J. Jance - Web of Evil

Ali was still holding her car keys. She thrust them into her mother's hands. "I'm going to the hospital," Ali said. "Once Dave finishes with the cops, the two of you can come to the hospital in my car."

"But how do we get there?" Edie wanted to know.

"Don't worry," she said. "Use the GPS. You should be able to key Cedars-Sinai into it, and it'll lead you straight there."

"But"

"No buts, Mom," Ali returned. "I'm going."

By the time she got outside, the doors on the ambulance had already slammed shut. Knowing she wouldn't be allowed to ride in that anyway, Ali went looking for an alternative. By then a fire department supervisor had arrived on the scene. After some persuading, Ali managed to convince the driver to take her along to the hospital.

"You're a relative?" he asked.

Mentally Ali thought through her actual connection to Monique Ragsdale: "the mother of my murdered husband's pregnant girlfriend."

That would sound more than slightly suspect. "Yes," Ali said. And let it go at that.

By the time Ali arrived at the entrance to the ER, Monique had already been wheeled inside and out of sight. Ali started toward the registration desk and then stopped. There was no point in even talking to those people. She knew nothingno social security numbers, no insurance information. Saying she was a relative might have been enough to bum a ride to the hospital, but it wasn't going to wash with some sharp-eyed receptionist whose main purpose in life was to ascertain who would be responsible for authorizing lifesaving treatment and/or paying the bill.

Walking to one of the few unoccupied chairs in the room, Ali took Monique's phone out of her pocket and once again hit "redial." Still April didn't answer.

Where the hell are you? Ali wondered in frustration. Why don't you answer?

Gradually, the sights, sounds, and, even more, the smells of the waiting room assailed her. She had been pregnant the whole time Dean was sick. While he struggled with cancer, she had struggled with morning sickness, sitting in ER and hospital waiting rooms and clutching her own barf bucket. Being there brought all the memories back with awful clarity.

Around the room people sat huddled in their own private miseries. An older woman, in a wheelchair and on oxygen, sat with her eyes closed while the old man next to her periodically patted her hand. A few feet away from Ali, a feverish-looking toddler wailed inconsolably while his young mother, speaking in Spanish, tried in vain to comfort him. Then, with no warning, the anguished wail suddenly devolved into a spasm of projectile vomiting.

Ali knew that active puking or bleeding was the key to getting ER attention, and this was no exception. A nurse appeared from behind a curtained doorway, collected the sick baby and his mother, and then disappeared again. In less than a minute, a janitor, wearing gloves and a face mask, was there to clean up the mess. Meantime, a hugely pregnant young woman, also Hispanic, walked into the lobby on her own. At the receptionist desk, though, she was hit by a contraction that brought her to her knees. Someone grabbed a nearby wheelchair and whisked her away as well.

Living and dying, Ali thought. Coming and going. That's what hospitals are all about.

She tried April's number again, with the same result, then Ali closed her eyes and tried to shut all this out; tried to make it go away. But it didn't work. She was back in Chicago, lost in that awful time more than twenty years ago. Back in her own peculiar version of hell.

"Ms. Reynolds." A voice from far away pierced her reverie. "Ms. Alison Reynolds. Would you please come to the registration desk?"

As Ali rose to answer the summons, a phone rang. It wasn't her ring and so at first she didn't realize it was for her. Then Monique's phone began to vibrate as well as ring.

"Mom?" April asked.

"It's not your mother," Ali interjected. "It's me. Ali. Where are you? Did you get my messages?"

"I went for a drive. I had to get away for a while. The walls were closing in on me. I couldn't stand to be in the house a minute longer. But what are you doing on my mother's phone? I saw that she had called three times. I didn't bother listening to the messages. There's no point. She's always bossing me around and saying the same thing, over and over."

"The messages weren't from your mother," Ali said firmly. "They're from me, April, all of them. Your mother's been hurt. She's in the ER at Cedars-Sinai. You need to get here as soon as you can. Where are you?"

"Hurt? What do you mean, hurt?"

"She fell down the stairs at the house. She must have hit her head, either on the way down or on the tile floor at the bottom of the staircase."

There was a pausea long pause. "Is it like, you know, bad?" April asked.

"I don't know how bad it is," Ali returned. "Since I'm not a blood relative, the people here at the hospital won't tell me anything."

By now Ali had reached the registration desk, where a woman seated in front of a computer terminal glared at Ali impatiently, waiting for her to finish the call.

"You brought Ms. Ragsdale in?" the receptionist asked. "We're going to need some information."

Ali thrust Monique's cell phone in the woman's direction. "There's no point in talking to me because I don't know anything. This is April Gaddis, Monique Ragsdale's daughter," she added. "You should probably talk to her."

The receptionist took the cell phone and handed it over to the same nurse who had come to collect the puking toddler. About that time two uniformed LAPD officersa man and a womanmade their way into the ER. Ali recognized them at once. They were the same officers Ali had passed as she sprinted out of the house on Robert Lane intent on hitching a ride to the hospital. Unfortunately, three other people followed the two cops. Two of them carried camerasone still and one video. The reporters were still on the hunt, and this trio had just gotten lucky.

The officers spotted Ali standing near the reception desk and hurried toward her. "Ms. Reynolds?" the female officer asked. "Could we speak to you for a moment, please?"

The flurry of activity that marked the arrival of the cops and the cameras caused every head in the waiting room to swivel curiously in Ali's direction. The room went totally silent as everyone strained to hear her answer.

"Yes, of course," she said. "How can I help?"

"I'm Officer Oliveras. We understand you're the person who found Ms. Ragsdale at the bottom of the stairs?" she asked.

"Yes," Ali answered. "That's correct."

"Can you tell us how you came to be there?" That question came from Officer Oliveras's partner, one Dale Ramsey.

"Monique's amp;that is, Ms. Ragsdale's daughter, April Gaddis, sent a message to me and asked me to come thereto the house. April said she needed my help."

"With what?" Ramsey asked.

"With making funeral arrangements," Ali began, then she paused and looked around the room. All ears seemed to be cocked in her direction. "It's all rather complicated," she added.

Officer Oliveras didn't smile. "Maybe you'd rather speak to us in a somewhat more private setting," she offered. "Our squad car is right outside."

The idea of being closeted in a vehicle with two more inquisitive cops didn't sound all that appealing, especially if there were photographers here ready to capture each and every vivid detail on film.

"No," Ali said quickly. "This is fine. I was sitting over there in the corner. Maybe we could do this there."

She led the cops into an area where the distinct odor of puke, barely covered by some astringent cleaning solution, still lingered in the air. Officer Oliveras followed Ali while Officer Ramsey rounded on the reporters.

"All right, you bozos," he said. "Enough! Get the hell out of here. Can't you see there are sick people here? You're botherin' 'em."