Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(67)
D.D. smiled. “All right,” she announced briskly, taking control of the situation. Phil was walking down the hall, holding a stack of paperwork. She waved him over, and her squad clustered around the nurse and MC. “Who are we looking for? Description?”
“Nine-year-old female,” Danielle supplied. “Thin, with long dark hair matted around her face. Last seen wearing an oversized green surgical scrub top. She might be naked, however. She’s clothing-challenged.”
D.D. arched a brow. “You said the solarium. That mean she’s gone AWOL before?”
The nurse nodded. “Yesterday. Which is very unusual,” she added. “We have two sets of locked doors. We can’t remember a child ever getting off the floor of the PECB once, let alone twice in two days.”
“So she has some skill.”
“Apparently.” But Danielle was frowning again. She and the MC exchanged troubled looks, and D.D.’s cop radar flared. Something was definitely up with the unit. Given that the pediatric psych ward was now the common denominator between two heinous crimes, D.D. and her detectives planned on turning this place inside out, and searching for a missing kid was a great place to start. Gave them extenuating circumstances to poke their noses in every nook and cranny, and see what was to be seen. Save a kid, expose a psych ward. Night was looking up.
“We’ll need to see your security video,” D.D. announced.
“We don’t have cameras.”
“You don’t have surveillance? A place like this, with these types of kids and God knows what type of parents? Please, surveillance cameras are for your own protection in this day and age of lunatic lawsuits.”
“We don’t have cameras,” Danielle repeated. “We have a checks system: a staff member assigned to write down the location and activity of every child every five minutes. One, that enables us to keep tabs on all the kids so, in theory, this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Two, it provides a written record so that six months from now, when a child or parent suddenly alleges inappropriate behavior, we can verify that the child was indeed safe and accounted for during the alleged time. The system has worked well for us.”
“Until tonight.”
“Until Lucy,” the nurse murmured. She hesitated, then added, “Lucy’s a primal child. She has no social awareness, no sense of her own humanity. Since coming here, she’s adopted the persona of a house cat. That seems to keep her calm. If that illusion gets shattered, however, she becomes violent and unpredictable.” The nurse raised her dark curtain of hair, revealing a string of fresh purple bruises on her neck. “I would consider her a threat to herself and/or others.”
“Damn,” D.D. breathed. She felt some of her earlier euphoria dim.
“If you find her,” Danielle continued, letting her hair fall back down, “don’t approach her. Dealing with her is our job, and trust me, you’re not qualified. Do you understand?”
“We’re not total idiots,” D.D. said, which was neither an affirmation nor a denial about approaching the child. “All right, we’ll split into pairs. We’ll work each floor of the medical center, top to bottom, and ask hospital security to work bottom to top.”
“I’ll be assisting,” Danielle said tightly.
“Me, too,” the gym coach chimed in. He glanced at Danielle, face grim. “Buddies, remember?”
Another look exchanged between them. Personal relationship: D.D. would stake her job on it.
“Our nurse manager, Karen, will help, too. She should be here in”—Danielle glanced at her watch—“another twenty minutes or so.”
D.D. nodded. “Tell you what. You’re the pros. So, Danielle, how about you partner with me. Gym Coach … er—”
“Greg,” he supplied.
“Greg, you’re with Neil. Phil and Alex can be team number three. We can alert one another the second we find the girl. Any other advice?”
“Think like a cat,” Danielle said. “Lucy’s drawn to quiet places with natural light. Sunbeams, moonbeams, that sort of thing. Or she may curl up someplace cozy instead: inside a cabinet, under a desk. Like a cat.”
D.D. and Danielle would start with the psych ward, the top floor of the hospital. Greg and Neil would cover the seventh floor, while Alex and Phil would take level six.
D.D. secured in a locker the records Phil had photocopied. Then she and Danielle hit the unit.
The nurse led D.D. down the hallway, where a huge window overlooked a dazzling city nightscape. They passed half a dozen kids tossing and turning restlessly on mats, with a lone staff member keeping watch. Danielle greeted the MC by name. Ed informed her that another MC, Cecille, was tending Aimee, while Tyrone had Jorge in the TV room.
D.D. got the impression that the unit remained a busy place, even though it was now nearly three in the morning.
At the end of the hallway, Danielle paused, gesturing to the first pair of dorm rooms. Danielle took the one to the right, D.D. the one to the left, and they blitzed their way down the corridor. From what D.D. could tell, each room was identical to the last, with the exception of one that contained only a bare mattress. Apparently, that room belonged to the missing child, who had a tendency to turn furniture into weapons.
They finished checking the sleeping quarters, then the bathrooms, the locked kitchenette, and the locked Admin area. D.D. looked under every desk, even found herself pulling out the paper tray for the copier.