“Her brother,” Lorraine supplied, her eyes daring anyone, again, to challenge her.
“As I told her brother earlier, Ms. Dubois has a broken femur and collarbone. Both of those have been set and should heal just fine. We—”
“So we can take her home?” Lorraine broke in.
The doctor shook his head; his eyes politely apologetic. “I’m afraid not. Though she seemed to fare quite well, Ms. Dubois was in a rather bad accident. We need to keep her here for a few days to be sure that there is nothing more seriously wrong with her.”
“May we see her?” Nina asked.
The doctor seemed to be thinking. “She really does need her rest. Maybe just one or two of you, so she knows you’re out here. The rest of you can come by during regular visiting hours tomorrow.”
I stood up and took Lorraine’s hand when I saw her eyes go wide; I saw them rimmed with tears.
“You go in, Lorraine. Tell her we’re all out here pulling for her.” I glanced at Vlad, held his eyes for a beat. “And Vlad should go in, too, in case she remembers anything.”
Lorraine nodded and cleared her throat; then she pushed her hair back behind her ears. She pasted on a welcoming smile as she looked toward Kale’s closed door, but I could feel the fear radiating from her. I wrapped my arms around her.
“It’s going to be okay, Lorraine,” I whispered into her hair. “I know it is.”
My body quaked with Lorraine’s tense energy.
“She’s like a kid sister to me,” Lorraine said, the single tear wobbling over her cheek. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to her.”
“Nothing will,” Will said, squeezing her shoulder.
“You’ll keep us posted, right?” Nina asked.
Lorraine nodded quickly. “Of course. You guys go home.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“I’ve got you,” Will said over my shoulder. “I can take you home.”
I nodded dumbly, then blindly fumbled down the hall. The astringent smell of sickness and terror assaulted me the whole way down.
I slammed the car door and buckled myself into the passenger seat while Will stared straight ahead.
“You going to be okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. It’s Kale I’m worried about.” I clapped my palm to my forehead. “That’s right. Can you swing by the diner on the way home? We left the UDA files there.”
Will double-parked in front of the diner and I jumped out, a cold mass of nerves pulsing in my gut. I tried to maintain tunnel vision and avoid the spot where Kale went down, but I had the nagging need to look. The intersection buzzed with dull regularity as a Muni bus chugged by, followed by a Subaru packed with tourists who stared wide-eyed and openmouthed, foreheads and palms pressed against the glass. I sighed: nothing, no clues, no slow-moving car plastered with bumper stickers saying MY HONOR STUDENT RAN OVER YOUR FRIEND IN THE STREET. I had my hand on the door to the Fog City Diner, when I took one last glance back to where Will sat in the car, fiddling with the stereo. He bent low enough for me to notice a snatch of red hair on the other side of the street, a midcalf-brushing trench coat.
My heart thumped into my throat. Despite the moist, biting fog, my entire body broke out into a hot sweat. I spun on my heel and zigzagged through traffic, across the street, catching the door to Java Script as it swung closed behind the red-haired man. Vaguely I heard Will’s English accent cutting through the sounds of traffic. Vaguely I heard his car door slam shut, him telling me to come back.
Java Script was warm inside and the heady smell of roasted coffee beans stung my nose. I zipped past a display of hardback best sellers and “Java Script Recommends” titles. I was looking frantically for the red-haired man.
“Hey, welcome to Java Script.” A teenaged girl wearing a red apron grinned at me. “Is there something I can help you find?”
“Did you just see a man in a trench coat come in here? He had red hair like mine.” I pulled a lock of my own hair to demonstrate the color. “And he would have looked”—I swallowed bitter saliva—“a little like me, too.”
The girl shrugged. “Just now? The only person who came in here just now was you.” She smiled and her metal braces glinted in the harsh fluorescent lights. “It’s been a superslow day. But do you want me to leave a message in case someone comes in?”
The tinkling bells over the door did their thing and Will stepped inside, obviously irate. “What happened to picking something up at the diner? Next thing I know, you’re sprinting through traffic.”
I grabbed Will by the elbow and led him to a stack of James Patterson’s new new releases. “Didn’t you see him slip in here?”
“Who?”
I cut my eyes, left and right, then leaned in. “My father.”
Will stepped back, eyebrows raised. “Suddenly dear old dad pops back on the scene and stops in for a read?”