“There are several services on the web that analyze print art—for a fee.”

The images that Rose had made using the severed finger, photographed and emailed to Marion; the connection takes Rose a second.

“Got pen and paper?” Marion asks.

Rose sits up and looks around. “I’m in a teepee,” she says. She sees an Indian-chieftain-style headdress and half a glass of leftover grape juice. Could quill and ink be that easy?

“Can’t you text me or email me?” Rose asks.

Silence, spiced with paranoia, pours out of the earpiece of Rose’s phone. Once upon a time speaking aloud or, worse yet, writing a secret down was the height of indiscretion. Now they provided the only hope of genuine security.

“Hang on,” Rose tells her sister. She plucks a feather from the headdress. It is an actual feather, not plastic. She cuts the quill at an angle with a Buck-knife-look-alike that is dull enough for a ten-year-old suburban Indian to play with, then dips it in the Welch’s. Dragging aside the wolf pelt, she tries it on the white canvas of the teepee floor.

Not great. Not easy, but doable.

“Shoot,” she says to her sister.

“Edward ‘Eddie’ Martinez. Twenty-nine, male, Hispanic. Jailed twice. For assault at age seventeen. For assault and battery at twenty-two. Served six years. Paroled January of this year. Address 1477 Palmetto Drive, Charlotte, North Carolina.”

Rose scratches the information laboriously onto the canvas.

“Do you want his parole officer’s contact information?” Marion asks.

“Why not.” Rose scratches that down as well.

“You owe me four hundred twenty-seven dollars. Pay me on PayPal,” Marion says. “And, interesting note, the night nurse is not now, and never was, in ICU. The first time you dosed her, she was just sent home. This time nobody is admitting anything happened.”

“Did you poke and explore?”

“Nope. Went old school. Called the nurses’ landline in the MCU this morning. They deal with old people; they expect us to call on the landline. Asked for Karen. Nice lady says, ‘Karen’s not here.’ I say, ‘Eek, eek, she told me to call her at work! (Dither) Is anything wrong? (Natter) Did she have an accident? OMG! OMG!’ (Shortness of breath) ‘No, ma’am, just a little tummy ache a day or so back. She’s been back on duty since.’”

“Either Longwood or the news station made up the story about Karen being in the ICU. A lie is suspicious,” Rose says.

“No ICU, no news, local or otherwise, about your adventure of last night.”

Rose thinks about this for a while. The candy striper saw her. The silent alarm went off; the door tried to close Rose in the unit. The night nurse should be in ICU—or at least home nursing a massive hangover.