In the back wall at desk height was an opening fronted with sliding glass panels. Behind the glass a black woman in a blue uniform dress was sitting at a desk. To the right of the opening was a hall with several elevators.

“Could all these people be patients?” Laurie asked.

“Good question,” Jack said. “Somehow, I don’t think so. They all look too healthy and too comfortable. Let’s talk to the secretary or whoever she is.”

Warren and Natalie were intimidated by the hospital environment. They silently followed after Jack and Laurie.

Jack rapped softly on the glass. The woman looked up from her work and slid the glass open.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t see you arrive. Are you checking in?”

“No,” Jack said. “All my bodily functions are working fine at the moment.”

“Excuse me?” the woman questioned.

“We’re here to see the hospital, not use its services,” Jack said. “We’re doctors.”

“This isn’t the hospital,” the woman said. “This is the Inn. You can either go out and come in the front of the building or follow the hall to your right. The hospital is beyond the double doors.”

“Thank you,” Jack said.

“My pleasure,” the woman said. She leaned forward and watched as Jack and the others disappeared around the corner. Perplexed, the woman sat back and picked up her phone.

Jack led the others through the double doors. Immediately, the surroundings looked more familiar. The floors were vinyl and the walls were painted a soothing hospital green. A faint antiseptic smell was detectable.

“This is more like it,” Jack said.

They entered a room whose windows fronted on the square. Between the windows were a large pair of doors leading to the outside. There were a few couches and chairs on area rugs forming distinct conversational groupings, but it was nothing like the lounge they’d initially entered. But like the lounge, this space had a glass-fronted information cubbyhole.

Jack again knocked on the glass. Another woman slid open the glass partition. She was equally as cordial.

“We have a question,” Jack said. “We’re doctors, and we’d like to know if there are currently any transplant patients in the hospital?”

“Yes, of course, there’s one,” the woman said with a confused look on her face. “Horace Winchester. He’s in 302 and ready to be discharged.”

“How convenient,” Jack said. “What organ was transplanted?”

“His liver,” the woman said. “Are you all from the Pittsburgh group?”

“No, we’re part of the New York group,” Jack said.

“I see,” the woman said, although her expression suggested she didn’t see at all.

“Thank you,” Jack said to the woman as he herded the group toward the elevators that could be seen to the right.

“Luck is finally going our way,” Jack said excitedly. “This is going to make it easy. Maybe all we have to do is get a look at the chart.”

“As if that’s going to be easy,” Laurie commented.

“True,” Jack said after a moment’s thought. “So maybe we should just drop in on Horace and get the lowdown from the horse’s mouth.”