At the moment, though, I didn’t try to understand anything—just gave a little squawk of relief at seeing Conrad. I tried to tell him what was happening, but no sound came from my swollen, parched throat. I waved a shaky arm toward the pit. While I collapsed against the chopper’s doorway, Conrad walked over to the rim and peered down. When he saw Marcena and Romeo, he sprinted back to the ambulances and summoned a couple of stretcher crews.

I dozed off, but Conrad shook me awake. “You have to get your dog. He won’t let the techs take the woman, and we don’t want to have to shoot him.”

Mitch had been protecting Marcena all night, and he was prepared to bite anyone who tried to move her. I stumbled back down to the bottom, sliding the final four feet on my ass. That was the journey that completely finished me. I did make it to Mitch’s side, and I did get a hand on his collar, but the rest of the morning disappeared into a few fragments—Conrad hoisting me over his shoulder and handing me to a couple of uniformed men to carry to the surface—the struggle to keep a grip on Mitch’s leash all the time I was dropping down the well of sleep—waking again to hear the clean-shaven man shouting at Conrad about the chopper.

“You can’t barge in here and take private property. This helicopter belongs to Scarface.”

That couldn’t be right, not to Al Capone. I couldn’t figure it out, though, and gave up trying, just watched Conrad signal to some uniformed men to hold the guy while the stretchers were loaded. What a good idea; I wished I’d thought of it. I drifted again and lost hold of Mitch, who clambered into the chopper after Marcena.

“Better take her, too,” Conrad said to the ambulance crew, pointing at me. “She can take care of the dog, and, besides, she needs a doctor.”

He patted my shoulder. “We’re going to talk, Ms. W., we’re going to talk about how you knew to come to this place, but it’ll keep a few hours.”

And then the rotors started up, and despite the racket and the lurching, which made Mitch tremble and burrow into my side, I fell asleep again. I woke only when the techs carried me out of the helicopter into the emergency room, but the hospital didn’t want Mitch inside. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t talk. I sat on the floor next to him with my arms around his blood-stiffened fur. A security guard was trying to reason with me, and then to shout at me, but I couldn’t respond, and then somehow Mr. Contreras was there with Morrell and I was on a gurney, and asleep for good.