“We think the person who attacked her also killed three women,” Foster said. “She might be able to give us a description. Five minutes.”
“I’m sorry,” Varadkar said, adamant. “My first responsibility is to my patient’s well-being.”
“Two then. In and out,” Li said, pleading.
“I know what you’re up against,” Varadkar said, “but she’s only hours out of surgery. She’s not strong enough for questioning. I just can’t do it.”
“When then?” Foster pressed. “If she dies while we’re waiting, we get nothing.”
Foster could tell Varadkar wasn’t unsympathetic, that she was weighing Silva’s prognosis. “Not for another few hours, at least. Maybe then if she’s stronger . . . if nothing else goes wrong . . .”
“Fine. I’ll wait.” Foster turned to Li. “I’ll hang out here until she comes around enough to talk.”
“While you’re doing that,” Li said, “I’ll go back and see what I can turn up. This couldn’t be some kind of copycat thing, could it? Or totally unrelated. Somebody from Westhaven? She’s got no friends there.”
It didn’t feel like a copycat to Foster. Something about Silva’s attack appeared desperate. “Maybe something else. She wasn’t butchered like the others. Whoever did this had other intentions.”
They both realized at the same moment that the doctor was still there.
“Did you say butchered?” Varadkar asked, her mouth hanging open.
Foster let her question sit. “Thank you, Dr. Varadkar. I’ll be in the waiting room. I’d appreciate your letting me know when I can get in to see her.”
Varadkar backed away from them. “Seriously? I wouldn’t take your jobs if it came with a golden goose.”
Foster took up residence in the ICU waiting room, a depressing place. It smelled of antiseptic and woe, the television bolted to the wall tuned to some idiotic morning show and a cooking segment on vegan lasagna. The volume was way too low to catch most of what was going on, but there was no way of turning it up, so Foster cooled her heels in one of the chairs and waited for Silva to rally, hoping she would, dreading how things would go otherwise.
She called Bigelow’s cell for a report on the scene. “What’s it looking like?” she asked when he answered.
“It’s looking like a hit gone hinky. The guy got her as she left the hospital. Dark stretch of road. A good distance from the main street. Trees all over the place that would have made it even darker last night. Plenty of places to ambush her, which he did. Her car’s got a flat. There’s a tire spike embedded in the front left one, and the techs found a couple more in the street. Hold on.” Foster heard muffled noises on Bigelow’s end. “Okay. I just sent you a photo of the car. Blood all over the driver’s seat. And the wig. The EMTs said it was on her head when they arrived. Someone put it there. The driver who found her came up close after it happened. He says he swears he saw two sets of taillights up ahead of him as he approached the main street. When he eased by, he saw that one of Silva’s tires was flat. He got out, looked in the driver’s window, and that’s when he saw her inside bleeding to death. How’s Silva?”
Foster peered over at the nurses’ station. The medical staff were hard at work. “Still breathing . . . but that’s about it.”
“Well, whatever this was, it wasn’t a robbery. Her bag’s still on the seat. Wallet intact. We’re not picking up any prints either. Lonergan’s stomping around here like he’s General Patton.”
A slight smile. “Good luck. There was no weapon found?” she asked.
“Nada. It’s looking like the guy planned this but then ran out of time with the car coming up on him. We’ll keep you posted.”
Foster ended the call and rose to walk the room, thinking of wigs and knives. She watched the clock, sweating every passing minute. When that got old, she went over her notes again, checked in with Li and Griffin, then walked the room again, then sat again. It took four hours before Varadkar popped her head into the space. Foster bolted up from her chair, holding her breath, hoping she wasn’t there to give her bad news.
“Five minutes, no more,” she said, waving for Foster to follow.
Foster slipped into the quiet bay to find a diminished Silva lying feeble in the bed, the steady beeping of the lifesaving machines an ominous reminder of how critical the woman was. Her eyes were closed, her mouth twisted in pain. Her middle was swathed in layers of compression bandages. Dr. Varadkar eased up to the bed, placing a gentle hand on Silva’s wrist. Her eyes fluttered open, but only halfway.
“If you’re still up for it?” she asked Silva when her eyes met hers. Silva nodded almost imperceptibly, then turned her head in Foster’s direction, but even in her precarious state Foster could practically feel the heat of Silva’s resentment toward her. The last time they’d met, they hadn’t parted well.
“I won’t take long,” Foster said. “And I won’t waste time. Your attacker. Can you tell me what he looked like?”
Silva wet her lips and swallowed hard as if mustering whatever strength she had to respond. She shook her head slightly, grimaced in pain, and emitted a whimper. “Not ‘he.’” Her words came out in a foggy croak thickened by medication and blood loss.
Foster heard but didn’t understand. She glanced over at the doctor but got nothing. “Say again?”
“Not. He. A woman. Waiting.”
Varadkar kept her eyes on the numbers and squiggles on the monitors.
“A woman?” Foster asked.
“White. Cold eyes. I knew what she was. She knew my name.”
“Tall? Short? Thin?”
“Yes. But something familiar.”
She was fading, and Varadkar called it. “That’s time.”
Foster backed away from the bed, recalculating as she went. A woman, not Morgan. She was almost to the curtain when Silva spoke again.
“I smelled chemicals . . . oil? . . . and she whistled. After she . . . left me . . . she whistled.”
Foster turned to leave, knowing she didn’t have nearly enough.
“Not . . . oil,” Silva managed. “Paint. She smelled of . . . paint.”
Amelia Davies. She’d whistled when Foster and Li had talked to her in her studio. She had smelled of paint. There were no other women that they knew of connected to Bodie Morgan, besides Silva.
Paint.
Foster looked over at Varadkar for an okay to approach the bed again. She nodded back at her and held up one finger, letting Foster know she had sixty seconds, no more. Foster dug her phone out of her pocket, scrolling through, her fingers fast, sure. She pulled up the photo they had of Amelia Morgan, a.k.a. Davies, and walked back over to the bed and held the phone close so Silva could focus in on it.
“Have you seen her before?”
Silva fought against the medication but managed to get her eyes to focus. When her eyes widened in terror at the image in front of her and the beeping of the machines increased, Foster had her answer. Lights began to flash on the monitors; the fast beeping turned into a loud alarm. Silva was in some kind of distress and was struggling now to speak. “Yes. It’s her,” she croaked. “Who?”