"Thanks," she said. "I'll try to keep that in mind when I'm on my way to Tucson tomorrow."

"What for?"

"Donnatelle called tonight. Things have just gotten way worse for Jose and Teresa Reyes. Jose's boss, the Santa Cruz County sheriff, stopped by the hospital earlier to let Teresa, Jose's very pregnant wife, know that evidence found at the crime scene has put Jose under suspicion of drug trafficking. And Teresa's former mother-in-law evidently rode in on her broom this afternoon in time to hear all about the drug-dealing allegations. Now she's questioning if her granddaughters-her deceased son's children-are being raised in a 'suitable' environment. Donnatelle is concerned that she might be considering launching a custody fight."

"Alleging drug dealing is a long way from being convicted of same," B. observed.

"That's true," Ali agreed, "but with everything that's going on, I'm not sure Teresa can make that distinction. According to Donnatelle, the scene at the hospital was the straw that broke the camel's back. She's afraid Teresa might have a total breakdown, and she knows her pretty well. I'm going down first thing in the morning to see what, if anything, I can do to help."

"Like what?" B. prompted.

"Like be there," Ali said. "Sometimes that's the only thing you can do."

Lying awake after she got off the phone with B., Ali thought of something else she could do. While Teresa was dealing with the immediate health crisis, it probably hadn't occurred to her that Jose might need a good criminal defense attorney every bit as much as he needed quality medical care.

In the long run and as a police officer, Jose would probably qualify for help from the Arizona Police Officer Legal Defense Fund, but that might take time and paperwork. But what about the short run? According to Donnatelle, the DPS investigator had not yet come by the hospital to interview either Jose or Teresa. Maybe that was something Ali could do-make sure that when it did happen, there would be someone on tap, looking out for their best interests.

17.

8:00 A.M., Sunday, April 11

Tucson, Arizona

Sister Anselm hadn't meant to spend the whole night in the ICU, but she had. Much of that time had been in the waiting room rather than in Jane Doe's room itself.

When Sister Anselm first arrived at the hospital, her patient had been resting comfortably. Hours later, though, Jane Doe began to flail in her bed. Sister Anselm, noticing that her temperature had soared, ran to the nurses' station to summon help. Within minutes, the room was overflowing with doctors and nurses battling what Sister Anselm had suspected to be the onset of a serious infection that might well have led to sepsis without immediate corrective measures.

The fact that Sister Anselm had alerted hospital personnel right away probably made all the difference. Although there were screens and readouts at the nearby ICU nurse's station, the on-duty staff members were busy with other patients, and no one other than Sister Anselm had been watching the monitors.

While the staff was stabilizing Jane Doe, Sister Anselm had been banished to the waiting room, where three new sets of worried families came in, grabbing seats near their loved one's rooms or pacing and hovering nearby.

The young woman named Teresa, clearly tired beyond bearing, was numbly coming and going from her husband's room on an hourly basis, with her two little girls nowhere to be seen. No doubt someone-the black woman Sister Anselm had seen earlier, most likely-had collected the girls and taken them elsewhere. It probably had been done as a helpful gesture. In most instances, Sister Anselm would have agreed that hospital waiting rooms weren't suitable places for young children. When the two girls had been present, however, Teresa had made the effort to keep it together. With them absent, she seemed to be sinking into a state of exhausted despair.

"You look like you could use some water," Sister Anselm said, taking a seat next to Teresa and handing her a bottle she had liberated from her bag. "It's easy to get dehydrated in places like this."

Teresa looked at her questioningly, then opened the bottle and gulped down half the contents.

"Your husband?" Sister Anselm asked, nodding in the direction of Jose's room. She already knew the answer. She was simply making conversation.

"Yes," Teresa said. "His name's Jose. I'm Teresa. Are you a nurse?"

"No," Sister Anselm said. "My name is Sister Anselm. I'm not a nurse. I'm what's known as a patient advocate. The doctors and nurses are dealing with my patient's medical needs right now, which is why I'm out here. What happened to your husband?"

"He's a deputy sheriff," Teresa said. "He was shot last night." She paused and looked at her watch. "About twenty-four hours ago."

"I saw two little girls earlier. Your daughters?"

"My friend took them to a hotel. They were really tired of being here, and I don't blame them. I'm tired of it, too."

Sister Anselm pulled another chair within range and motioned for Teresa to put her feet up. Her ankles were swollen. So were her hands and fingers. At that stage of pregnancy, it could be a dangerous precursor to some serious medical issues.

"When's your baby due?"

Teresa looked down at her bulging belly. "About three weeks," she said. Her voice broke. "What if Jose dies? What if my baby never knows his father?"

"What does his doctor say?"

Teresa gave a halfhearted shrug. "That it's touch and go. Jose lost a lot of blood, and he was lucky to survive surgery. The doctor says that the next twenty-four hours are critical."

"So the doctors are looking after him," Sister Anselm said kindly. "Who's looking out for you?"

Teresa bit her lip and shook her head.

"Your baby's a boy?" Sister Anselm continued, ignoring the lack of response.

Teresa nodded. "We're going to name him Carmine," she whispered. "After his grandfather. After Jose's father. That's one of the reasons I married Jose. I thought he'd be a good father, like his father. And now ..." She paused and shook her head. "The sheriff told me this afternoon that he may be involved with dealing drugs. I can't believe it. It doesn't seem like him, like the Jose I know, but ... I don't know. I just can't believe any of this is happening."

Sister Anselm knew that was the real bottom line. The fact that Jose was injured was one thing. Learning about a possible betrayal made the situation that much worse.

"Let's take this one thing at a time," Sister Anselm suggested. "Your husband has been shot and may not make it. But what happens if you don't make it? What happens to Carmine then? Who takes care of your little girls?"

Teresa shook her head. Again she didn't answer, and she didn't have to.

"That's what I thought," Sister Anselm said. "Look. There's a sofa at the end of the room that nobody is using at the moment. I'm going to go ask the nurses for a pillow and a blanket. You lie down on that and rest for a while. I'll look in on your husband while you're sleeping. If his condition changes, I'll come get you immediately. All right?"

It seemed that was all Teresa needed-permission. She nodded and then plodded over to the couch in question. Within minutes of lying down, she was deeply asleep, despite the noise and activity around her. For the rest of the night, Sister Anselm moved from the waiting room to Jose's and then Jane Doe's making sure that all were sleeping soundly and that the monitors showed normal levels of respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure.

Earlier, when Sister Anselm read Jane Doe's chart, she had noted that the doctors estimated the patient was between seventeen and twenty years of age. Once the waiting room quieted enough to allow for concentration, Sister Anselm picked up her iPhone and scrolled directly to the website for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Once at the website, Sister Anselm entered the words "rose tattoo" into the search engine. Within moments she had half a dozen hits. Several of them specified that the tattoo in question was on either a right leg or a left leg. One said it was on the right arm. Three of those had been found on the bodies of unidentified murdered young women whose information had been added to the listing by law enforcement agencies seeking both the girls' killers as well as their families.

At the very bottom of the list was the only one that mentioned a tattoo of a single rose on the inside of the right breast. That listing, for a girl named Rose Ventana from Buckeye, Arizona, was dated three years earlier, when the missing girl's age was noted as fourteen. The listing was accompanied by what appeared to be a school photo of a smilingly beautiful young woman, a photo that bore no resemblance to the shaved head and the shattered visage lying on a hard pillow in Physicians Medical's ICU.

Even so, Sister Anselm's heart quickened as she scanned through the information. From the girl's point of view, three years was a long time to be away from home. From a grieving parent's point of view, three years of waiting and hoping and dreading must have seemed like forever. Sister Anselm was convinced the distraught parents would welcome their long-lost daughter, damaged or not, with open arms, but she didn't pick up her phone to call them. Her first responsibility, as patient advocate, was to her patient.

Over the years Sister Anselm had learned that many of her patients had chosen to strike out on their own because of some conflict that existed in the family home. Until she was sure Jane Doe wanted to be returned to her family, Sister Anselm would keep the knowledge to herself.

She contented herself with doing a computerized search for articles dealing with the long-ago disappearance of Rose Ventana, who had left for school as usual one February morning and then simply vanished. Foul play was suspected, although no body was ever found.

Rose's mother, Connie Fox, a tattoo artist by trade, was the one who had created the tattoo, and she was the one who had mentioned it in the press. Articles included statements from James Fox, Rose's stepfather, who was briefly considered a person of interest in Rose's disappearance. He was quoted several times, as were Rose's two younger sisters. Subsequent articles done on the first, second, and third anniversaries of Rose's disappearance showed the mother and stepfather standing side by side. In all of the photos, the stepfather looked every bit as grief-stricken as the mother, but Sister Anselm wondered if that was true. In her work, she had seen much of the world's evil underbelly, and her knowledge was anything but theoretical. She knew the kinds of unsavory family situations that often drove children to run away.

Rose had been off on her own since she was fourteen. She might have been close to death from a beating and terribly dehydrated when she was brought to the hospital, but she certainly wasn't starving. In those intervening years, Rose had eaten well enough. So how had she managed to support herself and provide for food and shelter?

Sister Anselm knew that fourteen-year-olds weren't generally employable in the regular job market; prostitution remained the most likely occupation of choice for underage girls. She also understood that these days prostitution was seldom a solo endeavor. It was a world where freelancing was frowned upon by the guys running the show. If Rose Ventana had been absorbed into the shadowy world of prostitution, that was most likely the source of her attacker-a disgruntled John or an angry pimp. Sister Anselm worried that if the perpetrator learned his victim was still alive, he might well try again.

Yes, Sister Anselm was fairly certain she now knew the name of her Jane Doe patient. For the time being, she had no intention of mentioning that fact to anyone but the patient herself. Instead, when the charge nurse finally cleared her to return to Jane Doe's room, she settled into her chair, took her sleeping patient's hand, the one without the cast, and held it.

Earlier, thinking her patient was an illegal, Sister Anselm had spoken to her in both English and Spanish. She deemed that no longer necessary.

"My name is Sister Anselm," she said softly. "I'm here to help you."

18.

7:00 A.M., Sunday, April 11

Patagonia, Arizona

Phil Tewksbury crawled out of his warm bed and started in on his Sunday chores. He went into the kitchen and turned on Mr. Coffee. Then he unloaded the dishwasher and got his weekly wash under way by loading that week's dirty uniforms into the aging Maytag. The uniform load went first. While the next load-bedding and towels-was washing, he'd get the uniforms ironed.

He checked the freezer. He had a selection of microwave dinners, enough to make it through the week. Next weekend he'd have to go shopping. Once he had made a real effort to cook decent meals. Now he barely bothered. Why should he? Microwave dinners worked fine for him. As for Christine? Oatmeal was what she wanted-that was all she wanted, three meals a day, 365 days a year.

Oatmeal with skim milk and brown sugar. Phil could hardly stand to look at the stuff anymore, but that was what she wanted and what she ate, so he cooked up a big batch every morning, dividing it into three separate containers-one for breakfast, when she bothered to get out of bed; one for lunch, which she ate usually while he was out delivering mail, and one for dinner. She often ate the third batch long after he had gone to bed. God forbid they should sit at the same table during dinner and actually talk.

When he was working, people knew him. Everybody nodded at the mailman. Little kids waved at the mailman, though they didn't know him particularly well because he avoided talking about himself and his difficult home situation as much as possible. Phil had broken his silence with Ollie because she was different and because she understood. As far as other people were concerned? The details of his life were nobody else's business. As far as Phil was concerned, explaining Cassidy's death to others and admitting what her loss had done to his marriage was far too painful.

A few months ago, with Ollie's encouragement, Phil had broached the subject with one other individual-his own physician. He had finally broken his self-imposed silence. Worried about the long-term effects of Christine's oatmeal-only diet on her overall health, Phil had mentioned the subject during his own annual physical.

Dr. Patterson was Phil's doctor rather than Christine's. Doc Manning, who had been her doctor once, had been dead for seven years. Since Christine refused to leave the house for any reason, finding a new doctor for her or even taking her to a dentist for a simple and much-needed cleaning or filling wasn't exactly an option.

Which was why Phil decided to ask his doctor for advice. "I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about my wife."

"Wife?" Patterson asked, looking dismayed. "All these years I thought you were a widower. I noticed you wore a wedding ring, but since you never mentioned having a wife, I assumed she was deceased."

"Not exactly," Phil said. "But she does have issues. For one thing, I'm worried about her diet. The only thing she eats is oatmeal."

"Oatmeal?" Dr. Patterson repeated. "As in oatmeal three meals a day? No protein? No vegetables?"

Phil shook his head. "Nothing but. Whenever I try giving her anything else, she tosses it in the garbage."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Years," Phil admitted. Fifteen going on sixteen, like it says in the song, Phil thought, but he didn't say it aloud.

"So tell me," Doc Patterson said. "What's the deal with the oatmeal?"

Phil took a deep breath before he answered. "It's what we used to eat for breakfast on Christmas morning, before Cassidy opened her stocking or her presents."

Dr. Patterson gave Phil a quizzical look. "Cassidy?" the doctor asked. "Who's Cassidy?"

Phil knew he was in for it now. That was the main reason he avoided talking about Christine-so he wouldn't have to go over the painful details of Cassidy's death, which had led, inevitably, to everything else. This time, though, more for Christine's sake than for his own, he told the whole story.

"So your wife blames you for your daughter's death?" Patterson asked when Phil finished.

Phil nodded. "Every day and in every way."

"And you've kept the same Christmas tree up and lit for fifteen years? Isn't it dirty?"

"She dusts it sometimes," Phil says. "When I'm out of the house or when she thinks I'm sleeping. She wipes off the ornaments and brushes off the cobwebs."

And replaces some of the bulbs, Phil thought.

That was the first time the bulb-replacement scenario had surfaced in his mind as a coherent thought, when he was talking to Dr. Patterson. He'd thought about it a lot since, but he hadn't said the words aloud-not to Doc Patterson and not to anyone else, either.

"Have you considered having a psych evaluation?" Patterson asked.

Phil grinned ruefully. "For her or for me?" he asked. "Because I'm probably as much of a nutcase as she is for putting up with it all this time. Seriously, the only way I could get her out of the house is by force, and I'm not going to do that. At first people told me she was grieving and that it would take time. Then they told me she was depressed. Now I think most people have forgotten about her. If they think about her at all, it's like, 'Oh, you know, the crazy lady who keeps her Christmas tree up all year long.'"

"Everyone has forgotten about her but you," Dr. Patterson said.

Phil nodded as tears stung his eyes. "It's my fault," he said. "That makes Christine my responsibility."

"So it's like that movie Groundhog Day," Patterson said thoughtfully. "Every morning she wakes up, eats her oatmeal, and thinks that your daughter is going to come out into the living room and open her presents. Are they still there, too?"

"All but one," Phil answered. "The rest of them are wrapped and unopened."

Patterson blew out a breath of air and considered for a moment before he spoke again. "It's a little difficult to diagnose a patient without ever seeing him or her. Would you say your wife is overweight?"