“No,” she said, taking my hand and leading me through a pair of double doors. “I have a good friend who’s an emergency room doctor. We went to med school together.” Her voice was a low whisper. “We were talking a few weeks ago about unusual cases; I mentioned some of the things we’d discussed. Then last night she called me.” As we moved along the quiet corridor, she looked about nervously. “I promised her that you wouldn’t use her name. HIPAA violations are seriously frowned upon, but when she told me about the woman’s fingertips, I came to see. That’s when I called you.” We stopped at a private room where beeps came from behind the door. Tracy squeezed my hand and whispered excitedly, “Wait until you see this!”
My heart raced as we approached the woman in the bed. She was connected to multiple tubes and equipment. Her right cheek was swollen and purple and her eyes were closed. Tracy reached for the unconscious woman’s hand and turned it palm upward. Her fingertips were white, the skin freshly burned.
I gasped. “Has she spoken? Does anyone know what happened?”
Tracy shook her head. “No, she was found near Woodward Avenue and Richton Street, running and stumbling with no coat or shoes. A motorist picked her up and brought her here. The man said that she was barely conscious when he found her, but by the time he arrived, she was passed out.”
“Did she say anything to him? Have the police been called?”
“I don’t know any more from the man who brought her here. Even what I’ve told you is classified. DPD came when she first arrived, but nothing can be done without her statement.”
I scanned her from head to toe: only her upper chest, head, and arms were visible. “Other injuries?”
Tracy nodded. “Again, I haven’t been told much. We need to get out of here before someone finds us. That’s why I wanted you to come now, before the morning commotion.”
“We passed the nurses’ station,” I reminded her.
“I have a few friends. Officially we’ve never been here.”
I touched the woman’s arm and thought about the victims in Tracy’s morgue. Thankfully, despite what she’d been through, this woman was warm.
“Let’s get out of here,” Tracy said. “As long as you promise her anonymity, my friend who was the attending doctor last night said she’d talk with you.”
I agreed.
A few minutes later we were seated in the hospital’s cafeteria, nursing cups of hot coffee and talking with Dr. Jennings, a young woman of Asian descent, with tired eyes and pulled-back hair.
“I can’t go on record,” she began.
I shook my head. “You won’t. I promise. Thank you for speaking to me.”
She nodded toward Tracy. “She told me what you’ve been trying to do. As soon as I saw the fingertips, I remembered Tracy’s stories. That’s why I called.”
“Did the patient say anything?”
“No, she’s been unconscious since she arrived. Not only is she injured, but she was suffering from hypothermia. I think it was near twenty degrees last night.”
I took a deep breath. “What about the Good Samaritan who brought her in? Did she say anything to him?”
Dr. Jennings shook her head. “He said she was incoherent, all she talked about was a light.” Dr. Jennings rubbed her temples. “The poor man said he kept telling her not to go toward it. I think he was afraid she might die right there in his car.”
My entire body trembled. I needed to speak with this woman or even the man who had saved her. A light had to be The Light, it just had to be. This would be the connection to the dead women.
Dr. Jennings agreed that I could wait for the woman to regain consciousness, and if that happened before her identity was learned and her family or the police stepped in with an order prohibiting visitors, I could talk to her.
I waited impatiently, wishing I’d brought my laptop to record my observations and nursing my third cup of coffee. Without food, my stomach continued to twist, creating knots upon knots. Perhaps that was why I startled when one of the nurses from the ICU tapped my shoulder. “Miss Montgomery?”
“Oh! Yes, is the patient awake?”
“No, ma’am, not yet; however, there’s a call for you at the nurses’ station.”
I straightened my shoulders. “For me?”
“Yes, ma’am. He asked that I get you.”
I nodded. “OK”—I stood—“thank you.”
As I followed the larger woman in dark-blue scrubs, my mind searched for who could possibly be calling me at the hospital. It wasn’t yet seven in the morning, and I hadn’t even told Bernard or Foster where I was.
“Hello?” I asked tentatively.
“Stella Montgomery?”
My forehead furrowed. “Yes?”
“My name’s Paul. I’m the man who found the woman last night on Woodward. I have a few minutes before work if you’d like to get my statement.”
My tired mind came to life. “Yes, Paul. Thank you, I’d love to do that. Thank you so much for helping her and talking to me. Can I get your last name, and where I can meet you?”
“I’d rather do this off the record, so no last name. But I want to help that lady. I work at a dry cleaner on Grand Boulevard in New Center. Martin’s. Can you meet me there?”
My body tingled with excitement. “Yes, I understand. I won’t use your name. I’ll be there in less than half an hour.”
“It’s kind of busy this time of day, but there’s a flat lot two blocks away behind Market on State Street.”
Behind Market on State, I made a mental note.