“Right, that could be it too. But it’s a nice car. Acura MDX, four months old. Wouldn’t you take that?”

Muse thought about it, shrugged.

Clarence said, “I want to look into it, okay?”

“Go for it.” She thought about it some more. “Do me a favor. Check and see if any other women have been reported missing in Livingston or that area. Even if just for a short while. Even if the cops didn’t take it too seriously.”

“Already did it.”

“And?”

“None. Oh, but some woman called to report her husband and son were missing.” He checked his pad. “Her name is Tia Baye. Husband is Mike, son is Adam.”

“The locals looking into it?”

“I guess, I don’t really know.”

“If it wasn’t for the missing kid too,” Muse said, “maybe this Baye guy ran off with Mrs. Cordova.”

“You want me to look for a connection?”

“If you want. If that’s the case, it’s not a criminal matter anyway. Two consenting adults are allowed to disappear together for a little while.”

“Yeah, okay. But, Chief?”

Muse loved that he called her that. Chief. “What?”

“I got a feeling there’s something more here.”

“Go with that then, Clarence. Keep me in the loop.”

17

IN a dream there is a beeping sound and then the words: “I’m so sorry, Dad…”

In reality Mike heard someone speaking Spanish in the dark.

He spoke enough of it-you can’t work at a hospital on 168th Street and not speak at least medical Spanish-and so he recognized that the woman was praying furiously. Mike tried to turn his head, but it wouldn’t move. Didn’t matter. All was black. His head thudded at the temples as the woman in the dark repeated her prayer over and over.

Meanwhile, Mike had his own mantra going on:

Adam. Where is Adam?

Mike slowly realized that his eyes were closed. He tried to open them. That wouldn’t happen right away. He listened some more and tried to focus on his eyelids, on the simple act of lifting them up. It took a little while but eventually they began to blink. The thudding in his temples grew into hammer pounds. He reached a hand up and pushed at the side of his head, as if he could contain the pain that way.

He squinted at the fluorescent light on the white ceiling. The Spanish praying continued. The familiar smell filled the air, that combination of harsh cleaners, bodily functions, wilting fauna and absolutely no natural air circulation. Mike’s head dropped to the left. He saw the back of a woman hunched over a bed. Her fingers moved over the prayer beads. Her head seemed to be resting on a man’s chest. She alternated between sobs and prayers-and a blend of the two.

He tried to reach his hand out and say something comforting to her. Ever the doctor. But there was an IV in his arm and it slowly dawned on him that he too was a patient. He tried to remember what had happened, how he could possibly have ended up here. It took a while. His brain was cloudy. He fought through it.

There had been a terrible unease in him when he woke up. He had tried to push that away but for the sake of his memory he let it back in now. And as soon as he did, that mantra came back to him, this time just the one word:

Adam.

The rest flooded in. He had gone to look for Adam. He had talked to that bouncer, Anthony. He had gone down that alley. There had been that scary woman with the horrible wig…

There had been a knife.

Had he been stabbed?

He didn’t think so. He turned the other way. Another patient. A black man with his eyes closed. Mike looked for his family, but there was no one here for him. That shouldn’t surprise him-he might have only been out for a short time. They would have to contact Tia. She was in Boston. It would take time for her to arrive. Jill was at the Novaks’ house. And Adam…?

In the movies, when a patient wakes up like this, it’s in a private room and the doctor and nurse are already there, as though they’d been waiting all night, smiling down with lots of answers. There was no health professional in sight. Mike knew the routine. He searched for his call button, found it wrapped around the bed railings, and pressed for the nurse.

It took some time. Hard to say how much. Time crawled by. The praying woman’s voice faded into silence. She stood up and wiped her eyes. Mike could see the man in the bed now. Considerably younger than the woman. Mother-son, he figured. He wondered what brought them here.

He looked out the windows behind her. The shades were open and there was sunlight.

Daytime.

He had lost consciousness at night. Hours ago. Or maybe days. Who knew? He started pressing the call button even though he knew that it did no good. Panic began to take hold. The pain in his head steadily grew-someone was taking a jackhammer to his right temple.

“Well, well.”

He turned toward the doorway. The nurse, a heavy woman with reading glasses perched upon her huge bosom, strolled in. Her name tag read BERTHA BONDY. She looked down at him and frowned.

“Welcome to the free world, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?”

It took Mike a second or two to find his voice. “Like I kissed a Mac truck.”

“Probably be more sanitary than what you were doing. Are you thirsty?”

“Parched.”

Bertha nodded, picked up a cup of ice. She tilted it to his lips. The ice tasted medicinal, but man it felt good in his mouth.

“You’re at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital,” Bertha said. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Someone jumped me. Bunch of guys, I guess.”

“Hmm hmm. What’s your name?”

“Mike Baye.”

“Can you spell the last name for me?”

He did, figuring this was a cognitive test, so he volunteered some information. “I’m a physician,” he said. “I do transplant surgery out of NewYork-Presbyterian.”

She frowned some more, as though he’d given her the wrong answer. “For real?”

“Yes.”

More frowning.

“Do I pass?” he asked.

“Pass?”

“The cognitive test.”

“I’m not the doctor. He’ll be by in a little while. I asked your name because we don’t know who you are. You came in with no wallet, no cell phone, no keys, nothing. Whoever rolled you took it all.”

Mike was about to say something else but a stab of pain ripped across his skull. He rode it out, bit down, counted in his head to ten. When it passed, he spoke again.

“How long have I been out?”

“All night. Six, seven hours.”

“What time is it?”

“Eight in the morning.”

“So no one notified my family?”

“I just told you. We didn’t know who you were.”

“I need a phone. I need to call my wife.”

“Your wife? You sure?”

Mike’s head felt fuzzy. He was probably on some kind of medication, so maybe that was why he couldn’t figure out why she’d asked something so asinine.

“Of course I’m sure.”

Bertha shrugged. “The phone’s next to your bed, but I’ll have to ask them to hook it up. You’ll probably need help dialing, right?”

“I guess.”

“Oh, do you have medical insurance? We have some forms that need to be filled out.”

Mike wanted to smile. First things first. “I do.”

“I’ll send someone from admissions up to get your information. Your doctor should be by soon to talk about your injuries.”

“How bad are they?”

“You took a pretty solid beating and since you were out that long, there was obviously a concussion and head trauma. But I’d rather let the doctor give you the details, if that’s okay. I’ll see if I can hurry him along.”

He understood. Floor nurses should not be giving him the diagnosis.

“How’s the pain?” Bertha asked.

“Medium.”

“You’re on some pain meds now, so it’ll be getting worse before it gets better. I’ll hook up a morphine pump for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Back soon.”

She started for the door. Mike thought of something else.