January 12, 1994. Day 1
5:26 p.m. 22¡
Josh Kirkwood and his two best buddies burst out of the
locker room, flying into the cold, dark late afternoon,
hollering at the tops of their lungs. Their breath
billowed out in rolling clouds of steam. They flung
themselves off the steps like mountain goat kids leaping
from ledge to ledge and landed hip-deep in the snow on the
side of the hill. Hockey sticks skittered down, gear bags
sliding after. Then came the Three Amigos, squealing and
giggling, tucked into balls of wild-colored ski jackets
and bright stocking caps.
The Three Amigos. That was what Brian's dad called them.
Brian's family had moved to Deer Lake, Minnesota, from
Denver, Colorado, and his dad was still a big Broncos fan.
He said the Broncos used to have some wide receivers
called the Three Amigos and they were really good. Josh
was a Vikings fan. As far as he was concerned, every other
team was just a bunch of wusses, except maybe the
Raiders, 'cause their uniforms were cool. He didn't like
the Broncos, but he liked the nickname--the Three Amigos.
"We are the Three Amigos!" Matt yelled as they landed in a
heap at the bottom of the hill. He threw back his head and
howled like a wolf. Brian and Josh joined in, and the
racket was so terrible it made Josh's ears ring.
Brian fell into a fit of uncontrollable giggles. Matt
flopped onto his back and started making a snow angel,
swinging his arms and legs in wide arcs, looking as if he
were trying to swim back up the hill. Josh pushed himself
to his feet and shook like a dog as Coach Olsen came out
of the ice arena.
Coach was old--at least forty-five--kind of fat and
mostlybald, but he was a good coach. He yelled a lot, but
he laughed a lot, too. He told them at the beginning of
hockey season that if he got too cranky they were to
remind him they were only eight years old. The team had
picked Josh for that job. He was one of the co-captains, a
responsibility that pleased him a lot even though he would
never say so. Nobody liked a bragger, Mom said. If you did
your job well, there wasn't any reason to brag. A good job
would speak for itself.
Coach Olsen started down the steps, tugging down the
earflaps of his hunting cap. The end of his nose was red
from the cold. His breath came out of his mouth and went
up around his head like smoke from a chimney. "You guys
have rides home tonight?"
They answered all at once, vying for the coach's attention
by being loud and silly. He laughed and held his gloved
hands up in surrender. "All right, all right! The rink's
open if you get cold waiting. Olie's inside if you need to
use the phone."
Then Coach jumped into his girlfriend's car, the way he
did every Wednesday, and off they went to have dinner at
Grandma's Attic downtown. Wednesday was Grandma's famous
meat loaf night. All-U-Can-Eat, it said on the menu. Josh
imagined Coach Olsen could eat a lot.
Cars rumbled around the circular drive in front of the
Gordie Knutson Memorial Arena, a parade of minivans and
station wagons, doors banging, exhaust pipes coughing.
Kids from the various Squirt League teams chucked their
sticks and equipment in trunks and hatches and climbed
into the cars with their moms or dads, talking a mile a
minute about the plays and drills they had worked on in
practice.
Matt's mom pulled up in their new Transport, a wedge-
shaped thing that to Josh looked like something from Star
Trek. Matt scrambled for his gear and dashed across the
sidewalk, calling a good-bye over his shoulder. His
mother, wearing a bright red stocking cap, buzzed down the
passenger window.
"Josh, Brian--you guys have rides?"
"My mom's coming," Josh answered, suddenly feeling eager
to see her. She would pick him up on her way home from the
hospital and they would stop at the Leaning Tower of Pizza
to get supper and she would want to hear all about
practice. Really want to hear. Not like Dad. Lately, Dad
just pretended to listen. Sometimes he even snapped at
Josh to be quiet. He always apologized later, but it still
made Josh feel bad.
"My sister's coming," Brian called. "My sister, Beth Butt-
head," he added under his breath as Mrs. Connor drove away.
"You're the butt-head," Josh teased, shoving him.
Brian shoved back, laughing, three big gaps showing in his
mouth where teeth had been. "Butt-head!"
"Butt-breath!"
"Butt-face!"
Brian scooped up a mitten full of snow and tossed it in
Josh's face, then turned and ran up the snow-packed
sidewalk, bounded up the steps, and dashed around the side
of the brick building. Josh let out a war whoop and bolted
after him. Immediately they were so involved in their game
of Attack, the rest of the world ceased to exist. One boy
hunted the other to deliver a snowball up close in the
face, in the back, down the neck of the jacket. After a
successful attack the roles reversed and the hunter became
the hunted. If the hunter couldn't find the hunted in a
count of a hundred, the hunted scored a point.
Josh was good at hiding. He was small for his age and he
was smart, a combination that served him well in games
like Attack. He smashed Brian in the back of the head with
a snowball, whirled and ran. Before Brian had shaken the
snow off his coat, Josh was safely tucked behind the air-
conditioning units that squatted beside the building. The
cylinders were covered with canvas for the winter months
and blocked the wind. They sat well back along the side of
the building, where the streetlights didn't quite reach.
Josh watched as Brian ventured cautiously around a
Dumpster, snowball in hand, pouncing at a shadow, then
drawing back. Josh smiled to himself. He had found the all-
time best hiding place. He licked the tip of a gloved
forefinger and drew himself a point in the air.
Brian homed in on one of the overgrown bushes that lined
the edge of the parking lot and separated the ice rink
grounds from the fairgrounds. Tongue sticking out the side
of his mouth, he crept toward it. He hoped Josh hadn't
gone farther than the hedges. The fairgrounds was the
creepiest place in the world this time of year, when all
the old buildings stood dark and empty and the wind howled
around them.
A car horn blared and Brian swung around, heart pounding.
He groaned in disappointment as his sister's Rabbit pulled
up around the curve.
"Come on, hurry up, Brian! I've got pageant practice
tonight!"
"But--"
"But nothing, twerp!" Beth Hiatt snapped. The wind whipped
a strand of long blond hair across her face and she
snagged it back behind her ear with a bare hand white with
cold. "Get your little butt in the car!"
Brian heaved a sigh and dropped his snowball, then trudged
toward his gear bag and hockey stick. Beth the Bitch raced
the Rabbit's motor, put the car in gear, and let it lurch
ahead on the drive, as if she might just leave him behind.
She had done that once before and they had both gotten
hollered at, but Brian had gotten the worst of it because
Beth blamed him for getting her in trouble and spent four
days tormenting him for it. Instantly forgetting his game
and the remaining amigo, he grabbed his stuff and ran for
the car, already plotting ways to get his sister back for
being such a snot.
Behind the air-conditioning units, Josh heard Beth Hiatt's
voice. He heard the car doors slam and he heard the Rabbit
roar around the circle drive. So much for the game.
He crawled out of his hiding spot and went back around the
front of the building. The parking lot was empty except
for Olie's old rusted-out Chevy van. The next practice
didn't start for an hour. The circular drive was empty.
Packed over the asphalt by countless tires, the snow
gleamed in the glow of the streetlights, as hard and shiny
as milky-white marble. Josh tugged off his left glove and
shoved up the sleeve of his ski jacket to peer at the
watch Uncle Tim had sent him for Christmas. Big and black
with lots of dials and buttons, it looked like something a
scuba diver might wear--or a commando. Sometimes Josh
pretended that he was a commando, a man on a mission,
waiting to meet with the world's most dangerous spy. The
numbers on the watch face glowed green in the dark: 5:45.
Josh looked down the street, expecting to see headlights,
expecting to see the minivan with his mom at the wheel.
But the street was dark. The only lights glowed dimly out
the windows of houses that lined the block. Inside those
houses, people were having supper and watching the news
and talking about their day. Outside, the only sound was
the buzz of the street lamps and the cold wind rattling
the dry, bare branches of winter-dead trees. The sky was
black.
He was alone.
5:17 p.m. 22¡
She nearly escaped. She had her coat halfway on, purse
slung over her shoulder, gloves and car keys clutched in
one hand. She hurried down the hall toward the west side
door of the hospital, staring straight ahead, telling
herself if she didn't make eye contact, she wouldn't be
caught, she would be invisible, she would escape.
I sound like Josh. That's the kind of game he likes--what
if we could make ourselves invisible?
A smile curved Hannah's lips. Josh and his imagination.
Last night she'd found him in Lily's room, telling his
sister an adventure story about Zeek the Meek and Super
Duper, characters Hannah had made up in stories for Josh
when he was a toddler. He was passing on the tradition,
telling the tale with great enthusiasm while Lily sat in
her crib and sucked her thumb, her blue eyes wide with
astonishment, hanging on her brother's every word.
I've got two great kids. Two for the plus column. I'll
take what I can get these days.
The smile faded and tension tightened in Hannah's stomach.
She blinked hard and realized she was just standing there
at the end of the hall with her coat half on. Rand Bekker,
head of maintenance, shouldered his way through the door,
letting in a blast of crisp air. A burly man with a full
red beard, he pulled off a flame-orange hunting cap and
shook himself like a big wet ox, as if he could shake off
the chill.
"Hiya, Dr. Garrison. Decent night out there."
"Is it?" She smiled automatically, blankly, as if she were
speaking with a stranger. But there were no strangers at
Deer Lake Community Hospital. Everyone knew everyone.
"You bet. It's looking good for Snowdaze."
Rand grinned, his anticipation for the festival as plain
as a child's eagerness for Christmas morning. Snowdaze was
big doings in a town the size of Deer Lake, an excuse for
the fifteen thousand residents to break the monotony of
Minnesota's long winter. Hannah tried to find some
enthusiasm. She knew Josh was looking forward to Snowdaze,
especially the torchlight parade. But it was difficult for
her to feel festive these days.
For the most part, she felt tired, drained, dispirited.
And stretched over it all was a thin film of desperation,
like plastic wrap, because she couldn't let any of those
feelings show. People depended on her, looked up to her,
thought of her as a model for working women. Hannah
Garrison: doctor, wife, mother, woman of the year;
juggling all the demanding roles with skill and ease and a
beauty queen smile. Lately the titles had felt as heavy as
bowling balls and her arms were growing weary.
"Rough day?"
"What?" She jerked her attention back to Rand. "I'm sorry,
Rand. Yeah, it's been one of those days."
"I better let you go, then. I got a hot date with a
boiler."
Hannah murmured good-bye as Bekker pulled open a door
marked Maintenance Staff Only and disappeared through it,
leaving her alone in the hall. Her inner voice, the voice
of the little goblin that kept the cling wrap pulled tight
over her emotions, gave a shout.
Go! Go now! Escape while you can! Get away!
She had to pick up Josh. They would stop and get a pizza,
then go on to the sitter's for Lily. After supper she had
to drive Josh to religion class. . . . But her body
refused to bolt in response. Then the great escape was
lost.
"Dr. Garrison to ER. Dr. Garrison to ER."
That selfish part of her prodded once more, telling her
she could still get away. She wasn't on call tonight, had
no patients in the hundred-bed facility who were in
critical need of her personal attention. There was no one
here to see her escape. She could leave the work to the
doctor on duty, Craig Lomax, who believed he had been set
on earth to rush to the aid of mere mortals and comfort
them with his cover-boy looks. Hannah wasn't even the
backup tonight. But guilt came directly on the heels of
those thoughts. She had taken an oath to serve. It didn't
matter that she'd seen enough sore throats and bruised
bodies to last her one day. She had a duty--a bigger one
now that the hospital board had named her director of the
ER. The people of Deer Lake depended on her.
The page sounded again. Hannah heaved a sigh and felt
tears warm the backs of her eyes. She was exhausted--
physically, emotionally. She needed this night off, a
night with just herself and the kids; with Paul working
late, keeping his moods and his sarcasm in his office
instead of inflicting them on the family.
A wavy strand of honey-blond hair escaped her loose
ponytail and fell limply against her cheek. She sighed and
brushed it back behind her ear as she stared out the door
to the parking lot that looked sepia-toned beneath the
halogen lights.
"Dr. Garrison to ER. Dr. Garrison to ER."
She slipped her coat off and folded it over her arm.
"God, there you are!" Kathleen Casey blurted out as she
skidded around the corner and hustled down the hall, the
tails of her white lab coat sailing behind her. The thick,
cushioned soles of her running shoes made almost no sound
on the polished floor. Not a fraction of an inch over five
feet, the nurse had a leprechaun's features, a shock of
thick red hair, and the tenacity of a pit bull. Her
uniform consisted of surgical scrubs and a pin that
proclaimed No Whining. She drew a bead on Hannah that had
all the power of a tractor beam.
Hannah tried to muster a wry smile. "Sorry. God may be a
woman, but she's not this woman."
Kathleen gave a snort as she curled a hand around Hannah's
upper arm. "You'll do."
"Can't Craig handle it?"
"Maybe, but we'd rather have a higher life form with
opposable thumbs."
"I'm not even on call tonight. I have to pick up Josh from
hockey. Call Dr. Baskir--"