The Phantom Limb (17 page)

“Come in. Sit down,” Isaac said. “Oh, you're supposed to wash your hands every time you go into a patient's room.”

“Yeah, they told me,” Kravetz said. He walked over
to the sink, turned on the tap, and pressed down on the liquid soap dispenser. “Is that nurse you were talking about around? I'm curious about her.”

“She's not here right now—for a change. It's a relief.” He was about to say that was why his mother wasn't doped up and unconscious, but he stopped himself; that might be something Vera wouldn't want him to tell other people. He was dying to tell Kravetz about wanting to escape; Matt might even be able to help. But, again, Isaac didn't think Vera would want him to say anything. Isaac wanted to talk to Kravetz alone. But was it safe to leave Vera?

Then he realized the answer. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before.

“Mom, I'm going to get us some more coffee. We'll need it for tonight. I'll tell that nice nurse, Vicky, to warn you if Candi comes back, and, if she does, to call me right away. We'll only be down in the café for a few minutes.” He left her phone next to her.

“I will, Ize, believe me.”

“Come on,” he said to Kravetz. “We need to be quick.”

He stopped by the nurses' station and asked Vicky to warn Vera if Candi came back and gave her his cell phone number. She was happy to oblige, especially
now that Vera was alert again. “I just wish Dr. Ciano would get back soon,” she said.

“You can say that again,” Isaac said.

Kravetz flirted briefly with the twins on his way out of the intensive care unit—he had probably flirted with them on his way in too. That's how he had gotten in there without being related to any of the patients. Destiny beamed and cooed at him.

“You know, Isaac, your mom is kind of a babe,” Kravetz said when they got to the elevators.

“Gross!” Isaac said. “That's my mom. But I still can't believe you came to see her.”

“It's because of what you said about that nurse,” Kravetz said in a low voice. “It sounded like you could use some help.” He lowered his voice even more. “Destiny told me you even asked
them
to help you.”

“
Destiny
told you that? Well, she doesn't know it, but DCynthia
is
going to help me. It has to be a total surprise. If Destiny tells anyone, it will ruin the whole plan.”

“They're famous for their big mouths,” Kravetz warned.

“No, we can trust DCynthia. She isn't vicious like Destiny. Destiny's been forcing her to play along.”

“I hope you're right about that.” Kravetz looked
around. “You need all the help you can get. DCynthia seems to like the idea. She thinks it's exciting, but she doesn't want Destiny to know how she really feels—I could tell. They whispered when they told me about it; they didn't bleat like they usually do.”

Isaac couldn't help smiling at the word
bleat.
That was exactly how the twins usually talked, loudly moaning and whining. For a football player, Kravetz had a good vocabulary. But then, Isaac had never known any football players before. Maybe he had the wrong idea about them.

Isaac hesitated when the doors opened and Kravetz entered the elevator. Too embarrassed to let Kravetz know how frightened he was of elevators, he reluctantly stepped in. Somehow, with Kravetz there, the elevator wasn't as bad as it had been that first night when he had taken it without thinking.

The elevator was less crowded at this hour than it was during the day, but Isaac still closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn't talk all the way down because it felt as if the other people were too close. He couldn't risk saying anything about their escape plan.

The café was noisier. Isaac checked his watch. They would stay for only five minutes. “That nurse really is
a pathological killer,” Isaac told Kravetz. “She killed the boy who had the mirror box, and other patients too.” He told him about the endoscopy and the MRI he was sure she had ordered for him. “She did it to scare me away. But it didn't work.”

“Do you think the twins might be in danger too?” Kravetz asked.

“I think they're safe from her. She only seems to target piano players—like the boy who had the mirror box, and my mother.”

“How do you know all this stuff about that nurse, anyway?”

Isaac felt he could trust Kratevz, so he told him about the phantom limb and what it showed him. He explained the Macdonald Triad. “You can try out the mirror box—it's up in my mother's room. But the phantom limb probably won't appear for you. It's shy. It wouldn't show itself to my grandfather.”

Kravetz shook his head. “I'd think you were crazy, except … for some reason I don't.”

Isaac told him exactly what Candi was doing to Vera—the diagnosis of bone cancer he had seen on the hospital computer, and the fact that her doctor hadn't been the one to make that diagnosis. He told him that he faced two challenges: finding a route out
of the hospital without being noticed and getting the IVs out of Vera's hands without hurting her.

“But what makes it so hard is that I can't leave my mother alone. My grandfather's already been with her all day, and he's old.
I
have to guard her.”

“I know all about giving shots and removing needles,” Kravetz said. “I learned it in this advanced first aid course my parents made me take at the junior college when I went out for football.”

“You're kidding!” Isaac said.

“I'm not kidding. And I have time to look around the hospital, see if there's a map or something. You go back up to the room and watch your mother. I'll be back as soon as I find a route.”

Isaac couldn't believe how eager Kravetz was to help. If this was Matt's way of saying he was his friend, then Isaac was more than happy to accept.

Back in the intensive care unit, Vicky told him Candi still hadn't come back. “She already worked the morning shift. No normal person would be back until tomorrow morning. But with her, you never know.”

Vera was still alert and reading to pass the time. She put her book down when Isaac came in with her coffee.

“Oh,” he said. “Did Grandpa tell you that Dr. Ciano was here?”

She sighed. “Yes. He said she was suspicious of Candi, but then had to leave because of emergency surgery. If only she'd come back.”

“When I first got here, before Grandpa did, I caught Candi putting something caustic on your bruise, right before the doctor came. She stopped when she saw me, but she dropped it on her leg and it burned her through her pants.”

“But …” Vera seemed close to tears. “Why is she hurting me so much, on purpose?” Vera protected her bruised arm by putting it under the sheet. “How could such a maniac be working as a nurse?”

“It's complicated, Mom,” Isaac said. “If Dr. Ciano comes back, that would solve everything. But if she doesn't come back in time, Matt's going to help us with your escape. Tonight.”

“But what about this thing I'm attached to?”

“Matt knows all about how to administer needles. He took an advanced first aid course at the junior college. And he's off looking for an escape route now.”

Her eyes widened. “You're kidding. You really think you can get me out of here?”

“We have to. When Matt comes back, he can work on the needles.”

“He seems like a really nice guy. I didn't know you had made such a nice friend. Why didn't you tell me?”

“It just happened. And you were asleep all the time. Plus I didn't think he was really my friend until he showed up here just now.”

Yes, the whole idea of escaping was scary. But it was exciting too. It would be wonderful to beat Candi.

While Matt was gone, Isaac figured he had enough time to find out if the phantom limb had anything new to tell him. Vera was still sipping her coffee. The counter under the small window was just big enough for the mirror box.

“Do you mind if I take a minute to look at this?” Isaac said. “I might learn something that could help us.” He carefully began unwrapping the mirror box.

Vera rolled her eyes. “Go ahead. But I don't see how that thing can help you.”

“That's just it—it may be the
only
thing that can help us. It shows me things, like Candi as a teenager preparing to set fire to the cabin at camp.”

Vera raised her eyebrows skeptically but remained silent. She watched him attentively.

Isaac unwrapped the mirror box carefully and set it on the towel on the counter. He knelt on the floor in front of it and stuck in his hands. Right away his eyes began to droop.

He was again inside Candi's current bathroom mirror. She was wearing her turquoise rubber gloves and pawing through an oversized turquoise bag. “
Darn
!” she said. (It was interesting that she didn't say
damn.
Maybe she thought cursing was immoral.) “Why is there so much stuff in here? Where did I drop that IV bag, anyway?”

She sighed and chewed on her lip, staring straight into the mirror, thinking out loud. “It wasn't in the elevator, it wasn't in the basement. Could I have dropped it when I came out onto that ramp at the loading dock?”

Loading dock? Ramp? That was accessible via the basement? That would be a great way to get out of the hospital. Unlike the big front door in the lobby, there might not be anybody at the loading ramp in the middle of the night—no staff, no security. That
must have been why Candi chose that exit on her way out after stealing the IV bag to put some of her own drugs in it. He had the strong feeling that this scene was taking place right now, at this very minute.

“They're ruining everything for me,” Candi said through gritted teeth. “Otherwise, I could have put this special medication in the IV bag right at the hospital. But I won't let them stop me!”

Isaac's strategy had worked! Having someone constantly in the room had interrupted Candi's plan—for now, at least.

Candi wasn't wearing her nurse's scrubs, though. She was wearing a turquoise dress, her favorite color.

 

SAAC! WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU? ARE you in a trance or what? Your friend's here.”

“Huh?” Isaac blinked, then pulled his hands out of the box. But he had just enough time to notice the phantom limb running along on two fingers. It was telling Isaac they had to escape now!

He turned around to see Vera staring at him. Kravetz was standing in the doorway.

“Candi's not here,” Isaac said. “She's at home. And there's a loading dock, with at least one ramp, at the back of the hospital. That's the best place to get out. There probably won't be anybody there in the
middle of the night; staff and security will be at the main entrance and in the ER.”

Kravetz was holding several papers in his hand. “How do you know about all of that? And how did you know about the loading dock? You didn't say anything about it in the café,” he said, baffled.

“The mirror box just showed me.”

“Jeez! Lemme see that thing,” Kravetz said, walking quickly over to the box. He looked it over tentatively, as if he didn't know what to expect.

Sensing his anxiety, Isaac calmly said, “Put both your hands in the holes. Then move your right hand but not your left, and look in the right side of the mirror.”

Kravetz followed Isaac's instructions. Vera was watching too. Like everybody else, Kravetz flinched when he first felt the sensation. “Whoa!” he exclaimed. “It feels like I have an invisible third hand … like my real left hand is paralyzed or something. This thing is just as weird as that spiral effect thing you had. But … how can it tell you and show you things? I wouldn't believe it, except you found out about the loading ramp, and you didn't seem to know about it when we talked in the café.”

Isaac told him the whole story—what the box had shown him about Candi and Joey. Vera listened raptly
too; this was the first time he had told her everything in so much detail.