J. Jance: Day of the Dead

“I’m awake,” Brandon said, causing Brian to jump. “And thirsty as hell. Is there any water around here?”

A water glass with a straw in it sat on the table. Brian had spent years caring for his invalid mother. With a practiced hand, he helped Brandon take a drink. “Not too much,” he cautioned.

“Where am I?”

“ICU,” Brian replied. “Family visitors only,” he said. “Diana told them I’m family.” He turned away, sniffled briefly, and wiped his eyes before turning back.

Brandon reached out and grasped the younger man’s hand. “You always have been,” he said.

They were both quiet for a few seconds, until Brandon let go. “What happened?” he asked.

“You had a heart attack.”

“Not to me,” Brandon Walker said gruffly. “The Strykers.”

“They’re dead,” Brian said. “Both of them. Gayle had a private jet reserved to fly to Mexico that night. From what we’ve been able to learn, she was leaving on her own, but Larry must have figured out what she was up to, and she shot him. If it hadn’t been for you sitting on Larry Stryker’s butt, chances are one or both of them might have gotten away.”

“Are you saying they were both involved in Roseanne Orozco’s murder?”

Brian Fellows sighed heavily and nodded. “That and a whole lot more,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about it sometime, but not now. Later. When you’re better.”

Lani Walker sat on the hardbacked chair in the waiting room, holding tight to Looks at Nothing’s precious crystals. During the past two days, she had spent hours in the waiting room outside the cardiac ICU. It seemed like a lifetime. Lani had learned more than she’d ever wanted to know about what it felt like to be in a hospital waiting room-waiting. With this new, unwanted knowledge, she vowed that someday, when she was the person coming through the door in her surgical scrubs, she would remember how it felt to be one of the people here-sitting in this awful purgatory, trapped somewhere between despair and hope.

Her mother had been here most of the time, and Davy a lot of it. Brian Fellows, however, off work on what was being termed “administrative leave,” was a constant presence. Through the long, lonely hours, he had-without meaning to, without knowing quite why-spilled his guts to Lani, telling her about Larry Stryker’s appalling notebooks and about the awful toll Gayle and Larry Stryker had taken in their long reign of terror. DNA and a series of long unexamined fingerprint cold-case evidence had now linked the two of them to fourteen separate cases. Unfortunately, the notebooks held pictures of several more girls than that, dead teenage girls who had yet to be identified.

When he finished, he expected Lani to be as torn up about it as he was. Lani merely nodded. “I knew she was evil,” she said.

“How did you know?” Brian asked.

Lani shrugged. “Fat Crack told me,” she said, knowing somehow that it was an answer Brian could understand and accept.

“But all those poor girls,” Brian continued. The pictures he had seen haunted him in a way nothing else ever had. “Nobody reported them missing,” he said. “No one went looking for them. Once someone really started working the cases, it didn’t take much time to sort it out. Bottom line? Nobody cared.”

Lani reached out and took Brian’s hand in hers. “That’s not true,” she said. “Somebody did too care about them-you and Dad. Those murdered girls may never have had their day in court, but at least they had their day.”

“Yes,” Brian Fellows said sadly. “That’s the best we could give them-a day of the dead.”

When Brandon opened his eyes next, Diana sat dozing in the chair. Knowing how stressed and tired she had to be, he said nothing and let her sleep. Tentatively raising his hand, he managed to reach the water glass on his own. When he did so, he noticed a single red rosebud sitting in a vase.

Eventually Diana woke up. “Good morning,” he said, smiling at her. “I’ll bet you’re tired.”

“A little,” she admitted. “How long have you been awake?”

“Not long,” he fibbed. “Only a few minutes. Thanks for the flower.”

Diana looked at the rosebud and then back to her husband. “That’s not from me,” she said. “It’s from Emma Orozco. She wanted to say thank you, but only relatives are allowed in the ICU.”

“If you see her again,” Brandon Walker said, “give her a message for me. Tell Emma both Fat Crack Ortiz and I say she’s welcome.”