Chapter 22
GRANT
The automatic doors open with a pneumatic whoosh, and I’m hit with a cold wave of refrigerated air. The air is exactly why I’m walking into Mercy Hospital. It’s the first line in the latest riddle from hell. Search for a place with clinical air. Clinical, a doctor’s office or a medical facility.
A hospital.
What else can it be? There are over a dozen primary care and outpatient procedure offices located in Durango.
Even with an entire day to blow, it would be hard to visit them all.
With the time I have left—forty minutes now—it would be impossible.
Surely Avery’s kidnappers know that, so it has to be the hospital.
The logic tracks. Hospitals are full of worried people.
Hospitals heal. And if a procedure goes wrong, well, that happens frequently, too.
I march across the beige-tiled lobby with streams of afternoon sunlight spilling through the skylights above.
Pastel naturescapes hang on the walls. Horses in mid gallop with their manes streaming behind them.
Flowered meadows and sunlit, rolling hills.
They’re nothing but a distraction. The only image I can see is Avery’s severed finger.
The only noise I can hear is her voice leaking through the phone in tangled sobs.
I will kill whoever is doing this, I think again. I swear it.
There’s a line at the reception desk. Of course, there is. But I don’t have time to wait, so I cut right to the front where a woman is in the middle of telling the receptionist how she isn’t sure how she’s going to be able to afford her husband’s treatment.
“We just switched our insurance and we’re having trouble getting them to—”
“Excuse me,” I say, interrupting her.
The receptionist, a woman with thick eyebrows and the underbite of a pug, looks my way.
“Sir, you’ll need to wait your turn.”
“I have an emergency.”
“A medical emergency?”
“Yes. Has anyone left anything with you?”
“What do mean?” she asks, her eyes narrowing in confusion.
“Has anyone been in here in the last few minutes? A big guy carrying an envelope? Or a kid? Anyone who might have left something for me?”
She frowns, about to respond when a finger taps my shoulder.
“I was here first. We were in the middle of a conversation, and you interrupted me.”
I don’t bother to look at the woman, just raise my hand in dismissal as I continue to interrogate the receptionist: “It would be an envelope or a package—something with my name on it. Can you please check for me really quick?”
Grumbles rise behind me. The receptionist rolls her eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Grant Wilson.”
She leans over and digs through her desk as the people in line mutter with voices loud enough to hear:
“How rude.”
“Who does this guy think he is?
“What a jerk.”
Please be there, I think as the receptionist searches. Please, please, please …
She reappears, shaking her head. “Sorry. There’s nothing here for a Grant Wilson.”
I don’t move. “Are you sure? There has to be …” What? What are you expecting? “… something. You didn’t check those baskets over there.” I point at the two wire organizers overflowing with documents further down the desk.
“Those are intake forms,” the receptionist says, her tone turning cold. “Do I need to call security?”
“Wait,” I say, fighting for control. “Just wait. My wife is in trouble. It’s very important I find her.
I know it sounds strange, but I was given a clue that led me here.
” My voice cracks on the last word. I’m a few seconds away from a full-on panic attack.
Because if this isn’t the right place, I’m completely screwed—and so is Avery.
Her frown deepens. “A clue?”
“A … riddle.” Even in my panicked state, I know how stupid I must sound.
The woman releases an aggravated exhale. “Look, sir, I can tell you’re upset. If you’re worried about your wife, you should go to the police.”
“You don’t understand,” I say, resisting the urge to scream. “I can’t do that.”
“What’s the riddle?” a voice to my right asks. I turn and take in the woman I interrupted for the first time. She has curly, close-cropped black hair and is staring back at me through a ridiculously large set of purple-rimmed glasses, no longer looking annoyed but curious.
“What?” I say, taken aback.
“What is it? Your riddle. I’m good at them.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” the man directly behind us mutters.
I hesitate, but not for long. I’m out of options and I’m out of time. If this woman can help me, I’ll take it. I speak the lines and the room falls silent, everyone listening in.
Her forehead puckers when I finish. She taps her foot.
“Say it again.”
I do, and her lips move in an echo of mine, her eyes tilting upward as she thinks.
“Hmm, you’re right. A hospital does make sense.
But obviously that’s not the answer, since no one here knows what you’re talking about.
It has to be something else. That line about the wound, though.
It doesn’t really fit here as well as it would at …
” Her voice fades and her throat moves in a long, slow swallow. Her eyes wilt. “Oh.”
“What?” I ask, peering at the clock on the wall, noting the time: Twenty-eight minutes left. I can literally feel the time flowing past, quickly closing on empty.
Her expression softens, the tips of her eyebrows rising slightly. She reaches out and places her hand on my elbow. “I’m sorry, but you might want to try the CARE Center on the north end of town.”
“The CARE Center?” I ask. “What’s that?”
She hesitates, and then says, “It’s … an abortion clinic.”