Page 76 of One Last Promise

She got off onto Airport Heights Road and determined not to cast a look at the Air One Headquarters, located off Merrill Field, as she drove to the hospital.

She managed almost all the way to the light and then sat there and glanced over.

The red chopper was gone, Moose already on his way to rescue another soul. His truck sat parked alongside Axel’s Yukon, along with a Nissan Rogue, an orange Subaru, and a hard-sided Jeep. The lineup of his team.

Her throat burned as the light changed, and she turned back to the road, to the hospital. The car turned in as if it knew the way, and out of habit, she parked in the same place, near the ER and the Ivy Infusion center.

“Leave Nanea here, honey. We’ll be back as soon as we see Grandma Roz.”

Hazel put the doll in her backpack and picked up her stuffed dog.

Tillie caught Hazel’s hand as she came around, and found the locket with her other grip. She pulled it out andhanded it to Hazel.

Then they headed inside.

She shook away the memories and managed a smile for the woman seated at the information counter—midfifties, dark brown hair, a look of efficiency about her.

“I’m a friend of Rosalind Turner. Can I see her?”

The information woman—her tag said Mary—turned to a computer. “I’ll call up. Your name?”

Tillie glanced at Hazel and then handed over their names.

She wouldn’t be here long. But Roz deserved a goodbye, and besides, she’d asked them to come by.

And there was the question of her badge number in the box, or at least, that’s what Shep and London had said. Another message from Rigger, that no one she loved was safe?

“Room 312.” Mary issued them name stickers, and Tillie took Hazel’s hand as they headed up the elevator to the third floor.

It was quiet here, a half-staffed nurses’ desk and the muffled sound of a few televisions on in the rooms as they walked down the hallway to room 312.

The door was ajar, and she knocked, then pushed it open.

Roz lay in the bed, half sitting up, eyes closed, a thin oxygen cannula under her nose, an IV in her arm. Beyond her, a window opened up to a view of the mountains to the north. Tillie shook away the trauma of the last day and walked over to the bed.

“Grandma Roz, wake up!”

A pause, during which Tillie might have panicked, and then Roz opened her eyes. She blinked, then, “Oh. Oh my. Oh,my girls. I was so worried.” She reached out on either side and took Tillie’s hand, then Hazel’s. “This is good news.”

Not that good, but Tillie didn’t say anything.

“Grandma Roz, we went to a big house, and they had a bathtub big enough for three people. Or four. And then there was a puppy named Kip, and he fell down a hole and sodid I, and then Mom came and so did Moose, and we flew in a helicopter. And I got cookies and pancakes for breakfast.”

Roz had always reminded Tillie of that old Cagney and Lacey television show her foster mother had watched. Roz playing the role of Lacey, with her dark, now white hair, her solid body.

Now it seemed she’d simply sunk into herself, thin and pale, and she looked . . . old. And even frail as she smiled at Hazel. “That is an adventure.”

Tillie put a hand on her arm. “It’s a long story.”

Her gaze turned to Tillie. “I met your friends. Or maybe they’re not friends, but . . . they were at the house. They know.”

Tillie’s breath caught. “They . . . know? What do you mean?—”

“They know that the . . . package isn’t there.”

Hazel had gone over to the window, pushed her forehead to it.

“What package?”

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