Free Just Like Heaven by Barbara Bretton Page B

group.”
    “You were all great to me,” Kate said. “I can’t thank you enough.”
    Janine rolled her onto the patient elevator and pressed G.
    “So did Lombardi give you the big farewell speech?”
    “He did. I think he’s a little concerned.”
    “Concerned? We should all have charts like yours.”
    “I don’t seem to be following the emotional profile of the post-MI patient. He seems to think I might suddenly turn into an emotional loose cannon.”
    “It’s been known to happen but it’s usually nothing more than excessive weeping and hugging everyone in sight.”
    “Highly unlikely in this case,” Kate said. “I’ve never been one for a lot of emotional displays.”
    Janine rolled her across the lobby and out the front door into the late-afternoon sunshine.
    “Last stop. Everybody out!”
    Kate threw back her head and took a deep breath of sweet spring air. “Oh God, I’d forgotten how wonderful the air can smell.” Five days of recycled hospital air had made her hungry for the real thing.
    “You have your meds?” Janine asked.
    Kate jiggled the paper bag on her lap. “Check.”
    “Instruction sheets?”
    “Check.”
    “Follow-up appointment schedule?”
    “Check.”
    “Then that’s it. You’re officially discharged.”
    Kate stood up and gave Janine a bear hug. “I’m really going to miss you.”
    Janine hugged her back. “Who’s picking you up: your mother or your daughter?”
    “Neither one.” She gestured to a black Mercedes moving slowly toward them around the curved driveway. “Paul of the red roses.”
    Janine’s eyes widened. “The plot thickens.”
    “I hate to disappoint you, Janine, but he was in the neighborhood.”
    It would make a funny story to tell Paul on the drive back up to Coburn.
     
The black Mercedes rolled away from the hospital entrance and a silver Toyota took its place. Mark angled around the small car, rounded the driveway, then found a parking space in the covered lot across from the emergency services area. A pair of elderly ladies in Easter-egg-pastel dresses were making their way slowly toward the elevator. They clutched each other’s hands at the sound of his footsteps behind them, a flash of insight into old age and vulnerability.
    He slowed his pace as he came even with them.
    “Good afternoon, ladies. How are you today?” He kept his tone upbeat, his cadence even and unthreatening.
    They turned to look at him and he was rewarded with twin looks of relief.
    “We’re just fine,” the taller of the two said with a winning smile.
    He fell into step with them as they exchanged pleasantries about the weather. He sneaked what he hoped was a discreet look at his watch but they caught him in the act.
    “You don’t have to worry about us,” the taller one said, “but we’ve enjoyed your company.”
    “I’m sure you have important things to do,” said the other with a flirtatious wink of one blue-shadowed eye. “Don’t let us stop you.”
    He wished them well, reminded again of how much he enjoyed the company of old people, then took off for the lobby at a run.
    A crowd waited at the elevator bank. He ducked into the stairwell and took the steps two at a time until he reached the fourth floor and room 405.
    It was empty.
    He grabbed the first nurse he saw. “I’m looking for Katherine French.”
    “Sorry,” the young man said, “she was released about fifteen minutes ago.”
    “You mean she’s gone?”
    “That’s what I mean.” He flagged down a laughing nurse. “Hey, Patty, 405 checked out, right?”
    “Right,” the nurse named Patty said as she hurried past. “Janine wheeled her downstairs.”
    “She’s okay?” Mark asked.
    The male nurse shrugged. “Doubt Dr. Lombardi would let her go if she wasn’t.”
    Relief shifted into determination.
    “Do you know where Coburn is?”
    Time for Plan B.
     
“What was that all about?” Paul asked as he exited the hospital grounds. “The nurse winked at me.”
    “You’re