up for another afternoon of talking to passengers from Flight 559.
“Detective.”
“I told you to call me Bo. If you like, I can start calling you ‘mechanic’ or whatever it is that you do,” he said.
“Okay, Bo. How can I help you? You still coming by to pick me up at one o’clock to visit more strange people from strange places?”
“Actually I’m heading out to the hospital on Market Street in the southeast sector. I think it’s the Adventist one, but I’m not sure. My lieutenant called and said he wanted me take a look at a case out there. Can you meet me there?”
“Is it related to one of the passengers?” she asked.
“Don’t know. He said one of the administrators at the hospital wanted someone to come out and identify a body, but they refused to say anything more. They were acting weird about it, so, of course, he calls me. Might not be anything.”
“I’ll need to tie up a few loose ends here, then I’ll head over. Give me a call if it’s a false alarm.” She hung up.
She glanced around the shop, looked under the counter for her other pending jobs, and decided it would be okay to skip out a little early. Bruce had not even come in this morning. He had called, and said he didn’t have any pending bicycle repairs and didn’t want to just sit around with nothing to do. Mara felt the same. The holidays were very slow, except for the occasional antique train set. She walked over to the front door, flipped the Closed sign to face outward and engaged the dead bolt. Returning to the counter, she pecked the No Sale key on the register and lifted the cash tray from the drawer when it popped out. She would check in with Ping to see how he’s doing and then head over to the hospital.
* * *
Ping slouched and tried to straighten nonchalantly behind the bakery counter when Mara walked in to find him nearly asleep on his feet. It seemed to take him a few seconds to realize that Mara wasn’t a customer. He stopped brushing at his wrinkled apron when he realized who it was.
Without pausing in front of the glass case, Mara walked around the end of the counter and approached him. Reaching out to touch his cheek, she said, “You look like hell. And you’re burning up.”
“I think I’ve got a touch of the flu,” he said. He grabbed a small towel hanging from his pocket and dabbed at his forehead. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“No coughing or sneezing. A touch of the dragon flu, looks like. If I had the Chronicle, I swear I would—”
Ping raised a hand. “Shush. No confrontations, remember? I just don’t have the energy to argue with you and suppress him at the same time. Please, let’s not make the situation worse.”
Mara pointed to the empty customer area. “Nobody will buy baked goods from some guy who looks like he’s dying from an infectious disease. Why don’t you just close up, go home and get some rest?”
“I’ve got a couple customers picking up custom orders and a delivery that I need to wait on. After that, Sam’s going to take over. He’s getting out of tutoring a little early, so I’ll go home then.”
Mara stared at him for several seconds.
Ping uncharacteristically felt the need to fill the silence. “What?”
“I’m worried about you.”
“I know, but keep following the book. Are you going out with Bohannon again today?”
“I’m meeting him at a hospital to look into something.”
Ping’s eyes widened. “Not another pathogen from another realm, I hope. I’m not sure any of us are up to dealing with something like the shedding again.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure, but I think his boss would have given him a heads-up if it was something that serious.”
CHAPTER 17
After passing through two sets of automatic glass doors, Mara found herself standing in the large open lobby of the hospital. No one sat behind or in front of the huge reception desk. Everyone seemed to be coming or going, passing to the left or right of the main desk, disappearing beyond the large wall behind it, speaking in whispers that did not carry far in the open atrium-style foyer. She could hear the slip-slip sound of footsteps on the tiled floor. Mara slowly turned, looking for Bohannon in one of the randomly placed clusters of institutional chairs and end tables that dotted the lobby. While