Free The Best Bad Dream by Robert Ward Page B

was taken by bikers.”
    “Very unsettling, Jack,” Alex said. “Do you want to talk to any of her coworkers?”
    “Yeah,” Jack said. “Anyone she worked with in the nursing department. Speaking of which—what kind of a nurse is she?”
    “Surgical nurse and a damned good one,” Alex said. “I'll work up a list of all her coworkers. You can tackle it after lunch.”
    “Thanks for all your cooperation, Alex.”
    “The least I can do. First, you saved me from a beating, and second, this is one of our own. We think of Blue Wolf as an extended family. What happens to one of us happens to all of us.”

    “Y'know, I'd like to see Jennifer's room, if that's possible,” Jack said.
    “Of course,” Williams said. “She lived on the fourth floor of the medical building, in the dorm rooms. I took the liberty of getting you a key. The only thing is, I can't allow you to ask questions of the guests on the first and second floors. Many of them are well-known people who pay quite a bit of money to have their treatments with maximum security.”
    “Really?” Jack asked. “But what if she worked with some of them?”
    “You can talk to the surgeons she worked with. But not the patients. We wouldn't be open for a week if word got out that our privacy rules had been violated.”
    “All right,” Jack said. “You're the boss.”
    Alex smiled and warmly shook Jack's hand.
    “Now I've got to get back to work. I want to thank you again for standing up to those bikers. That took real courage. I won't soon forget it. And I'm sure you'll find Jennifer. The only thing is . . .”
    “What?” Jack asked.
    “I'm about ninety-nine percent positive she isn't around here. And if one of the cycle gangs took her, maybe you should be looking at them and their brothels. If they grabbed her right off the street, well, they could be hustling her out of the state right now.”
    Jack nodded. “I know. Trust me, I'm on it.”
    “Good,” Alex smiled. He waved good-bye and headed across the parking lot.
    There was a separate door that led to the dorm rooms on the third and fourth floors of the medical building, and a skinny, pock-faced guard who sat at a desk ringed with cameras. On hearing Jack's name he lethim in at once and pointed to the elevator to the fourth floor, then went back to playing his computer game, Dr. Dinky's Death Camp.
    Jennifer's place was a one-bedroom apartment, neatly kept. There was much more of an Asian motif than Jack had seen in any of her sister's merely functional apartments. There was a Qing Dynasty red Suzhou cabinet. It must be a knockoff, Jack thought. The real thing would be ridiculously expensive . . . unless, of course, it was stolen. Michelle had always maintained that her little sister was straighter than straight, but one couldn't really believe much of anything Michelle said. For that matter, Jack thought, as he opened the doors of the chest, Michelle herself could have stolen the chest and given it to her sister.
    With Michelle Wu and any of her friends or family, pretty much anything was possible.
    He looked at a golden ceremonial robe on the wall and a floor screen with cranes and pines on it.
    Jennifer was much more into her Asian heritage than Michelle, who veered from punk rock to super goth depending on her mercurial moods.
    In her bedroom he found a jade-inlaid desk, which Jack guessed was made in Shanghai perhaps a hundred years ago. He looked at the wood—elm—and then tried to open the drawer, but it was locked. Jack took out his lock picks, and within two minutes the desk was open.
    Inside were piles of papers and receipts wrapped with rubber bands, and a book of photographs of Michelle and Jennifer when they were young and a woman who might have been their mother. She had the girls’ good looks, and was wearing shorts and a halter top. Very rarefor a Chinese woman of that era to show so much skin. Jack found himself forgetting why he was here as he leafed through the pictures. Just