I look at Katra and then say to Troy, “I’m not surprised that she’s doing so well. She’s a strong woman.” I say it loud enough so I can clearly be heard by Katra and her parents.

Then more directly to Katra I say, “Everything should be okay, sweetie. Everything. The police are all over it.”

Katra turns away from me. Troy hands her a tissue and a plastic cup filled with ice water.

Then I hear a woman’s voice. It is hesitant, with a foreign accent, “And the baby. What of the baby?”

I look at the slim blond woman, carrying a ripped-off version of a red Hermès Birkin bag. She must be Katra’s mother. It is clear where Katra got her good looks. The parents really can’t be a helluva lot older than myself. They both wear jeans and have kinda hip haircuts.

Then the man speaks. “My wife ask you about baby. What you will say?”

“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

“The cops, they tell us nothing. ‘Not their department,’ they tell us,” Mr. Kovac says.

Before I can answer, before I can even give the standard “Everybody’s concerned and everybody’s working on it,” a giant scream comes from Katra.

She is facing away from us. She is raised on one elbow. She holds a fistful of hair in her right hand.

“She pull the hair,” Katra’s mother says.

We all move in toward the bed. One of the officer guards enters the room. Katra screams again, and she pulls out another small chunk of hair. I unclench her hand from the new cluster of hair she’s holding.

For a second, I consider calling for additional help or restraints or both.

But now Katra suddenly turns calm. She begins sobbing gently.

I pull up her chart on the bedside computer. “They didn’t load her with any special meds,” I say.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Troy says. “The lady’s calm for about fifteen or twenty minutes. Then she goes to sleep for about ten minutes. Then she wakes up and gets all riled up again.”

“Get a post-op doc in here. Let’s see what he or she can tell us,” I tell him.

“But what of the baby?” asks Mr. Kovac. “We must learn of the baby.”

“We are all trying to find the baby. We are also trying to find the person who hurt your daughter. We will do everything in our power.”

Katra turns onto her back and looks toward her father. Her eyes are filled with fear and frustration.

I say the only thing that comes to my mind. “Really, Mr. Kovac. We will try.”

Yes, I’m speaking the truth, but it’s also a delaying tactic, and I don’t think the handsome Mr. Kovac is buying it.