BETH ISRAEL HOSPITAL IS ON First Avenue and Seventeenth Street. Erica jumps out of the cab, heads into the main entrance, walks up to the front desk, and gets Mark’s room number.
She hesitates before stepping on the elevator. As the car rises, she says the Serenity Prayer several times. It centers her, gives her strength and faith. Which she badly needs right now. She feels as if she’s moving into uncharted territory. When she dreamed of her career, she never imagined she would find herself caught up in a story this big, with national security implications, where people’s lives are at stake. Where she herself may be in danger.
In some core way Erica feels like she’s been in danger her whole life—when a little girl’s parents use her as an emotional and physical punching bag, a foil for their sad, sick lives, can she ever really feel safe? She thought fame and success and money would protect her, buffer her from pain and fear. Now that hope seems naive. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm the telltale beat of her troubled heart.
Erica walks down the wide hallway. She doesn’t like hospitals—all the plastic, all the sickness, all the depressingly cheery colors, all the downcast people coming out of the rooms after visits, all the patients shuffling down the hallways with walkers. She smiles at a passing nurse. Nurses, on the other hand, she loves—they’re on the front line, in the trenches every day, doing the dirty work—the ones she’s known tend to be caring, no-nonsense, and a little eccentric. They’re real people doing real work that really matters. Heroes.
Erica reaches Mark’s private room. The door is open but she can’t see him because the curtain is drawn. She can see a middle-aged couple sitting at the foot of his bed, watching him with deep concern.
She knocks gently on the door. “May I come in?”
The woman nods. Erica walks past the curtain and gets her first look at Mark, and her stomach turns over. His head is wrapped in bandages and his face looks like one big bruise, red and yellow and purple and green, grotesquely swollen, blood caked at the corners of his open mouth, several teeth gone, one eye shut tight, stitches along his temple and cheek. There are tubes everywhere, drips and catheters and bags.
Erica and the couple exchange sad, stricken looks. “Are you Mark’s parents?”
The man nods. “Chuck Benton. This is my wife, Marie.”
“I’m Erica Sparks, a colleague of Mark’s.”
“Mark mentioned you. He likes you,” Marie says. “Thank you for coming.”
The Bentons look like they’re still in shock. There are two suitcases beside them.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” Erica says. “How long have you been here?”
“A couple of hours. We flew in from Cleveland.”
“Do you have a hotel?”
“We got a reservation at the Holiday Inn on Houston.”
That sounds depressing. Erica goes out to the nursing station and approaches a young male nurse who is writing on a clipboard.
“Can you recommend a nice nearby hotel?”
He looks up and smiles. “Everyone loves The Inn at Irving Place. It’s about three blocks west, small and very homey. A lot of patients’ families stay there. It’s not cheap though.”
Erica takes out her phone and calls the hotel. She manages to book the Bentons a room, requests fresh flowers, and tells the hotel to put it on her credit card. Then she calls the Holiday Inn and cancels the reservation there. She walks back into Mark’s room and tells the Bentons. Marie Benton’s eyes tear up with gratitude. Chuck Benton protests but Erica fibs and assures him GNN is paying, is happy to pay.
A doctor walks into the room. Clearly the Bentons have met him earlier. The doctor recognizes Erica and stands a little taller. “Mitch Kaminer. Nice to meet you.”
The Bentons and Erica watch as the doctor scans the chart hanging at the end of Mark’s bed.
“How is he doing?” Erica asks.
“No change. Which is good news at this point.”
“Can you tell me a little bit about his injuries?”
“With his family’s permission I can.”
Chuck Benton nods.
“Mark suffered a serious beating with blunt force trauma to the skull. There was swelling on the brain, and we removed a portion of his skull to alleviate the pressure. He also has a broken left arm, a broken right orbital bone, numerous cuts, and severe bruising. Right now his prognosis is uncertain.” The doctor hesitates and then says without much conviction, “But I’ve seen people recover from worse injuries.”
Poor dear Mark. Erica reaches out and squeezes his hand. “Keep fighting, my friend, keep fighting! You’ve got a lot of windsurfing left to do.”
The doctor leaves and Erica sits beside Mark’s parents, numb, until she loses track of time and all she hears is the hum and gurgle of the machines that are keeping him alive.
A black man of around forty enters the room—he’s wiry, kinetic, handsome, with a closed, wary face and eyes that have seen too much.
“Detective George Samuels,” he says without a smile.
Introductions are made. Samuels walks over beside the bed and looks at Mark. He doesn’t flinch.
“Can you tell us where and when Mark was mugged?” Erica asks.
“It happened on Charles Street in the West Village, a half block from his apartment, at approximately five thirty this morning. No witnesses have come forward. But this wasn’t a mugging. Muggers steal the wallet, the laptop, the cell phone, and then get the hell out of there. This guy—or guys—stuck around to administer . . . this. Which is assault with a deadly weapon, probably attempted murder.”
“But why my Mark? He never hurt anyone,” Marie Benton says. Then she starts crying.
Erica feels guilt rise up like a wave inside her. This happened because of her. She’s the one that pulled Mark into this story. It’s her fault he’s lying in this hospital bed fighting for his life. What if he dies?
“When we see this kind of overkill, it usually means that someone wants to send a message,” Detective Samuels says.
As Erica feels her short hairs stand up, she thinks, Message received.