Up on the fourth floor, Casey Acosta could hear a commotion outside of Room 411. And (still talking to his kick-ass sleeping beauty) he interrupted himself to tell Sammy, “Something’s going on out there. I’m gonna go check.” And since he was holding her hand, he kissed it and said, “I’ll be right back.”
But no sooner had he stood and turned than he heard, “Case.”
It was so quiet that it might have been from outside the room … only it had come from behind him.
He whipped around and there she was, wrapped in gauze, plumbed with tubes and wires and … awake!
“Sammy!” he cried, then spun around twice not knowing what to do first. “Sammy!” he cried again, then held up a finger. “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I’ll be right back!” He raced to the door, flung it open, and yelled, “She’s awake!” then raced back to her side. His eyes were burning with tears as he grabbed her hand. “You’re awake!”
She gave him a weak smile, but instead of saying anything, her smile drifted away.
“What’s wrong?” Casey asked, shifting from euphoric to panicked.
“Oscar pushed me,” she whispered. “Did they catch him?”
Casey had no idea who Oscar was, but his phone was out in a flash and he was calling Sergeant Borsch. “She’s awake,” Casey said when the lawman answered. “She says it was Oscar. Do you know who that is?”
“We’re on his tail now,” Gil Borsch replied. And then (with a voice that could only be described as choked up) he said, “Give her a kiss for me,” and hung up.
So Casey delivered the kiss to Sammy’s forehead, saying, “That’s from the Borschman. He says they’re on his tail now!” He hesitated, then said, “Who’s Oscar?”
“The Ice Cream Man? The Hotel Thief?”
“That guy you waved at?”
She nodded. “That’s the one.”
Casey shook his head. There was so much he wanted to ask her. So much he wanted to tell her. Like about what everyone was doing to try to help. Like about the List.
So much had happened!
But first he got busy with his phone again. “I need to tell your grandmother and Hudson! And your mom and dad! They’ve been going nuts.”
“How long was I out?” Sammy asked, testing her arms and legs.
“Forever! Uh, I mean, almost twenty-two hours? Something like that.”
“Really?”
He nodded as he waited for the ringing line to be answered. “Do you feel okay? What hurts?”
She gave him a small grin. “Uh, everything?”
Casey’s attention snapped to the phone. “She’s awake!” he said. “She seems to be fine!… Yes … Yes … I don’t know … Sure!… Can you call Lana and Darren?” And when he got off the phone, he grinned at Sammy and said, “They’ll be right here. With your parents, I’m sure. And Marko!”
“Marko’s here?” she asked. But then she began blinking and turned away. Like she was trying to remember something.
“What’s wrong?” Casey asked. “Are you all right?”
“Was … was Dusty Mike here?”
Casey’s eyes popped wide. “Yes!”
Sammy kept blinking. “Oh … wow.” She looked at him. “And you … you kissed me?”
“Yes!”
“And cried …?”
“Yes!”
“And my … my mom? She was …” She looked over at where Lana had slept, and tears filled her eyes. “It’s like a dream. Like an invisible movie.” She blinked some more as she wiped away her tears. “Wow.”
“So you remember …?”
She looked around. “Marko singing about teddy bears?”
“I hadn’t heard about that one! But these bears were Marko’s idea.” He handed one to her. “Everyone wrote on the ribbons.”
“Oh!” Sammy said, reading. “This is awesome!”
When she reached for another bear, Casey said, “I need to go tell Marissa. And Holly and Dot! And Heather!”
“And Billy?”
“Billy! Right! I wonder where they went.”
And he was about to run up to the waiting room (where he was sure their friends had been banished) when Nurse Scrabble walked in. “I did hear correctly!” she said, grinning. “Hello, Samantha! Glad to have you back with us. How are you feeling?”
“Really strapped down,” she said, looking at all the tubes and wires. “Can we get rid of this stuff?”
“Let me get the doctor in here,” she said, checking the machines over. “But I’m pretty sure we can make that happen.”
“Can you tell our friends in the waiting room that she’s awake?” Casey asked.
“Uh, no.”
“No?”
“They all took off. Which was good because they were loud and rambunctious and I have no idea how that new batch got past the sign-in desk.”
“Do you know where they went?”
“I heard them say something about catching the ice cream man.” She laughed and shook her head. “When’s the last time you’ve seen an ice cream man?”
“Last night,” Sammy said. “When he tried to kill me.”
Nurse Scrabble’s eyebrows went flying. “What?”
Sammy shrugged. “Well, you’re right. He’s not actually an ice cream man. That was just his cover—a blind ice cream man.”
“A blind ice cream man? This story keeps getting stranger and stranger.” Nurse Scrabble shook her head. “But let me get the doctor so he can let you know what to expect.”
Now, as badly as Sammy might have wanted to get out of the hospital, there was one person who wanted out more:
Larry Daniels.
Also known as the formerly blind ice cream man.
Or the disorderly orderly.
After narrowly escaping Sergeant Borsch, Larry Daniels had ripped off his wig and fake glasses and stuffed them in a laundry hamper on Floor 2, and was now proceeding (as nonchalantly as he could) along the corridor of the maternity wing to the elevator. In a test of both patience and acting ability, he politely fielded two requests (one for changing linens, another for restocking toilet paper) before blithely continuing his trek toward the elevator.
Unfortunately for the formerly blind ice cream man, when the elevator door opened he came face to face with a mob of teenagers.
And recognized some of their faces.
It was the same group he’d seen in the stairwell!
Doubly unfortunately for the formerly blind ice cream man, there were a few extra teens in the mob.
One who recognized him.
Marissa (who had also witnessed the Dumpster Incident) pointed and cried, “That’s him!”
And with that simple statement, the chase was on.
The problem was, the good guys looked like bad guys (they were teenagers running and shouting through a maternity ward, after all), and the bad guy (still dressed as a hospital worker) looked like the good guy.
“Stop him!” the teens cried as he bolted back toward the stairs.
“Stop them!” the would-be murderer cried as he threw carts and laundry hampers in their path.
“Call security!” a nurse cried as she was bowled over by teens in high-tops.
“What security?” another nurse cried, because, really, what security?
“Whaaaa!” the babies in the ward cried, because, well, that’s what babies do.
Now, had Sergeant Borsch been able to enter the Floor 2 stairwell door, he would most certainly have done so in pursuit of Larry Daniels.
But there was no wadded napkin in the Floor 2 doorjamb, and by the time he’d reached it, it was latched up tight.
So he hustled down to the first floor and used the exterior exit (where he discovered another folded-up napkin). Then out he went, radioing the station as he hustled around the building to the front of the hospital, calling for backup and requesting an APB for one Larry Daniels.
In a fair world, Sergeant Gil Borsch would have been rewarded for his stalwart determination and commitment with a bit of good luck. But, as we all know, it’s not a fair world, and luck, in Gilbert Borsch’s corner of this unfair world, is not something that shows itself very often.
(Or, really, ever.)
So it should have been no surprise to him that the first “backup” to appear on the scene was a self-proclaimed superhero roaring into the parking lot on his High Roller with a fortune-teller in the sidecar.
“Commissioner!” Justice Jack cried. “Which way did he go?”
“I can’t believe it’s that same creep!” Madame Nashira cried from the sidecar (as she had been one of Larry Daniels’s past victims). “I’ll rip his eyes out!”
From his Saddle of Justice, Jack looked at the fortune-teller and a little red heart practically popped out of his chest and floated dreamily above him.
“Why me?” the lawman moaned.
And, as if dealing with Justice Jack and his new fortune-telling sidekick weren’t enough, the unfortunate lawman was suddenly (and rudely) goosed.
By a pig.
“Hey!” he squawked as he jumped, and when he turned around, Penny oinked at him (loud and long and lovingly).
“No!” the lawman screamed, backing away. “What are you doing here?” Because, yes, he knew Penny. And yes, Penny remembered him, too. And it was undeniable—Penny was still very much an oinker in love.
“Stay back!” he commanded as Penny approached. “Do you hear me? Stay back!”
Now, if a pig could coo, that’s what Penny would have been doing.
They can only oink.
And snort.
And kind of snotter.
And since Sergeant Borsch was distracted by Penny oinking madly and frolicking after him, and since Justice Jack and Madame Nashira were likewise distracted watching Penny oink and frolic, neither the crime fighters nor the claw-wielding fortune-teller noticed the two swarms of teens approaching.
From one side came Marissa and her group, still chasing Larry Daniels after they’d tailed him down the back stairs.
From the other side came the other (newly text-alerted) teens, who had opted not to take the stairs (and had been evicted by Fig and Bunny).
And, chalk it up to bad luck or good fortune, but it does seems fitting that the formerly blind ice cream man/wannabe kid killer would be tackled by kids.
Loud, angry kids who knew how to apply a hammerlock and grind a cheek into asphalt.
“You thought you’d get away with it?” they crowed as they brought him down. “You mess with Sammy, you mess with all of us!”
“Yeah! You’re going away for good, dude! You are toast!”
And then over his shoulder, Billy cried, “Officer Borsch! Get over here! Cuff this guy!”
For Larry Daniels, it wasn’t the pain of the hammerlock or the little road rocks being ground into his cheek. It wasn’t the metal cuffs ratcheting around his wrists or the sound of a cop reading him his rights again. It wasn’t even the pig that came from God-knows-where to sniff and snort and slobber around his head.
It was the shoes.
All he could see was those shoes.
Shoes that were just like hers.
Shoes that would give him nightmares for the rest of his life.