The place was so quiet, so still, that it felt empty, lifeless. Valerie scanned the room. Her eyes quickly landed on the figure of a woman in a chair, silhouetted in the window facing a row of winter-naked maples. The glass was streaked with rain.

“Maria?” Valerie asked.

The woman in the chair stayed quiet.

Valerie looked over her chart. Maria Ortega was on sedatives. The dosages were high, but Valerie was a nurse who knew that most of the doctors at the hospital had a good grip on what was best for their patients. The hospital was not one of those places in which the insane were warehoused and forgotten.

At least it hadn’t been that kind of a place for years and years.

Valerie inched toward the rain-soaked window. Maria appeared to be mumbling something over and over. It was unclear if she was saying words or just running random noises from her vocal chords because the vibrations calmed her. Some patients did that.

“Maria? I’m Nurse Ryan,” she said, though after reviewing the chart she didn’t expect any response.

Patient can speak but chooses not to. Patient understands commands and readily complies with instruction. Occasionally, patient will speak one-word answers, yes or no.

Maria kept her face toward the window. “I know who you are,” she said, in a voice that croaked slightly. Her warm breath condensed on the glass.

That was more than a one-word response.

Valerie felt her heart rate accelerate a little. It was a strange feeling, but one she knew well: fear. Even so, she felt compelled to get closer, to better hear what Maria was saying.

“You do?” Valerie asked.

“Come next to me,” Maria said in her crackly whisper.

Valerie leaned forward, and with rocket-like speed Maria grabbed her hand and clamped down with surprising force. Valerie winced a little and tried to relax. To try to pull away abruptly was entirely the wrong move in that type of situation, and the psychiatric nurse knew it. Maria was like a grizzly bear holding on. To get away, Valerie knew that she had to play dead. Her hand went limp, but it didn’t help her break loose.

“My brother told me you worked here. Small talk,” Maria said. “He says things to me and I pretend not to hear.”

“Your brother?” Valerie asked, trying to pull away but not acting like it was urgent that she do so.

“Don’t be stupid,” Maria said. “You know all about me and my family.”

Valerie wasn’t sure why she’d gone in there, but what was happening just then had not been her reason. At least she didn’t believe so. She tried once more to retract her hand, but Maria would not let go.

“Let go of me,” Valerie finally said, calmly.

“I had good reason to do what I did,” Maria said.

Valerie shook her head, trying to catch the light in Maria’s eyes. She wanted to see a flicker of something that indicated that Maria knew what she was saying and doing just then.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Valerie said.

Their eyes met for the first time in that hospital room, though they’d been connected by circumstances for years.

“You do,” Maria said, relaxing her grip but looking right into Valerie’s unblinking eyes. “And because of you, I’m here. I wish that you had let my brother die. It was his fault too. He’s not without blame. He could have done something to stop it. If he had, none of it would have happened. Your hands are dirty too. You put me here.”

Valerie Ryan took a quick step backward, away from Maria. Her heart was racing, and she felt a little disoriented. Something was wrong—very, very wrong. She had done what was right. She had never doubted that. She was certain that Tony had not deserved to die.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” she finally said.

Maria sat stone-faced.

“You shouldn’t have started that fire,” Valerie said.

Maria shifted her gaze to the parking lot. “I did what no one else would do,” she said.

Just as Valerie opened her mouth, Jade, the by-the-book-nurse, burst into room 123. Jade’s eyes were full of worry.

“Your daughters are in the hospital, Valerie,” she said.

Valerie spun around and collected herself. “What?”

Jade nodded. “Harborview. They’ve been in an accident or something.”

Maria looked over her shoulder. With a smile, she said, “I hope they both die.”

Valerie ignored her and went for her phone. Her encounter with Maria had been intense, but this news nearly knocked her to the floor. She dialed Kevin’s number, and it went to voice mail.

“Honey, meet me at Harborview. It’s the girls.”

Chapter 36

NEITHER HAYLEY NOR TAYLOR KNEW what had been more embarrassing: the fact that they had messed up to such a degree that they were in the hospital or the fact that the hospital gowns they were forced to wear were imprinted with Hello Kitty images. Neither would admit, at least not out loud, that the helicopter ride had been kind of cool. They’d never in a million years admit to that. They couldn’t stand the stories of hikers who were stupid enough to get lost and then have to be airlifted to safety. Their adventure to McNeil Island had peeled back a thin layer of what they were trying to figure out, but the cost had been great.

Almost too great.

While they waited for their mom to get to the hospital and read them the riot act, ground them for life, and tell them they had made a mistake that could have ended in the biggest tragedy of a family that had too many already, they sat up in their hospital beds with the TV on. Each girl rolled her eyes as Dr. Phil ranted about how dishonest a drug-addict mother had been to her children.

“You told them that you’d take them to Disneyland, but you used all the money for crack? Who does that?” he asked.

The woman glowered at the bald talk-show host with the boomerang mustache.

“I guess people who bring big ratings to your show do,” she said.

Taylor looked at her sister in the next bed. “Okay, Hayley, we thought Brianna’s mom sucked. This one here is worse.”

The minute Taylor said that, the girls noticed the news crawl that ran along the bottom of the screen:

SILVERDALE STABBING VICTIMS AIRLIFTED TO HARBORVIEW . . .

BELIEVED TO BE MISSING TEEN AND VICTIM’S MOTHER . . .

“Do you think they’re talking about Bree’s mom and Drew? It can only be them, right, Taylor?”

The girls turned from the TV to the window and the sounds of an approaching helicopter.

“This isn’t extrasensory crap, Hayley. It has to be them.”

A NURSE NAMED CANDIS WALTERS INTERRUPTED the twins’ conversation. Her steel-wool gray hair was swept into a suspiciously perfect up-do and her glasses hung from a silver chain. Candis fit neatly into one of the two categories the twins had identified for the nursing staff. She was a warm, friendly chatterbox of a woman—the type that got into nursing to be a nurturer. The other category was “the pokers and prodders.” Those nurses seemed to have decided nursing was a legal way to torture people—and it required less schooling than dentistry.

“How are you girls doing?” Candis asked, her kind green eyes sizing up the teens in their matching hospital beds. Both were set at the exact same angle.

“Better,” Hayley said, smiling back. “A lot better.”

Candis nodded, reviewed Taylor’s vitals, and made a note in her chart.

“You’re very lucky you didn’t freeze to death out there,” she said. “You, my dear, are a lucky duck! Do you know that the average person can swim in Puget Sound for only twenty minutes? And that’s in August. Not November!”

“I guess I did pretty well,” Taylor said. She resisted the urge to say “quack quack” like a vacationer on one of those amphibian vehicle tours in Seattle.

“We just heard the helicopter outside,” Hayley said. “What was that all about?”