“Anything else you need . . .” O.J. began, their voices fading up the hallway. For two seconds, Zig sat there, frozen.
In the distance, a door clicked. All clear. They were gone.
Wasting no time, Zig took off at full speed, rounding the corner as—
“C’mon now, Mr. Zigarowski,” Colonel Whatley said, pushing his glasses up on his face. “Did you really think I wouldn’t see you sitting there?”
46
Abingdon Medical Center
Abingdon, Maryland
“Mrs. Silvestri? Mrs. Silvestri, you awake?”
No response.
“Mrs. Silvestri, can you hear me?” Waggs asked, standing in the threshold of room 404. According to hospital records, it was the same room Nola came to visit three weeks ago, to see this particular patient: Mrs. Thelma Silvestri.
Inside, the lights were off, though on the far right, two big windows framed the morning sun as it bathed the room in a golden glow. From what Waggs could tell, Mrs. Silvestri was asleep, her head turned away, toward the sun, as various machines beeped and whirred in their usual chorus.
“Ma’am, are you—ahem . . .” Waggs added, faking a cough loud enough to wake even the deepest sleeper.
Mrs. Silvestri still didn’t respond.
“She’s not gonna answer,” a male voice called out.
Waggs quickly turned, spotting a barrel-chested African American orderly with hangdog eyes and an outrageously contagious smile. He was pushing a rolling cart filled with old paperback books. Name tag read Rolly.
“What’s wrong with her?” Waggs asked.
“You a cop?”
“How does everyone know that?”
“Stan the Man. Walkie-talkie,” he explained, pointing to his belt. “For some reason, he likes you. He doesn’t like most people.”
Waggs forced a laugh, hoping to keep him talking. “You were saying about Mrs. Silvestri . . . ?”
“Listen, with HIPAA—I got three kids—I need this job, so can’t get into details, but look around. You see what floor you’re on?” Rolly asked, pointing to a sign by the nurse’s station: Neurology. “Apparently, as Mrs. Silvestri was driving down the highway, some kid on an overpass thought it’d be funny to drop a ski pole on a passing car. It hit her, fttttttt.” Rolly made a noise like a dart hitting cork as he pointed to the center of his own forehead. “Traumatic brain injury. Right through her frontal lobe. Can you imagine?”
Waggs could. For the better part of a decade, she’d seen firsthand what homemade bombs do to victims around the world. Taking another step into the room, she got a good look at Mrs. Silvestri’s face for the first time. Her mouth was open in an upside-down crescent moon, frozen midscream. She was probably only forty, but was so gaunt—her hair ragged, her skin practically translucent—she looked twice that. There were tubes in her nose, throat, and stomach. Ventilator, tracheotomy, feeding tube.
“So she doesn’t speak?” Waggs asked.
“Not until a few weeks ago. Didn’t you—？ I figured that’s why you were here. It was all over the news,” the orderly said. Reading Waggs’s confused look, he added, “Mrs. Silvestri’s accident happened nearly two years ago. She couldn’t speak—minimal brain activity—complete vegetative state. Then, three weeks ago, out of nowhere, she wakes up, asking for two things: chocolate pudding and her husband, who died a decade ago.”
“I saw this story.”
“Everyone did. The local news went wild, demanding interviews. It was a total madhouse. It didn’t last long, though. Four days later, her eyes rolled back into her head and she returns to this.” He motioned toward the patient. “Isn’t that right, Mrs. Silvestri!?”