Trial By Fire

The pain was brutal, beyond anything she could imagine. She wanted to howl in agony, but the ventilator stifled her ability to make any sound other than a muffled whimper.

Suddenly the nun’s concerned countenance appeared above her. Seeming to sense her distress, the sister punched the invisible button that magically released the sweet narcotics into her veins. She knew that in a few moments the painkillers would push back against the pain. Once again she would drift into a state of welcome oblivion.

Before that happened, however, she realized the nun was speaking to her directly.

“Do you know who did this to you?” she asked. “Do you have any idea who left you in that building? Blink once for yes. Blink twice for no.”

It seemed that she had been asked to do that once before, but blinking her eyes seemed like a very complicated concept. The idea that some person had placed her in that building and then set fire to it made no sense. Why? Had someone been trying to kill her? But who? Who in the world hated her that much?

“Do you have any idea about who is responsible for what happened to you?” the nun insisted. “We don’t have much time before the drugs take over. Please blink once for yes. Twice for no.”

She blinked twice for no because she had no idea.

If the nun was disappointed in her answer, she didn’t show it. “Where do you live? Are you from Arizona? Again, blink once for yes. Twice for no.”

She thought about that, too, as the narcotics began to seep into her body, dulling the pain and dulling her mind as well. Was she from Arizona? The word “ Arizona ” sounded familiar somehow, as though she ought to know it, but she didn’t, not for sure.

“Again,” the nun reminded her, “one blink for yes. Two for no.”

The answer should be perfectly simple, but it wasn’t. She didn’t know who she was or where she came from. One blink or two wouldn’t work for that. She blinked several times in rapid succession, and the nun got it.

“Does that mean you don’t know?” she asked.

She blinked once. Yes, for I don’t know. Yes, for I have no idea. None. As the painkillers gradually erased her pain, unanswerable questions tumbled through the falling curtain of drug-induced fog.

One prospect was too terrible to consider-that no one else had done it, that she alone was responsible. That was the final despairing thought that surfaced as the narcotics took over. Maybe her previous life had been so bad that she could no longer tolerate it. Maybe no one else had put her in the house. Maybe she had walked into the house on her own, started the fire on her own.

Somewhere in the far, dark reaches of her mind she understood that if that was true, if she had attempted to commit suicide, then she was damned. Forever. She really would go to hell.

And even Sister Anselm… Yes, that was her name. She could remember the name now that the pain was less and when she no longer needed to know it. If that was the case, Sister Anselm, too, would desert her.

She would be left alone-alone and helpless. Alone and in pain. Alone and unable to push the button.

Drifting back into the searing flames of her ever-present nightmare, she heard someone screaming.

The awful noise went on and on and on. Eventually she knew whose voice it was because in the nightmare there was no ventilator.

“Help me,” she begged aloud in the dream. “For the love of God, please help me.”

Ali wasn’t eager to place the call to Holly Mesina, but remembering the other charge she’d been given by Sheriff Maxwell, and after thinking about it for a while, she finally shaped up and picked up the phone. Holly’s voice was cheerful enough when she first answered, but the cheer drained away once she learned Ali was on the line.

“Right,” she said curtly. “I’m looking into it, but as you can imagine, we’re buried around here today. I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Holly hung up without bothering to say good-bye and without asking for Ali’s number, either. In other words, it would be a cold day in hell before she deigned to call back with information of any kind.

Yes, Sheriff Maxwell had asked Holly to work with Ali on the missing persons situation, but that wasn’t going to happen. Maxwell was enough of a politician to have won a countywide election, and he was smart enough to sort his way through dealings with the ATF, but Ali suspected that some of the political wrangling inside his department had so far escaped his notice.

Ali was still wondering what to do about that when the eighth floor of Saint Gregory’s Hospital came alive with activity. A gurney pushed by two ER attendants came racing down the corridor. Before the two attendants shoved the loaded gurney into the open door of room 816, Ali caught sight of the sedated patient lying there-a dark-haired young man, a teenager by the looks of him.

The room’s door swung shut, and the elevator doors opened. Two separate groups of people hustled into the waiting room. Ali soon realized that although the people had arrived in two elevator loads, they were all members of the same group-the distressed loved ones of the young man, who had just disappeared into room 816.

As the new arrivals talked excitedly among themselves, Ali was able to gather that the boy, James, had accidentally set fire to his jeans in the garage at his home while working on the fuel line of an old Ford F-150 pickup he’d been given for his sixteenth birthday.

One especially distraught middle-aged woman, the boy’s mother most likely, hurried over to the door of room 816. While she do

The difference between the two patients-the boy in room 816 and the unidentified woman in 814-was remarkable. The young man’s arrival was accompanied by a whole retinue of care and concern. His presence filled the waiting room with people who were worried about his welfare.

The woman in 814 was alone. Other than Caleb Moore, Sister Anselm, and Ali Reynolds, that nameless patient had no one. That thought had barely registered in Ali’s head when the situation suddenly changed. The elevator opened again, and this time a man in a gray business suit stepped out into the noisy room. Ignoring the clutch of James’s worried relatives, the newcomer made straight for the nurses’ station.

Ali didn’t know the man’s name, but she immediately recognized him for who he was and what he represented. He was a fed. He pulled out an identification packet and thrust it toward the charge nurse.

“Agent Gary Robson,” he a

Robson may have expected everyone to jump to his tune, but the charge nurse wasn’t impressed. “I’m sorry,” she said, holding up the logbook. “The patient’s condition is such that she can’t see anyone right now. You’re welcome to make an entry in the visitors’ logbook.”

Unaccustomed to being told no, Agent Robson ignored the proffered book and raised his voice several notches.

“Apparently you don’t understand,” he said. “I’m an officer of the law, and I’m investigating last night’s fire. I need to speak to the patient immediately. If she’s not available right now, perhaps I could speak to whoever is in charge of her care so we can get some idea as to when she will be available. Speaking to her is of the utmost importance.”

“Hold on a minute,” the charge nurse said. “I’ll see what I can do.” She picked up a phone and dialed a number. “Someone to see you,” she said.