind them and stepped aside.

He squeezed through the closing doors and stepped off the elevator. He turned a corner and found himself looking down a corridor. Halfway down it, he saw an empty gurney along the wall and went to it.

He pushed the gurney to a nurse’s stand. There, an obviously overworked, and overweight, white female nurse with a puffy face and thin brown hair sat behind the counter, looking at a chart.

“Excuse me?” Jes?s Jim?nez said, using a meek tone. “They call for this. For the burned one, the man?”

The overworked nurse looked up from the chart and made no effort at all to conceal the fact that she was annoyed (a) by the interruption and (b) by an orderly’s interruption.

Then that look changed to one of confusion.

“Why,” she said, “would they call for a gurney for him? There’re gurneys everywhere.”

Jes?s Jim?nez shrugged, his facial expression saying, I just do as I’m told.

Then she answered her own question, muttering: “Unless they’re preparing for the inevitable. If he ain’t dead yet, it’s only a matter of time.”

Jes?s Jim?nez looked at her with a blank face.

He thought, If you only knew…

The nurse then pointed. “ICU 303. Around the corner, at the end. Can’t miss it. Look for the woman cop.”

Woman cop? Jes?s Jim?nez thought.

Shit!

But he simply said, “Gracias,” and began pushing the gurney in the direction she’d pointed.

“It’s so good of you to come by, Matt,” Mrs. Andrea Benjamin said after she had given him a big hug. “It’s such a terrible time. Did you see Chad?” She looked down the corridor. “He was just here…”

“Yes, ma’am, earlier,” Payne said. “He sent me a text message saying he got a call and had to run an errand.”

James Benjamin was not in the mood for niceties.

“Matt, this situation has all the makings of that goddamn Skipper Olde. You know he’s a no-good sonofabitch. Had to be his drug deal gone bad. And he dragged in my girl.” He paused. “You can’t charge her with anything for just sitting in her car in a damned parking lot!”

Payne, out of the corner of his eye, saw the blue shirt look up from his paperback.

Well, that got the bored guy’s attention.

“James!” Mrs. Benjamin said softly. “Please.”

“Mr. Benjamin,” Payne replied, “I’m not charging anyone with anything. That will be someone else’s call, most likely a white shirt at the Roundhouse. There’re a lot of questions yet to be answered.”

And that really got his attention.

Then one of the swinging doors to the ICU beside the cop opened.

“Dr. Law!” James Benjamin said. “Any news?”

Matt Payne turned to see an absolutely beautiful blond woman in the white coat of a doctor step out into the corridor. She pulled a powder-blue surgical mask down from her face. She looked to be not quite thirty, five-feet-five and maybe 110 pounds, her golden hair pulled back in a short ponytail under a surgical cap. She had the lean look of a runner, and an air about her of complete confidence.

Jesus! Payne thought. Now, that is a gorgeous woman!

Bright, intelligent face and eyes.

And the body of a goddess.

She walked up to them, a clipboard under her left arm.

Payne’s eye went to the left patch pocket of her white lab coat. There, enhanced by a magnificent mound of bosom beneath the fabric, was stitched in blue: Amanda Law, M.D., F.A.C.S., F.C.C.M.

Payne mentally translated the alphabet soup:

A medical doctor who’s a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American College of Critical Care Medicine.

Correction: An absolutely stunning Fellow.

Payne decided he must have been staring, because Dr. Law suddenly turned and looked at him questioningly.

“Doctor,” Mrs. Benjamin then said, “this is an old friend of the family. And of course Becca’s. Matthew Payne, Dr. Law.”

Dr. Amanda Law looked at him again, curtly nodded once, then turned back to the Benjamins.

She pulled the clipboard out and flipped pages.

“As we discussed briefly, the trauma is significant, worse than the burns, which are about three percent TBSA-”

“Would you mind going over that for me?” Payne said.

She made a face of annoyance at the interruption. She looked to the Benjamins for permission.

They nodded their assent.

“Total Body Surface Area,” Dr. Law said. “A specialized burn center is required for any injury over five percent TBSA, or a burn of the face or hands or one that encircles an extremity. Third-degree-what do you know about burns, Mr. Payne?”

He held up his right hand about ear high. The palm faced her, the thumb holding down the pinky to leave the middle three fingers extended together.

“Everything! I’m an Eagle Scout! And, please, call me Matt.”

She looked at him incredulously.

“First-degree burns,” he went on, lowering his Scout sign, “are mildest. Only the skin’s outer layer is damaged. Second-degrees are worse-deep and very painful. Usually blisters. And third-degree burns, also called full-thickness burns because all skin layers have been affected, are the worst. Very deep and serious. And there may be no pain in the burn because of destroyed nerve endings.”