Gemini by Carol Cassella Page B

Blake Simpson, but hadn’t talked to him yet, though she knew through the nurses that he was following Jane’s progress—or lack of progress.
    On her way back to the ICU after lunch she passed the hospital gift shop and saw a small stuffed raccoon on the shelf, which reminded her of a family camping trip at Crescent Lake on the Olympic Peninsula. She had been about eight, so Will, her brother, would have been ten. They had discovered a nest of baby raccoons in a tree near their campsite, scrambling and crying in the high branches as pitifully as abandoned kittens. Will had braced his back against the trunk so Charlotte could stand on his shoulders, swing her leg over the lowest limb, and shimmy close to the terrified animals. In their panic one had fallen to the ground. She was sure she had killed it, but after the longest minute of Charlotte’s young life that kit had stumbled to its four feet and scampered up the neighboring tree. Crescent Lake wasn’t too far from West Harbor, the hospital where Jane had been treated after her accident—maybe not far from where Jane had lived. Would hopefully live again. Charlotte put the stuffed raccoon on her hospital account and took it up with her to the ICU, glad that the nurse was out of the room when she put it beneath the sheet, tucked between Jane’s casted arm and her comatose body. Charlotte had an ill-placed urge to curl Jane onto her side with one hand folded beneath her cheek in the illusion of natural sleep.
    Felipe stopped in shortly afterward. “Did he find you?”
    “Who?”
    “The policeman, Simpson.”
    “He’s here? Blake Simpson?”
    Felipe turned to look down the hall. “Heading for the elevator.”
    Charlotte checked Jane’s monitors and went down the hallway after him. “Sheriff Simpson?” She caught up with him before the doors opened and introduced herself. “Do you have a minute?”
    He shook her hand with a small bow. “Dr. Reese, at last. In person instead of in a message. I have all the time you want.”
    She had expected someone stern-looking, or at least more intimidating. But his smile was so welcoming it was hard to picture him putting anyone in handcuffs. He was an inch or so shorter than her and had a gap the width of a sideways penny between his front teeth that gave him a boyish, approachable face. “Never say that in a hospital.” He cocked his head and leaned forward as if he’d misheard her. “That was a joke. About time. Never mind—I’m glad to finally connect with you. You haven’t identified her, have you?” and before he could respond she shook her head. “No. Crazy question. I would have heard. Are you getting any closer, do you think?”
    “Is there somewhere we can talk?” he asked.
    They ended up in the coffee shop in the basement—an establishment that could only survive in a city hospital where hundreds of people were too busy or too tethered to patients to leave the building. It smelled of stale dishwater and burned coffee, and the only natural light came through two narrow, grimy windows high on the wall, with views of feet passing along the sidewalk. She apologized for it, but Simpson said no one in law enforcement could drink coffee that hadn’t boiled at least half a day.
    “I’m actually a sheriff’s office deputy. My official title.” He took a sip of coffee and added three teaspoons of sugar. “How much do you know about the accident?”
    “Only what was in the emergency room record—so mainly about her injuries. Other than you, no one’s been to see her. Except the press.”
    “Most of the investigation is being handled out in Jefferson County. When the call came in from 911 as a hit and run— probable hit and run—my office was notified along with our traffic investigator. This Jane Doe”—he met Charlotte’s eyes and paused—“your lady upstairs, was unusual in that the ambulance drivers and the ER staff said she was conscious and talking but couldn’t give them a clear story or