Sammy Keyes and the Kiss Goodbye (22 page)

And then there was that weird bird-looking guy who’d appeared out of nowhere and had scared the hell out of him.

Six tries and he still couldn’t get three measly minutes?

It wasn’t fair!

So there he stood, in the safety of the stairwell, brooding, trying to decide how long he needed to wait before trying again, wondering if he should switch disguises
again
, when he heard a click. A loud click. Followed by the unmistakable
whoosh
of the door on the level above.

As silently and quickly as he could, he started down the steps. And he would have just flown down the levels to the first floor and out of the stairwell, but on the level below him there was another loud click.

And another
whoosh
.

And lots of whispering voices.

Panic swelled inside him. Were people after him? Was he trapped?

And then he heard a voice on the level above.

A voice he recognized.

When Gil Borsch pushed the stairway exit door open, the first place he looked was the doorjamb.

Sure enough, the latch-plate hole had something crammed inside it.

A napkin, folded up into a hard, stiff wad.

“Kids!” he called over to the teens standing outside Sammy’s room. “Don’t let anyone in there you don’t know!” And then he was gone, pounding down the stairs.

His mind ran down the List. The possibilities.

Garnucci was locked up in jail, so it couldn’t be him. Of the others who were out of jail, one stuck in his mind as the clear choice because criminals tended to repeat their MO.

Like the use of disguises.

And wadded napkins.

Which had both been used previously by only one of the criminals on the List.

Sammy had trapped the lowlife in true Sammy style—by pinning him half inside a Dumpster and then jumping up and down on the lid to keep him from escaping. He’d never heard a man yelp (or curse) like that before (or since). When they’d finally extracted him from the Dumpster, he was covered in trash and slime.

And mad as a hornet!

Now, while Gil Borsch was moving down the stairs (as fast as his composition and coordination would allow) with
all of this flashing through his mind, the “orderly” had run into an unexpected situation that was potentially worse than trying to get past a cop without being recognized.

What the orderly faced was not hospital personnel taking a shortcut out of the building.

What he faced was a group of kids.

Teenagers.

And when he saw the shoes, he knew.

This was trouble.

But suddenly he was struck with a very clever idea.

“Hey,” he said, smiling through the bullets that were sweating past his wig. “Your friends are waiting for you up on Four. The door’s open.”

The teens (who’d been ditching unfriendly hospital staff left and right and were down from thirty-seven to seventeen in number) were surprised to find themselves not only not busted, but
helped
by an orderly. “Thanks, man!” they said, and while they began pounding up the stairs, the escape artist caught the closing Floor 2 door and slipped inside.

Which left Sergeant Gil Borsch roadblocked by seventeen teens in high-tops.

Now, at one time, this would have caused the lawman to have a coronary.

Or perhaps a stroke.

Or (more likely) both.

But something had changed in Gil Borsch. Something for the better.

Based on the shoes, these were clearly friends of
Sammy’s. So instead of asking them what they thought they were doing, messing around on the hospital stairs, he asked, “Did you see anybody on the stairwell? A guy in blue scrubs?”

“Yeah!” a girl in the group answered. “He went through the door we came out of.”

“What floor?”

“Two!”

“How long ago?”

“Just now. He told us to go up to Four. That our friends were waiting for us.”

“Clever,” the Borschman grumbled, then said, “Guys, I need your help.”

And the teens (doubly surprised to be recruited by a cop after fleeing dozens of people in a variety of uniforms) simply held still and said, “Sure.”

“Go up to Four. Tell your friends about the guy you just saw. He isn’t a real orderly. I think he’s the one who hurt Sammy, and I’m pretty sure his name’s Larry Daniels.”

“Larry Daniels?”

“Otherwise known as Oscar the Ice Cream Man.”

“An
ice cream man
tried to kill her?” someone cried.

“That’s just
wrong
,” another teen added.

And then came a fast and furious exchange inside the group.

“Dude, my fragile innocence has been annihilated!”

“Shut up! This is serious!”

“I
am
serious!”

“Yeah! Who doesn’t trust the ice cream man?”

“Oh, right. When have you ever seen an ice cream man?”

“In the movies?”

“No, really! There used to be that guy on Broadway? Remember him?”

“Stop it!” Sergeant Borsch cried as he muscled forward. “Just go up there and tell them! Please!”

“Dude,” the kid with the annihilated innocence said as the lawman went by, “you sound like you’re planning to die or something.”

“Just tell them!” the lawman begged.

Then he pushed through the teens and hurried down the stairs.

Up on the fourth floor, Casey Acosta could hear a commotion outside of Room 411. And (still talking to his kick-ass sleeping beauty) he interrupted himself to tell Sammy, “Something’s going on out there. I’m gonna go check.” And since he was holding her hand, he kissed it and said, “I’ll be right back.”

But no sooner had he stood and turned than he heard, “Case.”

It was so quiet that it might have been from outside the room … only it had come from behind him.

He whipped around and there she was, wrapped in gauze, plumbed with tubes and wires and … awake!

“Sammy!” he cried, then spun around twice not knowing what to do first. “Sammy!” he cried again, then held up a finger. “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I’ll be right back!” He raced to the door, flung it open, and yelled, “She’s awake!” then raced back to her side. His eyes were burning with tears as he grabbed her hand. “You’re awake!”

She gave him a weak smile, but instead of saying anything, her smile drifted away.

“What’s wrong?” Casey asked, shifting from euphoric to panicked.

“Oscar pushed me,” she whispered. “Did they catch him?”

Casey had no idea who Oscar was, but his phone was out in a flash and he was calling Sergeant Borsch. “She’s awake,” Casey said when the lawman answered. “She says it was Oscar. Do you know who that is?”

“We’re on his tail now,” Gil Borsch replied. And then (with a voice that could only be described as choked up) he said, “Give her a kiss for me,” and hung up.

So Casey delivered the kiss to Sammy’s forehead, saying, “That’s from the Borschman. He says they’re on his tail now!” He hesitated, then said, “Who’s Oscar?”

“The Ice Cream Man? The Hotel Thief?”

“That guy you
waved
at?”

She nodded. “That’s the one.”

Casey shook his head. There was so much he wanted to ask her. So much he wanted to
tell
her. Like about what everyone was doing to try to help. Like about the List.

So much had happened!

But first he got busy with his phone again. “I need to tell your grandmother and Hudson! And your mom and dad! They’ve been going nuts.”

“How long was I out?” Sammy asked, testing her arms and legs.

“Forever! Uh, I mean, almost twenty-two hours? Something like that.”

“Really?”

He nodded as he waited for the ringing line to be answered. “Do you feel okay? What hurts?”

She gave him a small grin. “Uh, everything?”

Casey’s attention snapped to the phone. “She’s awake!” he said. “She seems to be fine!… Yes … Yes … I don’t know … Sure!… Can you call Lana and Darren?” And when he got off the phone, he grinned at Sammy and said, “They’ll be right here. With your parents, I’m sure. And Marko!”

“Marko’s here?” she asked. But then she began blinking and turned away. Like she was trying to remember something.

“What’s wrong?” Casey asked. “Are you all right?”

“Was … was Dusty Mike here?”

Casey’s eyes popped wide. “Yes!”

Sammy kept blinking. “Oh … wow.” She looked at him. “And you … you kissed me?”

“Yes!”

“And cried …?”

“Yes!”

“And my … my mom? She was …” She looked over at where Lana had slept, and tears filled her eyes. “It’s like a dream. Like an invisible movie.” She blinked some more as she wiped away her tears. “Wow.”

“So you remember …?”

She looked around. “Marko singing about teddy bears?”

“I hadn’t heard about that one! But these bears
were
Marko’s idea.” He handed one to her. “Everyone wrote on the ribbons.”

“Oh!” Sammy said, reading. “This is awesome!”

When she reached for another bear, Casey said, “I need to go tell Marissa. And Holly and Dot! And Heather!”

“And Billy?”

“Billy! Right! I wonder where they went.”

And he was about to run up to the waiting room (where he was sure their friends had been banished) when Nurse Scrabble walked in. “I
did
hear correctly!” she said, grinning. “Hello, Samantha! Glad to have you back with us. How are you feeling?”

“Really strapped down,” she said, looking at all the tubes and wires. “Can we get rid of this stuff?”

“Let me get the doctor in here,” she said, checking the machines over. “But I’m pretty sure we can make that happen.”

“Can you tell our friends in the waiting room that she’s awake?” Casey asked.

“Uh, no.”

“No?”

“They all took off. Which was good because they were loud and rambunctious and I have no idea how that new batch got past the sign-in desk.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“I heard them say something about catching the ice cream man.” She laughed and shook her head. “When’s the last time you’ve seen an ice cream man?”

“Last night,” Sammy said. “When he tried to kill me.”

Nurse Scrabble’s eyebrows went flying. “What?”

Sammy shrugged. “Well, you’re right. He’s not actually
an ice cream man. That was just his cover—a blind ice cream man.”

“A
blind
ice cream man? This story keeps getting stranger and stranger.” Nurse Scrabble shook her head. “But let me get the doctor so he can let you know what to expect.”

Now, as badly as Sammy might have wanted to get out of the hospital, there was one person who wanted out more:

Larry Daniels.

Also known as the formerly blind ice cream man.

Or the disorderly orderly.

After narrowly escaping Sergeant Borsch, Larry Daniels had ripped off his wig and fake glasses and stuffed them in a laundry hamper on Floor 2, and was now proceeding (as nonchalantly as he could) along the corridor of the maternity wing to the elevator. In a test of both patience and acting ability, he politely fielded two requests (one for changing linens, another for restocking toilet paper) before blithely continuing his trek toward the elevator.

Unfortunately for the formerly blind ice cream man, when the elevator door opened he came face to face with a mob of teenagers.

And recognized some of their faces.

It was the same group he’d seen in the stairwell!

Doubly unfortunately for the formerly blind ice cream man, there were a few extra teens in the mob.

One who recognized
him
.

Marissa (who had also witnessed the Dumpster Incident) pointed and cried, “That’s him!”

And with that simple statement, the chase was on.

The problem was, the good guys looked like bad guys (they were teenagers running and shouting through a maternity ward, after all), and the bad guy (still dressed as a hospital worker) looked like the good guy.

“Stop him!” the teens cried as he bolted back toward the stairs.

“Stop them!” the would-be murderer cried as he threw carts and laundry hampers in their path.

“Call security!” a nurse cried as she was bowled over by teens in high-tops.

“What security?” another nurse cried, because, really, what security?

“Whaaaa!” the babies in the ward cried, because, well, that’s what babies do.

Now, had Sergeant Borsch been able to enter the Floor 2 stairwell door, he would most certainly have done so in pursuit of Larry Daniels.

But there was no wadded napkin in the Floor 2 doorjamb, and by the time he’d reached it, it was latched up tight.

So he hustled down to the first floor and used the exterior exit (where he discovered another folded-up napkin). Then out he went, radioing the station as he hustled around the building to the front of the hospital, calling for backup and requesting an APB for one Larry Daniels.

In a fair world, Sergeant Gil Borsch would have been rewarded for his stalwart determination and commitment with a bit of good luck. But, as we all know, it’s not a fair
world, and luck, in Gilbert Borsch’s corner of this unfair world, is not something that shows itself very often.

(Or, really, ever.)

So it should have been no surprise to him that the first “backup” to appear on the scene was a self-proclaimed superhero roaring into the parking lot on his High Roller with a fortune-teller in the sidecar.

“Commissioner!” Justice Jack cried. “Which way did he go?”

“I can’t believe it’s that same creep!” Madame Nashira cried from the sidecar (as she had been one of Larry Daniels’s past victims). “I’ll rip his eyes out!”

From his Saddle of Justice, Jack looked at the fortune-teller and a little red heart practically popped out of his chest and floated dreamily above him.

“Why me?” the lawman moaned.

And, as if dealing with Justice Jack and his new fortune-telling sidekick weren’t enough, the unfortunate lawman was suddenly (and rudely) goosed.

By a pig.

“Hey!” he squawked as he jumped, and when he turned around, Penny oinked at him (loud and long and lovingly).

“No!” the lawman screamed, backing away. “What are
you
doing here?” Because, yes, he knew Penny. And yes, Penny remembered him, too. And it was undeniable—Penny was still very much an oinker in love.