Ilka drove the hearse to the rear of the hospital, far from the visitors parking lot and front entrance. She spotted the loading dock, then the drive-in entrance, the one she’d been told undertakers should use when picking up a corpse. After parking in a spot where she would not block anyone bringing out a stretcher, she grabbed her bag and stared at the bills inside. Well over fifty thousand dollars, she guessed. Maybe closer to a hundred thousand. She stepped out of the hearse and glanced back at the coffin with Lydia inside, then walked over to the door beside the entrance.
She stopped to get her bearings when she entered the dim basement, but there were no signs telling her where to go. The heavy odor of cauliflower hung in the air; the hospital’s kitchen had to be nearby. Ilka tried a door, which opened up to a wide, brightly lit hallway filled with empty hospital beds. Some of them lacked mattresses; others were filled with stacks of hospital linen.
She hurried past all the beds to the ELEVATOR sign, her footsteps echoing the entire way. Artie was on the sixth floor, but she didn’t know if this was the right section of the hospital. The elevator clanked loudly when it stopped and the door opened. It rose slowly, and when she stepped out, she recognized the waiting room. She’d reached his ward by the service elevator.
She smoothed her hair, which was easy enough; the hair she’d been born with was straight as a string. Like a rag doll’s hair, as one of the catty girls in her class had once said. Back then she’d felt bad about it, but it was true. She squared up her coat then walked to the ward’s office, where a middle-aged woman sat behind a computer screen, talking on the phone.
Ilka had slipped a rubber band around the bills, and when the woman hung up, she held the bundle out. “I’m here to see Artie Sorvino. Maybe you’re the one who called me earlier today, about paying for his stay here?”
The woman nodded. “Yes, I’m the one.”
“I’ll have to get back to you about his insurance; we haven’t found the information yet. But this should be enough for his treatment so far. Put the rest in his patient account.”
The woman accepted the bills without batting an eye and slipped them into a machine. A moment later Ilka heard a hectic rustling sound as the money was counted at lightning speed. She handed Ilka a receipt, confirming that eighty-seven thousand dollars had been deposited in Artie Sorvino’s patient account.
Ilka sent a silent thank-you to Lydia in the coffin.
The woman’s face was still blank. “Would you prefer the patient be moved to the hospital’s private patient unit?”
Ilka didn’t doubt the level of service was much better there, but for the moment she just hoped the doctors and quality of treatment were the same where Artie was. She shook her head and explained that the money in his account was solely for his treatment.
“Can I go in and see him?” Twenty minutes had already passed—their head start was almost certainly wiped out—but the real question was whether the men looking for Lydia Rogers had been arrested, or if they’d caught on before the police got there. She had to see Artie before leaving for Key West, though, if for nothing else than simply to stroke his cheek.
Just outside his room, she spotted the head doctor who had treated him when he’d been brought in. He’d been unconscious, and the doctor said they’d found a significant accumulation of blood in the back of his head. A tube had been inserted to drain the blood, which the doctor said should help. She’d also told Ilka and Lydia that Artie would be put into an induced coma to help his body recover.
“Is he awake?” Ilka wanted so much for the crisis to be over, but the doctor shook her head. They’d decided to keep him in the coma the rest of the week, after which they would reassess when to bring him out.
“He’s stable,” she said, and then assured Ilka that his condition hadn’t worsened. “But his injuries are serious, and we can’t know how they will affect his brain when he wakes up.”
“Does that mean nothing will happen this week?” Ilka explained that she planned on being gone. “Maybe four days.”
“That won’t be a problem. And I promise, you will be contacted if there’s any change in his condition.”
Her voice turned serious. “But you should know that he’ll need extensive testing and medical treatment going forward. And he’ll also be in for an extended rehabilitation. Both from the injuries he sustained and from his time in a coma, which will weaken him. A physical therapist will be treating him daily, moving his arms and legs, but that doesn’t maintain muscular strength.”
Ilka nodded. She was enormously relieved that the doctor was thinking long-term, which surely meant they expected him to make it, she thought.
“And you have my number?” she asked, even though the office had already contacted her for money.
The doctor nodded. Ilka mentioned that Artie’s bill had just been paid, and she asked her to please not hold back on any treatment.
Artie lay by the window. The first day in intensive care he’d had a private room, but now he was in with two other patients. One of them slept with his head leaning back and mouth open—it was abundantly clear he was still breathing. The other lay in bed reading. He watched her pass by, and when Ilka nodded at him, he immediately hid behind his book.
Someone had folded Artie’s hands on top of his blanket, and his shaved head was covered with a bandage that also shielded from sight the tube in the back of his head.
Ilka stroked his cheek and cupped her hands gently around his face. It was so nice to feel the warmth of his skin. She ran her finger over his lip. He looked peaceful, and without thinking she leaned down and kissed him. She felt she was letting him down by leaving him behind all alone, and she was ashamed when the thought crossed her mind that his coma gave her a convenient excuse—that she was practically leaving with the hospital’s approval.
She had no idea how she’d tell him that her father wasn’t dead. That it had been a cover-up. But that was something her father would have to do, she decided.
Ilka kissed him one last time before walking out without a glance at the other two patients. She hurried to the elevator and took it down to the foyer, where she jogged over to the kiosk and bought water and a few sandwiches for the trip.
She glanced around the large area by the entrance, at the sofa groups on both sides of the information desk, but no one resembled the two men she’d left behind at the funeral home. A crowd was waiting for the next elevator up, and she squeezed through to a door beside the porters’ elevator. Moments later she was in the basement, making her way past the empty hospital beds.
Outside, another hearse had pulled up and parked behind her. A young guy behind the wheel was talking on his phone. Ilka hesitated, but she decided she didn’t have time to wait for him to leave. She walked to the rear door and opened it, then tapped on the coffin a few times and lifted the lid a crack. She tried to make it look as if she were arranging something inside while she spoke to Lydia.
“Are you okay in here?” The nun peered up at her, and for the first time Ilka wondered if she was getting enough oxygen. Should she even be in there?
“There’s a guy parked right behind us, but I can drive off to the side and you can get up front.”
But Lydia wanted to stay in the coffin. She rose on her elbows and unscrewed the lid of the water bottle Ilka handed her.
“Do you need to pee before we leave?”
Ilka glanced at the guy behind them. He was staring directly at her now, with no phone in sight.
Lydia shook her head and drank more water, then grabbed the sandwich and said she was ready to go.
Ilka ignored the guy and quickly shoved the lid in place, though this time she left it open a crack. She walked around the car and got behind the wheel.
Forty-five minutes had passed since they’d left the funeral home. She punched in their destination on the GPS and was informed it would take twenty-four hours to reach the tip of the Keys.