Patricia Cornwell - Red Mist

We board the elevator, and our glass car begins to glide down, passing below balconies draped with vines, and I envision women inmates working in the prison yard and walking the greyhounds, all of them ghosts of their former selves, abusers and the abused, and then warehoused in a place engaged in a secret enterprise of death. I imagine Kathleen Lawler and Jack Fielding first laying eyes on each other at that ranch for troubled youths, a connection that set in motion a series of events that has changed and lost lives forever, including their own.

“You get tickets for the Bruins or, better yet, the Red Sox, and I just might visit sometime,” Colin says.

“Well, if you ever think of leaving the GBI.” We pass through the lobby, on our way to heavy heat and a hot, windy ride.

“I wasn’t hinting about a job,” he says, as we climb into the Land Rover.

“You always have an invitation at the CFC,” I reply. “We’ve got good barbershop quartets up there, and this thing certainly has heat,” I add, as he turns on the blower. “It probably would do just fine in snowdrifts, blizzards, ice storms.”

I get Marino on the phone, and I can tell from the noise that he’s still in his van, riding toward Charleston or maybe away from it, I have no idea what he’s up to.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“About thirty minutes south,” he says, and he sounds subdued, maybe sad.

“We should land in Charleston by two, and I need you to be there,” I reply.

“I don’t know….”

“Well, I do, Marino. We’ll have a late dinner, celebrate the Fourth up north with something good to eat and get the dogs back from the nanny, all of us together,” I tell him, as the old hospital comes into view.

Founded not long after the Civil War, Savannah Community Hospital, where Kathleen Lawler delivered twins thirty-three years ago, is red brick with white trim and provides full-service but not acute care. It’s not often helicopters land here anymore, Colin says. The helipad is a small grassy area with a rather ragged orange wind sock in back, surrounded by trees that thrash and churn as the black 407 thunders in and sets down lightly on the heels of its skids.

We shout good-bye to Colin over the thudding of the blades, and I climb into the left-front seat and Benton gets in the back, and we buckle up and put on headsets.

“Pretty tight spot in here,” I say to Lucy, dressed in black, scanning her instruments, doing what she likes best, defying gravity and clearing obstacles.

“Old place like this, and they never bother trimming the trees back,” I hear her voice in my headset as I feel us get light, then lift, and the hospital is under our feet.

Colin gets smaller on the ground, waving, as we ascend vertically, straight up, high over trees. We level off and nose around toward the buildings and rooftops of the old city, and beyond is the river, and we follow it to the sea, heading northeast to Charleston and then home.