Hide (Detective Harriet Foster #1)(93)

“Nada. It’s looking like the guy planned this but then ran out of time with the car coming up on him. We’ll keep you posted.”

Foster ended the call and rose to walk the room, thinking of wigs and knives. She watched the clock, sweating every passing minute. When that got old, she went over her notes again, checked in with Li and Griffin, then walked the room again, then sat again. It took four hours before Varadkar popped her head into the space. Foster bolted up from her chair, holding her breath, hoping she wasn’t there to give her bad news.

“Five minutes, no more,” she said, waving for Foster to follow.

Foster slipped into the quiet bay to find a diminished Silva lying feeble in the bed, the steady beeping of the lifesaving machines an ominous reminder of how critical the woman was. Her eyes were closed, her mouth twisted in pain. Her middle was swathed in layers of compression bandages. Dr. Varadkar eased up to the bed, placing a gentle hand on Silva’s wrist. Her eyes fluttered open, but only halfway.

“If you’re still up for it?” she asked Silva when her eyes met hers. Silva nodded almost imperceptibly, then turned her head in Foster’s direction, but even in her precarious state Foster could practically feel the heat of Silva’s resentment toward her. The last time they’d met, they hadn’t parted well.

“I won’t take long,” Foster said. “And I won’t waste time. Your attacker. Can you tell me what he looked like?”

Silva wet her lips and swallowed hard as if mustering whatever strength she had to respond. She shook her head slightly, grimaced in pain, and emitted a whimper. “Not ‘he.’” Her words came out in a foggy croak thickened by medication and blood loss.

Foster heard but didn’t understand. She glanced over at the doctor but got nothing. “Say again?”

“Not. He. A woman. Waiting.”

Varadkar kept her eyes on the numbers and squiggles on the monitors.

“A woman?” Foster asked.

“White. Cold eyes. I knew what she was. She knew my name.”

“Tall? Short? Thin?”

“Yes. But something familiar.”

She was fading, and Varadkar called it. “That’s time.”

Foster backed away from the bed, recalculating as she went. A woman, not Morgan. She was almost to the curtain when Silva spoke again.

“I smelled chemicals . . . oil? . . . and she whistled. After she . . . left me . . . she whistled.”

Foster turned to leave, knowing she didn’t have nearly enough.

“Not . . . oil,” Silva managed. “Paint. She smelled of . . . paint.”

Amelia Davies. She’d whistled when Foster and Li had talked to her in her studio. She had smelled of paint. There were no other women that they knew of connected to Bodie Morgan, besides Silva.

Paint.

Foster looked over at Varadkar for an okay to approach the bed again. She nodded back at her and held up one finger, letting Foster know she had sixty seconds, no more. Foster dug her phone out of her pocket, scrolling through, her fingers fast, sure. She pulled up the photo they had of Amelia Morgan, a.k.a. Davies, and walked back over to the bed and held the phone close so Silva could focus in on it.

“Have you seen her before?”

Silva fought against the medication but managed to get her eyes to focus. When her eyes widened in terror at the image in front of her and the beeping of the machines increased, Foster had her answer. Lights began to flash on the monitors; the fast beeping turned into a loud alarm. Silva was in some kind of distress and was struggling now to speak. “Yes. It’s her,” she croaked. “Who?”

“Out,” Varadkar ordered as she lowered the bed rail to get to Silva. Foster backed away from the bed as two nurses rushed in to answer the alarm. “Who?” Silva asked again, weak but more insistent this time, her eyes finding Foster as she stood back.

“She’s Bodie Morgan’s twin,” Foster said.

As the medical staff assessed her, Silva seemed to be in another world, her look changed. It wasn’t fear Foster would swear she saw in Silva’s eyes anymore but exhilaration.

“Out,” Varadkar ordered again when she turned to see Foster still standing there. “Now.”

Foster bolted out of the bay and rushed toward the elevator, dialing Li as she went. She stabbed the elevator button, impatiently waiting for Li to pick up. When she did, she blurted out, “She just ID’d Amelia Davies.”

“No fucking way,” Li said. “Why would she . . . her brother!”

“Silva said she smelled paint on her. That fits. Let’s hit her studio.”

“If it’s her, wouldn’t she be halfway to Timbuktu by now?”

“And leave him behind? No. And I don’t think she’d go far, not with Silva still breathing.”

“I’ll fill Griffin in,” Li said.

“And Li, we need to get someone on Silva’s door. Amelia might just be scared enough to try again.”

“Roger that. I’m heading into her office now. Meet you at the studio.”

Foster stepped onto the elevator crowded with visitors. There really wasn’t room, but she pushed her way on anyway, ignoring the put-upon sighs meant to chastise her.

When she got to Davies’s studio, Li was already there with two squad cars out front for backup. “What’d you do, fly?” Foster asked.