The Black Madonna (29 page)

“Thanks.”

“When I leave here I'll move you out of Claridge's and into the guest room of Raphael's Chelsea loft.”

“Fine.” Storm saw Emma frown over the news. Storm did not care. She wasn't going anywhere.

Three hours later, the doctors moved Raphael into a room in the hospital's newer wing. The hallway formed a horseshoe around the central nurses' station. The patients' rooms all had walls of glass facing the station. The beds were stationed so that the patients faced the nurses. Gauze curtains could be swept across to offer incomplete privacy. Only one visitor at a time was permitted inside. There was no sign saying this wing housed the hospital's new crisis center. None was required.

Raphael was wired and tubed. He breathed because a machine beside Storm's chair pumped up his lungs and beeped in time with his heart. His chest was bruised in a multitude of places that did not make sense. His skin had a waxy translucence. His eyelashes looked impossibly long. The man was handsome even when unconscious.

The doctor who had saved Raphael's life during the ambulance ride was named Jeremy Brenneman and was the former president of the Royal College of Surgeons. “Your gentleman friend is with us because I had declined the offer of a vintage armagnac and was standing in the foyer when the shots rang out.” He watched the way she stroked the hair on Raphael's forearm and changed course. “Your fellow was struck by two bullets. His ribs deflected the first. The other unfortunately punctured a lung. Either because of blood loss or trauma or our need to restart his heart, he has slipped into a coma. This is the sort of
blanket term we doctors like to use when we have no earthly idea what precisely is going on.”

Muriel drifted over from the nurses' station. To avoid breaking the one-visitor rule, she hovered just outside the sliding glass door.

“My guess is, he might breathe on his own if we let him. But I am keeping him on the ventilator in order to offer a bit of assistance. Keep him regular, as it were.”

“Will he . . .”

“I have no earthly idea. Nor does anyone else. In my forty years of practice I have seen patients suffer the most horrendous of shocks and fall into such comas as part of the recuperative process. Why this happens, nobody knows. His bodily signs are strong. But he is not fully with us. There may be something we missed in the repair business, but I doubt it.” To give his hands something to do, he fitted the stethoscope to his ears and gave Raphael's chest a careful listen. He stowed the instrument back in his pocket and declared, “Heart is strong as an ox.”

Storm knew he was talking for her benefit and struggled to shape the words, “Thank you, doctor.”

“Observe this, if you would.” Brenneman probed a deep cavity by Raphael's right shoulder. “If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say this was caused either by shrapnel or a ruddy great spear.”

“Raphael fought in Africa.”

“Did he now. I suppose that's where he picked up the burn marks across his thigh?”

Storm wiped her eyes and shook her head. “I don't know.”

“What I mean to say is, this fellow has been through some very rough scrapes. And he's survived. I see no reason why he shouldn't do so again.”

“How long before we know?”

“I cannot say.” He walked around the bed and slipped between her and the patient. “Now I'll tell you what I do know, if you'll be so kind as to pay close attention. That's better. What we have learned from talking with patients who return from such
forays is this. They are still with us. How precisely, we have no idea. But many are able to repeat almost verbatim everything that was said while they were incapacitated. They say they were utterly aware, simply unable to reply.”

“You want me to talk with him.”

“I want you to do more than that, young lady. I want you to
engage
him. Because we have also learned that such discussions seem to draw them back from wherever they might currently reside.”

“I can do that.”

“I should hope so. But first you must maintain your strength. I'm going to ask the sister to bring you a tray. I want you to eat everything on it. Including the napkin and utensils. If you don't, I will come back and be most cross with you. And if you ask any of the wretched students who have suffered my wrath, this is something to avoid at all costs.” Brenneman moved for the door. “I'm also going to prescribe something I want you to take. No, young lady, don't even think of objecting. You've been through your own shock. You will take the tablet and you will have a good night's rest. I'll have them make up the divan there so you can remain at his side. But sleep you will, or you and I will have words.”

The ward nurse brought Storm a tray and insisted she leave Raphael's room to eat. The main waiting room was a collage of cheery pastels. Sky-blue floor melted into butterscotch walls with creamy drapes covering nighttime windows. The children's play area was done in lavender and rose. One door led off to a conference area, the other to a small chapel. All the rooms had interior windows so that the nurses could sit at their station and observe everything.

Eating proved to be a terrible trial. Storm tasted nothing. All she could smell was the hospital. Twice she almost lost it, the gorge rising as she struggled over another bite. Emma basically stalked her, standing so close her shadow loomed over the little table rolled in front of Storm's chair.

Muriel was stationed in the doorway, from where she could look back and see the entrance to Raphael's room. “The sister is going to give her a tablet to make her rest.”

Emma shot the woman a tight look. “Can you give us a minute?”

If Muriel was offended, she gave no sign. “Of course. I'll just go have a few minutes with Raphael.”

Emma waited until she left the room, then asked, “You trust her?”

“Raphael did and so do I.”

Emma mouthed a silent okay. “What about Sir Beanstalk?”

Storm tried for another bite of the overboiled potatoes, then set down her fork in defeat. “He helped me with the police.”

“Which would make sense, if he didn't want the cops looking too closely at something.”

“Do you distrust everybody?”

“Almost.” Emma waited while the nurse brought in a pill and stood over Storm while she took it. When they were alone once more, Emma went on. “You're going back to the man's apartment?”

“His name is Raphael, and I'm not going anywhere. They're making me up a bed in his room. What about you?”

“Muriel's booked me into a hotel around the corner. The lady is efficient, I'll give her that.” Emma stared through the glass wall, past the nurses' station, to the open glass door leading to Raphael's room. “I need to report back, let Tip know what's happened.”

“And Harry.”

Emma nodded, then lowered her voice. “I left Harry on a sour note.”

It felt good to have something else to worry about. “You two argued?”

“It would probably have been easier if we did. But no. Harry was a perfect gentleman. I was the one in a borderline panic.” Emma kneaded the soft leather of her shoulder bag. “I'm a
United States federal agent. I'm highly skilled in unarmed combat. I hold an expert rating in small arms. A couple of days back I took out two armed men with my bare hands. Now I've been totally undone by the finest man I've ever known.”

Storm replied, “I'm going to sit here and pretend that makes sense.”

“You're not helping. At all.”

“Harry loves you. You love him. I don't see the problem.”

“You don't know what baggage I'm carrying.”

“Oh, and Harry is mister perfect?” Storm was suddenly engulfed by a wave of fatigue. “Wow.”

“What's the matter?”

“The pill she gave me feels like a velvet hammer.” Storm gripped the chair arms and forced herself to her feet. “I'm going to bed.”

She walked past the nurses' station and arrived at the entrance to Raphael's room. She found Muriel seated in a chair. One hand clutched the sheet, the other held Raphael's limp fingers. Muriel's face was buried in the bedcovers. She wept softly.

Storm returned to the waiting room, determined to make a little more noise on her next arrival. She found Emma still seated there, staring at nothing. Storm declared, “Muriel is on our side.”

T
HE PILL KEPT STORM DOWN
for almost eight hours. Several times she relived the attack, great booming flashes that shredded a soft rain and softer kiss. Each time she almost surfaced, drawing close enough to wakefulness to hear the hospital sounds and smell the sharp odors. Then the drug's languid claws dragged her back down again.

She finally rose from the narrow divan just after seven. The ward nurse smiled a professional good morning as she checked Raphael's status. Storm tried to shape the words, but her brain was still clogged by the pill. The nurse understood her anyway and said, “Your young gentleman had a restful night. At this stage, you should take that as good news.”

Storm carried the words, along with the things Muriel had brought, into the shower room. She returned not restored but at least awake. She sat for a time beside Raphael's bed. He seemed a bit paler than the day before, the bruises protruding from his shoulder bandage much more savage in color.

She knew the ward nurse would probably bring her breakfast, but she had not left the hospital floor since her arrival the previous evening. Even a visit to the cafeteria was a welcome break.

As she crossed the lobby and passed the hospital gift shop, a rumpled bear approached her. That was how he appeared to Storm in her coffeeless state, a frizzy-haired man over six feet tall, wearing a dark, wrinkled suit. “Tell me you're Syrrell.”

“Excuse me?”

“Storm Syrrell. That is you, right?”

She edged closer to the entrance of the hospital gift shop, scouting for someone who would hear her scream. “And you are?”

“Your new best mate.” He moved in close enough for her to catch his stale odor. “The bloke who can bring you the Amethyst Clock.”

She backed up. “Where did you hear about that?”

“A little bird.” He leered. “A cockatoo, to be exact. Drapes a silk hankie from his pocket. Likes to think he's better than the rest of us.”

It could only be Curtis Armitage-Goode. “The Amethyst Clock doesn't exist.”

“You know that. I know that. So does the cockatoo. But he's asking about it anyway. Which means you've latched on to a client with too much of the ready and no brains to speak of. Tell me I'm right.”

Emma stepped through the hospital's front doors, spotted her, and rushed over. “Is this man bothering you?”

The bear took on an affronted air. “The lady and I happen to be having a conversation of the private variety.”

“She stays,” Storm said. A faint chime sounded in her brain. One strong enough to pierce the pill's fading haze. “Go on.”

The guy glared at Emma but continued. “I can have a clock like that made up. We'll split the take.”

Emma started to speak, but Storm shook her head, both to squelch the outburst and to focus the jumble in her brain. “Go on.”

“I got my hands on a Chilean amethyst. Single geode. Eleven and a half inches tall. Shaped like an egg. Primo grade.”

His kind was known as a predatory dealer. They lurked around the edges of her profession. They dealt in false certificates of authenticity and goods with no past. Storm had spent years avoiding just such a conversation. But just then, she feared if the man walked away she would lose this thread of an idea.

“I know a bloke, he's got his hands on a sixteenth-century chronograph. The workings fit inside the geode like they was made for each other. I know on account of how I scoped it out yesterday, soon as I heard from your cockatoo. I got me a mate, he can do wonders with gold. Carve us a stand that'll sit up and beg for your buyer to take it home.”

But the idea would not take shape. Storm stepped away from the stale cigarettes on the guy's breath. “No, thanks.”

“This is fate, I'm telling you. Banging on your front gate, begging for you to open up, make us both rich.”

But Storm was already moving away. “Good-bye.”

STORM CUT UP TWO PEACHES
, mixed them into yogurt, and forced herself to eat it. Emma sat across from her at the hospital cafeteria table and complained over her willingness to listen to the predator, until she realized Storm was paying no attention to her.

Storm took her last cup of coffee upstairs. She settled Emma into the waiting room, then returned to Raphael's bedside. The idea sparked by the predator stayed with her, nebulous and just out of reach. She settled into the chair by Raphael's bed. She should talk to him like he was awake, the doctor had said. Not just talk; engage him. Use her voice to draw him back.