Flying low over Baltimore after dark is a magical thing. Rush hour traffic turned the streets into undulating ribbons of red and white. One bright ribbon encircled Mount Vernon Place where the monument to George Washington stood tall, bathed in a peculiar lavender light. Minutes beyond, at the end of Charles Street, the Inner Harbor teemed with light and life, the glass pyramid of the National Aquarium’s rainforest lit from within, sparkling like a crown jewel.
Even though our departure had been delayed by almost two hours, we touched down on the lighted runway just after six, leaving plenty of time to drive Dicey to the hospital before visiting hours ended.
Peter had added Dicey’s name to the visitors’ list at Shock Trauma, but was reluctant to intrude on the mother-daughter reunion. ‘There’ll be time enough for me later on,’ he’d said when I telephoned earlier in the day to bring him up to date. ‘Call me tomorrow, OK?’ he said. I could hear the nervousness in his voice. ‘We’ll keep it low-key. Over coffee or something.’
When Dicey and I reached the nurse’s station adjoining Trish’s room, Dicey, surprisingly, held back. ‘You go in first,’ she urged.
I shot her an enquiring look.
‘I’m all pins and needles,’ she explained, grasping the strap on her backpack like a lifeline. ‘What will I say?’
I wrapped an arm around her shoulder, drew her close and whispered in her ear. ‘Tell her what’s in your heart. You’ll be fine.’
I left Dicey in the hallway, backed up against the wall just outside her mother’s door, staring at her shoes.
When I tiptoed in, I was relieved to find the ventilator gone. Although Peter had said his wife had been weaned off the machine, the difference it made surprised me. Its very size, and the noise it made – shhhh paah, shhhh paah – had dominated the room, dwarfing the patient to which it was attached.
To assist with her breathing Trish now wore a tracheotomy tube, attached to her like a necklace with Velcro. The nurse had propped her patient up in bed, and her head was turned slightly away from the door. The television was on, the audio emanating from a controller tied to the side rail of her hospital bed. She seemed to be watching Jeopardy.
Potpourri for 800, Alex.
The name of this NFL team from California is a type of horse.
Colts? Broncos? I racked my brain. I’d flunk that category.
‘Trish?’ I said instead.
Trish turned her head and, when she recognized me, smiled. I couldn’t believe the improvement in the relatively short time I’d been away. Not only had the ventilator disappeared, but the bandage that had swathed her head like an Egyptian mummy cloth had noticeably shrunk. Both her eyes were now visible, and the black and blue coloration of her left forehead and cheek had faded from blackish-blue to greenish-yellow.
I leaned over the bed, hands resting on the rail. ‘You’re looking so much better.’ I caressed her scalp, feeling the soft, brown stubble under my fingertips. ‘And your hair is growing back from where they shaved it for surgery.’ I grinned. ‘I don’t think God intended for you to be blond.’
Trish grunted, as if clearing her throat, but her eyes smiled.
Because of the trach, I knew she couldn’t talk. Normally, air passes over your vocal chords, Peter had explained, but the tracheotomy tube bypasses all that. The speech therapist had started working with her, but learning to speak required breath control and Trish wasn’t there yet.
‘Don’t try to talk,’ I told my friend. ‘Just listen. There’s somebody here who has been waiting a long time to see you.’
Trish’s eyebrow twitched.
I felt Dicey approach from behind, so I stepped aside. For a moment, nothing changed, and then suddenly, the air in the room seemed to bristle with static electricity.
‘Hello, you,’ Dicey said, stepping forward to take my place. ‘It’s been a long time.’
A high-pitched whine escaped from Trish’s throat. Her eyes overflowed, tears coursed down her cheeks.
‘It’s all OK,’ Dicey said, reaching for her mother’s hand. ‘I’m here. Everybody’s safe. Nobody’s in danger any more.’
Trish’s chest heaved with the effort to speak.
Dicey laid her fingers gently against her mother’s cheek, wiping tears away with her thumb. ‘Shhhh, shhhh,’ she soothed.
I snatched a tissue out of a box on the bedside table and handed it to Dicey who used it to dry her mother’s face. ‘I don’t know what to call you,’ she said after a little time had passed. ‘Liz? Trish?’
Trish’s free hand fluttered up to the trach at her neck. She pressed two fingers against the opening, took a deep breath and pushed air out forcefully over her lips. ‘Muuuuh.’ Clearly unsatisfied with the effort, Trish closed her eyes, grabbed another breath, and with the strain showing on her face, rasped, ‘Mom.’
Dicey burst into tears.
Feeling like a fifth wheel, I snatched a tissue out of the box for myself and slipped out of the room.
When I looked in again to collect Dicey for the drive back to Annapolis, the bed rail had been lowered and Dicey was asleep, her head resting on her mother’s breast and in the circle of her arms.
The following morning, I crawled out of bed just after dawn, awakened not by the sun, but by the pinging of my iPhone.
Paul was already up, drinking coffee alone at the kitchen table. ‘Dicey?’ he asked when I appeared before him, slightly disheveled and rubbing sleep out of my eyes.
‘Still asleep,’ I said. ‘I’ll be surprised if we see her before noon. It was an exhausting day.’
Paul rose from his chair and folded me into his arms. ‘I’m glad it’s over,’ he said, his breath warm against my forehead.
‘Not quite over,’ I said, lifting the hand that held my cell phone. ‘I have a text from David Reingold.’
Paul squinted at the screen and read Reingold’s message aloud. ‘Hold tight. It’s happening.’
‘Turn on the TV,’ I said, heading straight for the Keurig machine, ‘I’m right behind you.’
When I joined my husband on the sofa two minutes later, Paul was aiming the remote at the TV, surfing through the channels. ‘It’s a mystery to me how they can all be running ads at the same time,’ he grumped.
I grabbed his arm. ‘Stop! That’s CNN.’
We sat through an ad assuring us that we’d be in good hands, insurance-wise, with Allstate, then news anchor John Herman came on to report that a volcano had erupted off the coast of New Zealand, killing five. The story that followed informed us that the Russians were being banned from the Olympics for four years because of doping.
‘Imagine my surprise,’ Paul said, aiming the remote. ‘Let’s switch to Lynx.’
‘Wait! If this is about Calvin Bishop, do you think Lynx is going to carry the story? Other than to say it’s a hoax?’
‘A team representing Russia cannot participate,’ Herman was winding up the Russia story, ‘but if there is a mechanism put in place, then they can apply to participate on a neutral basis, just not as representatives of Russia.
‘Now, this just in,’ he continued. ‘Early this morning, FBI agents raided the Brooklyn townhouse of Lynx Media Corporation executive, Calvin J Bishop, using a crowbar to break through the front door of one of the most luxurious private homes in the upscale Clinton Hill neighborhood.’
I poked Paul in the ribs with my elbow. ‘That’s it! That’s the house! I recognize it from Zillow!’
‘According to agents familiar with the case,’ Herman said, ‘this was a well-coordinated effort, with simultaneous raids at the media tycoon’s ranch near Whitefish, Montana and at his Alexandria townhouse. FBI authorities later descended upon the private island owned by Mr Bishop in the Bahamas.’
The Brooklyn townhouse with a U-Haul vehicle parked on the sidewalk morphed into an aerial shot, probably taken by drone, of a lush green island set in a turquoise sea.
‘A local snorkeling guide unwittingly led a group of tourists right into the dragnet,’ a reporter dressed in a Hawaiian shirt was saying.
The camera panned to a bronzed dude in swim trunks wearing his snorkel gear perched like an antler on top of his head. ‘They arrived in Border Patrol boats,’ the dude spoke into the camera, ‘wearing uniforms with big yellow letters on them. They were crawling all over the island. It was nuts.’
‘Bishop,’ the CNN reporter continued, ‘whose friends have included ex-presidents, foreign heads of state, royalty and numerous A-List celebrities, was arrested late last night at an airport outside New York City after his private jet touched down from the Bahamas. A task force of federal agents and NY City police officers met the plane at Westchester County Airport and took Bishop into custody. He is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal jail near the Manhattan courthouse where he is due to appear on Friday.
‘According to officials who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the pending case, agents at the Brooklyn location found a vast trove of hand-labeled compact discs containing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of sexually suggestive photographs of fully-or-partially-nude females, some appearing as young as thirteen. Sex toys and computers were also seized in the raid.’
‘Disgusting,’ I said, thinking of my granddaughter. Paul squeezed my hand.
‘Bishop is charged in a fifteen-page federal indictment with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy. It is alleged that some trafficking victims were just fourteen years old.
‘According to a court filing that just came into my hands,’ Herman continued, ‘the government is requesting that Bishop not be released prior to trial since he is an extraordinary flight risk, considering his exorbitant wealth, his ownership of and access to private aircraft capable of international travel, and his significant international ties.
‘This was a covert operation taking many months, a government spokesman told CNN news. Court documents related to the case had been kept under seal, but now that the indictment has been unsealed, prosecutors hope many more individuals, either victims or witnesses, will come forward.
‘We called the number given for Mr Bishop’s home. A man who identified himself as Harry abruptly hung up on this reporter without commenting. Mr Bishop’s lawyer did not respond to messages seeking comment. Stay tuned to CNN for more as this story develops.’
While Dicey remained blissfully asleep in the guest room recently occupied by her stepfather, I texted David Reingold: Well done. Call me about Syracuse.
An hour later, Reingold returned my call. ‘I filed my story. It’ll go live in about an hour.’
Meanwhile, I filled him in on my adventures in Syracuse, stopping from time to time to answer his questions. ‘Those papers Trish gave you,’ I said after I finished. ‘I don’t know what was in them, but you do. Is Trish in trouble?’
‘My bet?’ Reingold said. ‘Most likely she cut a deal with the FBI long before turning them over. Most significantly, it was the information Mrs Young provided that gave the government the reasonable cause they needed to obtain the search warrants that resulted in these raids. If it hadn’t been for her …’ His voice trailed off. ‘Well, if it hadn’t been for your friend, Trish, Cal Bishop would still be using his considerable wealth and power to abuse young women.’
‘Will she need to testify?’ I asked, wondering as the words tumbled out of my mouth if Trish would ever be able to testify.
‘I doubt it,’ Reingold said. ‘The government has plenty of witnesses now – victims of more recent vintage than Mrs Young. But it’s always a good idea to consult an attorney.’
‘Thanks, Mr Reingold. I’m looking forward to reading your story.’
‘No, it’s I who need to thank you. And when Mrs Young is well enough, I plan to thank her in person, too.
‘In the meantime,’ he continued, ‘I urge you to download a copy of the indictment.’ He gave me the URL and I jotted it down. ‘I’m only guessing, of course, but I think Unindicted Co-conspirator-1 and Individual-1 have a lot to worry about.’
‘Bedtime reading?’ I suggested.
‘Go get the popcorn, Hannah. The show is about to begin.’