Taylor smiled to herself and glanced down at her clenched fists resting in her lap. Faint drops of blood tinged the tops of her fingertips. Brushing back her long strands of blonde hair from her face, her fingers grazed her nose.
Blood, she noticed, but she did not panic. A nose bleed would not kill her. She got them when she was scared or mad. She snatched a tissue from the detective's desk without the woman noticing. Detective Monroe had her hands full trying to make sense of the slurs Krystal spat into the phone.
So as not to waste the time, Taylor turned to strategic thoughts about romance. She wondered if there was a way to wrestle the raven-haired cowboy from Alexandra. Of course she had only just met him the night prior to her present dilemma. But still, she considered him perfect, from head to toe. She dabbed at her nose with the tissue and smudged a drop of her blood between her thumb and fingers.
Ben is cute
, she analyzed, tossing the red-stained tissue into a waste bin by her feet.
But Kraven is perfection. He could help me. I need to know his secret. We could help each other. Just wait until I get my hands on him . . .
“Are you okay?” a raspy voice interrupted Taylor's thoughts of the handsome stranger. “Miss Woodward, I asked if you are feeling okay.” Detective Monroe stared at a drop of fresh blood on the collar of Taylor's t-shirt and dangled a tissue in the girl's confused face.
I'm not crying
, Taylor thought.
“For your nose,” the detective explained and dropped another tissue on the desk in front of Taylor.
“Thank you,” Taylor said, politely snatching the Kleenex to clean her fingers while she studied the detective's face. Taylor decided that the detective could use some sprucing up if she wanted to look like the detectives on television. Taylor ascertained that Monroe needed a manicure to solve the problem of her short, ragged, unpolished fingernails.
Surely she could do something about that short, frizzy hair
, Taylor judged.
Detective Monroe drummed her fingers on the desktop while Taylor dabbed at her nose and continued her assessment:
A big, blah, khaki pantsuit. White button-down with an old coffee stain that she's trying to hide under a too-big jacket. No wedding ring. No pictures on the desk. Crooked teeth and a crooked nose. Good thing she's a cop.
Taylor felt a sudden twinge of sorrow for the detective.
“Would you like to know what your stepmother had to say, Miss Woodward?” Detective Monroe asked calmly.
I don't really want to kill Krystal
, Taylor thought to herself and nodded her head up and down at the policewoman. She shifted uncomfortably in the hard aluminum folding chair. The skin underneath her broken leg itched terribly and she was afraid her nose was starting to bleed again because the detective had handed her another tissue. Momentous anger swept through her, and the blood dripped like a faucet.
I don't want that witch dead
, she thought, her head swimming.
I want her to be ugly and poor.
“Maybe we should get you to a doctor,” Detective Monroe suggested when she saw that two slow streams of dark-red blood had started to come from Taylor's nostrils.
“No,” the girl insisted, then abruptly she slumped and her head smacked the desktop.
As she walked forward, Angela Peyton was focusing on Dr. Angelo Van Dusen's cleanly shaven, richly tanned head. He smelled distinctly of whiskey and bacon, what she derogatively termed the “breakfast of champions.” On the other hand, his navy-blue Armani suit showed off his broad shoulders and athlete's body, which she found appealing.
They were in a hospital corridor, walking quickly with his lawyer and a police detective. They knew what awaited them outside. The lawyer, determined to be the first to hit the door, struggled to keep a step ahead of the long-legged Dr. Van Dusen. His lawyer wanted to be the first to greet the snarling, frenzied television news crews lying in wait outside the quiet doors of the hospital. “Stay behind me,” the lawyer told his client.
Dr. Van Dusen looked down and nodded his head at his sharp-nosed, white-bearded lawyer. The man stood a foot shorter and was a foot wider than his client. The two men strode swiftly across the open-air hospital lobby, away from Angela and the Miami police detective. As for the mission of the detective, he was assigned to crack open the doctor's life for any secrets he might be hiding. Everyone wanted to know about the curious epidemic that was disfiguring the patients of his plastic surgery practice.
They were in a lobby on the opposite side of the hospital from the emergency room entrance. Calm and serene, it welcomed all visitors fortunate enough to be entering the hospital for less than an emergency. Greeting visitors was a ten-foot tall, ten-foot wide salt-water aquarium. Inside, a stingray stirred along the sandy floor of the tank. He focused his gaze on the creatures who had gathered in the lobby.
Angela was fairly sure the stingray had her in his gaze. Under his watch, she squirmed. She shivered at the idea of her bare feet stepping on any type of wiggly creature in the water and she decided not to swim in the ocean on this trip. While she scolded herself to develop patience, she took stock of the wilted detective, Marty Johnson. She decided that he exuded scotch, cinnamon rolls, and cigars; that he wasn't too much older than she was; and that he looked like hell. She had already suspected that Miami was not paradise and Johnson clinched that suspicion.
Detective Johnson shoved his hands in the pocket of his trench coat and fumbled with his butane lighter. Deep lines streaked across his weary forehead; another pair of creases stretched down the sides of his nose and past his thin lips.
Those aren't laugh lines
, Angela reasoned. Short brown hair flecked with gray framed his tired face, but a strong jaw held back a grin.
“Hot enough for you?” the detective asked and smiled shyly. His blue eyes reminded Angela of someoneâJonathan, she suddenly realized, her missing ex-husband.
Angela loosened her collar. “Well I'm from Atlanta, and they don't call it Hotlanta for nothing,” she told him. “But this placeâ” she shook her head. “How can you stand it?”
Detective Johnson removed his trench coat from shoulders. He rolled up the sleeves of his white, button-down shirt, his eyes following the steps of Dr. Van Dusen and his lawyer out of the lobby and through a towering pair of tinted, sliding-glass doors. Outside, the blinding midday sun beat down on South Beach. Angela squinted. The local news crews shattered the calm of the lobby. All they had heard so far was that several plastic surgery patients had developed unexplainable, life-threatening consequences. This was enough information for stations to send numerous white vans laden with miniature satellite dishes, along with a full troop of reporters. She was grateful that she did not have to face that crowd and she hit the lobby's elevator button.
Although Angela had never left her daughter alone for so long, she felt sure that given just a bit more time, she could solve this case. Fever, scaly skin, and comaâthe symptoms were bizarre. As the lead investigator for the CDC, she was determined not to leave Miami without an answer. Just as panic was starting to set into her chest, the elevator dinged. The gleaming steel doors slid open for Angela and the detective to board. But she could not move a single bone, nor a single muscle. Angela stood still, absolutely motionless, while her Blackberry vibrated in the pocket of her suit jacket.
“Angela,” Detective Johnson called while he held his palm on the edge of the elevator door, hoping to break her reverie. “Angela!” he repeated, this time loudly, holding the door back from closing. He put his hip into his effort to keep the door open for Angela to board.
More time
, Angela thought. She reached inside her pocket for the Blackberry. Detective Johnson delicately snagged her wrist and guided her gently over the elevator threshold.
With the modest grace of a nervous ballerina, Angela pirouetted on the tips of her black, patent-leather shoes past the doors of the elevator and landed safely inside. When her high heels hit the elevator floor, a slight tingle creaked up the length of her backbone. The elevator doors shimmied together and sealed the couple inside. She hated elevators, but she knew he would never make it up the stairs.
She noticed her reflection glowing white in the glossy steel doors, as if she were a ghost or vampire. Detective Johnson breathed heavily beside her. The fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling light flickered as the elevator shuddered and ascended to the eighth-floor quarantine ward. A “ding” meant that they had passed the second floor. Remembering to develop patience, Angela shut her eyes. Darkness surrounded her. The elevator shook getting to the third floor and she blinked her eyes open. She blinked again, hoping her eyes were playing a trick on her. Then she realized the elevator was pitch black. Disoriented, she tightly squeezed the handrail mounted on the paneled walls.
“Lights blew,” Detective Johnson barked the obvious. “Dark as a cave in here,” he said. He fumbled for his keys in his pants pocket, which had a mini-flashlight. It had been a gift from his wife on their twentieth anniversary. He turned it on, but it was dim.
Angela decided that being in a coffin was not endurable by patience alone, so she searched her jacket pocket for her Blackberry. The number “5” glowed red above their heads, denoting that there were only three floors left to go. As she maneuvered her Blackberry to her eyes, the glow of the phone illuminated her face. She pressed her nose up against the bright LED screen and read that it was noon. A new message waited for her, an e-mail from Alexandra's school saying that classes were cancelled for that day. She scanned the screen for the missed call symbol. “Nothing,” she sighed, wondering what Alexandra was doing.
A ding announced that the eighth floor had arrived. Detective Johnson and Angela waited patiently for the elevator doors to slide open, but they did not. The detective coughed. They waited some more. Angela stepped closer to the door. Within another second, she began pounding her fist on the glossy steel.
“Hello,” she called. “Hello!” she demanded loudly, her knuckles slamming into the metal.
“Angela,” the detective said calmly. He pointed his flashlight at the illuminated button panel. “Open door,” he said, extending his thick right thumb and pressing a blinking orange button with an opened door symbol.
A screech echoed through the deathly silence of the eighth floor quarantine ward when the elevator doors finally wrenched themselves open. Dimmed lights and a discomforting quiet greeted the pair as they entered the hallway.
“The latest one is down there,” Detective Johnson said, pointing his thumb down the stark, white hallway stretched out ahead. The rubber soles of his loafers squeaked on the glistening white linoleum as he headed out. Angela walked quickly behind him, her chest slamming into his back when the detective stopped short.
“Not so fast,” a voice boomed beside her, while a brown palm the size of a baseball glove hovered an inch from the detective's chest. “Identification,” barked the uniformed police officer with his jaw clenched. His eyes narrowed on the intruders as they produced their badges.
She noticed the officer squint his eyes when she handed over her badge. “It's me. I promise,” she explained shyly. “Bad hair day.”
Rubbing his shiny bald head, the officer returned her badge.
“Did you ever play for the Dolphins?” Angela asked, trying to flatter him and lighten the mood.
“No, ma'am,” he replied, his muscles bulging beneath his khaki uniform shirt, size extra-extra large and still barely able to contain the breadth of his body.
“You played starting linebacker for the Seminoles up in Tallahassee a few years back, didn't you?” Detective Johnson asked, flashing his badge at the eager, young officer before returning it to a back pocket in his dark-grey pants.
“Yes, sir,” the officer said, his jaw unclenching.
“Your name is Reynolds, right?” the detective asked as he politely extended his right hand toward the officer to shake hands.
“Reynolds, Xavier Reynolds.” The officer's hand swallowed the detective's.
“I would like nothing more than to talk a little football, Reynolds,” Detective Johnson said sincerely. “But Ms. Peyton and I were informed that another victim has been admitted.”
Angela glanced down the empty hallway. Each of the next ten rooms had closed doors and sealed a bodyâpeople still alive. She knew she couldn't make any mistakes. She took a deep breath.
Officer Reynolds pointed his arm toward the end of the hallway. “She's down there,” he said. “Doctors have been in and out, but no one lately.”
Angela exhaled slowly.
“No arrests yet?” Officer Reynolds asked the detective.
“We talked to the girls' plastic surgeon in a private conference room downstairs. His lawyer looks greasy, but the doc looks clean,” he told the officer.
Eager to view the victim, Angela left the detective and stepped anxiously toward the last room, her heels clicking like horse's hooves at a Saturday afternoon derby. She sped up as she neared Room 810. But suddenly the heavy stainless steel door of the room swung open in front of her, and Angela smacked, chest first, into the body of a petite, porcelain-skinned nurse.
“Pardone!” the startled nurse exclaimed in a light French accent. She slipped a germ mask from her lovely face.
“Sorry,” Angela stuttered, flustered from the accident. She snatched her CDC badge from her satchel.
“Ah, oui, yes ma'am,” the nurse said hurriedly. “I had seen you here earlier this morning.” The nurse crinkled the paper mask in her fingers and glanced at the closed door behind her back. “She arrived while you have been away.” Her chin-length, midnight-black hair came straight and boyish across her smooth forehead. She looked like Peter Pan.