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More? He’d been operated on? For what?
“No. Not right away. At least Dr. Spears doesn’t think so, but it’s still early. Take a look at his vitals, Barb. All normal.”
“Hmmm. You’re right.”
He felt someone edge closer, and it was all he could do to lie still as he heard a page from the outer hallway. “Doctor Barrows?” A smooth woman’s voice was audible from the hallway. “Please pick up a courtesy phone. Doctor Phillip Barrows.”
The second woman, Barb of the deeper voice, said, “I guess we’ll just have to wait.” He felt her breath on his face, as if she were leaning over him, studying him.
He wanted to swallow hard but didn’t. Finally, she must’ve straightened, her breath no longer warm against his face as she added, “And so will the police.”
What? The cops? They were waiting? He almost gasped but stopped himself.
“They’re still here?” Helen asked.
“No. Left this afternoon, but they’ll be back to speak with Mr. Doe here,” Barb said, clarifying. “They’re trying to find out who he is.”
“Someone must be missing him.”
Noah’s mind raced. So far, apparently, they didn’t know who he was. That was good, he thought, as the cops had always been trouble.
“They’ll figure it out. My brother-in-law’s a detective, and he said it’s only a matter of time.” Barb again. “If they can’t figure it out soon, the cops will ask the public for information. Put out his picture, hope to ID him.”
That was no good. No good at all. He began to sweat.
“They already have, haven’t they? After that car was burned out in the Mojave?”
Oh. Shit.
“I think they’re trying to find out who it belonged to. The owner was inside, still behind the wheel, and the license plate was nearly destroyed. Or that’s what I heard.” Barb, it seemed, had more information. “But the police will want to find out what our Johnnie Doe knows about it.”
Johnnie Doe? As if he were five years old? Despite himself, Noah bristled a little and had to fight to keep feigning sleep.
Helen said, “He’ll wake up soon, don’t you think? It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.”
That answered one question, Noah thought, but there were still plenty of others. Plenty.
“I hope. But he was pretty beat up from the accident. Contusions, cracked ribs, concussed. Lucky he’s got no broken bones.”
“Lucky?” Helen repeated with a snort. “If you call getting a bullet in the neck lucky. I doubt it was an accident.”
He’d been shot? In the neck. And didn’t die?
Helen continued, “The way I see it, someone tried to pick him off his motorcycle. Unless you think a hunter was out target shooting at dusk and mistook a kid on a bike for what? A wild boar? Or mule deer? Or damned coyote? Was he drunk? A motorcycle makes a loud noise, and it doesn’t sound like any animal.” Helen wasn’t buying the accident theory for a second. “It seems to me someone shot him in the neck, no less, and he lost control of his bike. He’s just damned lucky the bullet missed his carotid and his jugular.”
“Not to mention his spinal cord.”
“Amen to that.”
Barb said, “That’s what I mean by lucky.”
He sensed that they moved away from the bed, on shoes that barely made a sound, with Helen saying, “I’ll check on him again after my break . . .” Her voice became soft and muted, as if she’d stepped into the hallway on the other side of the partially open door.
“Good.”
Then Helen said, “You heard there was a guy who came asking about him? Someone who didn’t look much like a reporter to me.”
“The tall man with the moustache? Cowboy type.”
