The Solace of Bay Leaves

Adams, Cayenne’s grandfather, was jumped by a desperate vet hired to silence him. Thank garlic it hadn’t worked. Harborview’s trauma center is top-notch, its burn unit serving the entire Northwest. But it’s also crazy and chaotic—ambulances coming and going, down-and-outers seeking shelter, the walls echoing with pain and anguish and relief.
Laurel managed to squeeze into a spot in the block behind St. James Cathedral. No chance an hour earlier, but morning Masses had ended.
The instant the hospital’s electric doors swooshed open, an antiseptic odor attacked my nostrils, trailed by a whiff of something I could only label “fear.” Inside, we were directed up several floors and down a maze of hallways, some crowded, some empty. Finally, we reached a waiting area outside a set of wide swinging doors labeled ICU—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The security station, a boxy faux-wood desk, was vacant. A row of once-comfortable chairs stood against the wall, empty.
No sign of Tim. No signs of life anywhere.
“Kinda creepy,” Laurel said.
Had the guard stepped inside? Could I peek in and get some help? I took a step forward, ready to push open a door.
“Hey! What are you doing? You can’t go in there!”
I turned to see a uniformed security guard hustling toward us. “Can’t you read? No unauthorized access.”
“We’re here to see Maddie Petrosian,” Laurel told him.
“Name?” The burly man sank onto the chair behind the desk, and it groaned in protest. Laurel identified us. He clicked a few buttons on the keyboard and stared at the top of the desk. The screen must have been hidden beneath a glass insert.
“Sorry, ma’am.” he said, not sounding sorry. “Access is limited to immediate family. You two aren’t on the list.”
“Oh. I don’t suppose you can tell us her condition?”
“No, ma’am. That information is strictly confidential. My apologies, but we gotta be careful. People are always trying to get in—old friends, distant cousins.”
“But—but I was hoping—I thought we might—”
One side of the double doors opened. The person standing in the doorway was not the hospital staffer I expected. It was a Seattle police officer, an athletic-looking woman around thirty with a brown pony tail, wearing a navy blue uniform and sturdy black shoes.
“Something going on, Ramon?” the officer asked. “Need a hand?”
“No, Officer Clark,” the guard replied. “Under control.”
Holy shitake, was my first thought. My second? I had to get out of there before she recognized me.
Because I recognized her in an instant. Even though the last time I’d seen her, she’d been wearing a slinky red dress with spaghetti straps, at a table for two in the dimly lit corner of a downtown restaurant, running her bare foot up my husband’s leg.

Eight
Directions in Seattle are skewed and street grids collide because the founders argued over whether streets should follow the cardinal directions or the shoreline; when they couldn’t agree, each platted his land grant to his own whims.
OH, MY GOD. I HAD NO IDEA. TAG HAD NEVER SAID. NO ONE had ever said.
Why had no one ever said?
“Pepper, wait!” Laurel called, her footsteps rushing down the hall after me.
She caught up with me at the elevators. I’d have taken the stairs if I could have found them. Hospitals must have been designed by the same mad scientists who build mazes for lab rats.
“Pepper!” Laurel grabbed my arm. The elevator door opened and I stepped in. She followed. I punched L for Lobby. The door closed and I lifted my eyes to the display, watching the numbers tick by.
“What is going on?” she said through clenched teeth. “You just blew any chance we had of getting in to see Maddie or Tim.” “Didn’t you see her?”
“Who?”
“Lovely Rita, meter maid. Looks like she went from screwing cops to being one. Not that the two are mutually exclusive.”
“Oh,” was all she said. We reached the lobby. The door opened and an elderly woman with a walker pushed her way in before we could get off, so we wriggled around her. As a rule, you should let people off before you get on. But there’s a rule against knocking down little old ladies, too.
Not to mention a rule against sleeping with other women’s husbands.
We made it outside without me bowling anyone over and stood on the sidewalk a few feet from the entrance. After we’d caught our breath, Laurel spoke. “What is she doing here? Lovely Rita, I mean. That isn’t really her name, is it?”
“Worse,” I said. “It’s Kimberly Clark.”
Laurel snorted. “Who would a name a kid after toilet paper?”
“Don’t ask me.” Needless to say, Pepper is not the name on my birth certificate.
I leaned against the building, the bumpy gray stone poking my back. “I had no idea she’d joined the police force. She had to attend the state law enforcement academy, go through all the training.” She’d had plenty of time. It had been three years—three and a half, if I were counting. As I apparently was. Not to mention overreacting.
“Did she see me?” I said. “She’ll think I’m an idiot.”
“Why do you care what she thinks?” Laurel zipped up her coat and shoved her hands in her pockets. It was chilly, but at least it wasn’t raining. “They aren’t still seeing each other, are they?”
“No. He broke it off—to save our marriage, he said, but I was done with the secrets and lies. If they got back together, I haven’t heard.”
We’d come here to find out who was keeping secrets about Patrick Halloran’s murder, and then I’d gone and let Lovely Rita punch my ticket.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Let’s go back up. I’ll tell the guard I’m super upset about Maddie, known her since kindergarten, yada yada. Ask him if Tim’s there. ICU must have its own waiting room— maybe the guard will let me in to talk