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“Like I told you this morning,” Jovanic said, hitting the intercom at the locked door to Neuro ICU and announcing them. “Mr. Novak had emergency surgery last night. Bone fragments had pierced the brain.”

The door swung open and they entered a world of white-stockinged feet in crepe soles that whispered on the polished floor as nursing personnel scurried from one room to another. Given the level of activity, a surprising hush hung over the unit, broken only by the purr and occasional beep of machinery.

Neuro ICU was arranged in wagon-wheel fashion, with the nursing station at the hub. Eleven beds made up the spokes, separated from the nursing station by a wall of glass. Jovanic had explained that each patient had his or her own case-manager nurse, along with a team of nurse-assistants who divided their attention between the cubicles.

He flashed a smile at the duty nurse and she flashed one back. The casualness of the exchange suggested prior acquaintance, and Claudia made a guess that he must have visited other cases in the unit.

“Hi, Grace,” Jovanic said, dropping some of the cop coolness and confirming Claudia’s impression. “Any change in Mr. Novak?”

The nurse, who hadn’t seen the kind side of fifty in a while, shook her head and fluttered her eyelashes at him with a coyness that irked Claudia.

“His vitals are stable and he came through surgery just fine. The doctors did what all they could, but he’s not even close to being out of the woods yet. It’s gonna take a while before we know just how much damage was done. Don’t know what your suspect hit him with, but they meant business.”

“Do you think we could see him for just a few minutes?”

The nurse cocked her head in a half-shake that looked as though it might turn into a refusal. “You know he’s sedated.”

“Come on, Gracie, just five minutes?”

Gracie? He probably has the babes wound around his little finger with those puppy-dog eyes.

The duty nurse’s starch visibly melted and her gaze invited Jovanic to beg some more. When he didn’t, she smiled faintly. “Well, five minutes, just because it’s you, Joel. But then he gets his dose of Valium.”

She turned to Claudia with a tone that was all business. “Just don’t expect too much. Most times, people with severe head injuries don’t remember what happened to them. Sometimes they don’t even know who they are.” She eyed her watch. “It’s nearly shift change and I’m going to have to tally all his hourly meds.”

“Thanks, Grace,” Jovanic said. “We won’t take long.”

He guided Claudia to Cubicle Four. A sign was taped to the dimly lit window:
“Family only, short visits expected and appreciated. No flowers.”

In the lowered light, propped up in the hospital bed, Ivan appeared bionic—part of the machines that connected him to life—seeming less than human, somehow, and smaller. Tubes and drains were taped into place, and he wore wrist restraints to prevent him from tearing out the IV lines. At the head of the bed, a grey metal box monitored changes in vital signs. A bag dripped blood, a tube fed oxygen, a breathing apparatus clicked and sighed.

Ivan’s chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm. Half-closed lids revealed unfocused eyes. Like a boxer whose head had taken a pounding, the flesh around his eyes was purplish and swollen from the slow leakage of blood vessels. But Ivan had never been a boxer.

A lump of emotion clogged Claudia’s throat. “Does he have any family?” she whispered. “Isn’t anyone staying with him?”

Jovanic shook his head. “No one at his office knew of any relatives and we haven’t found any, either.”

Maybe that’s what drew Ivan and Lindsey together—no one to care for but each other.

The detective moved the only chair in the room next to the bedside on Ivan’s left, then stationed himself on the other side.

Claudia sat down on the chair and reached through the bed rail, careful not to disturb the IV needle as she took Ivan’s limp hand in hers.

Could he feel the human contact? Maybe on some level it would make a difference.

“Ivan,” she said softly, “it’s Claudia. If you can hear me, please squeeze my hand.”

No movement. Was he even aware of her presence? She looked over at Jovanic with a little shake of her head. “Ivan, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can.”

For a moment there was no reaction, then she felt, almost imperceptibly, the movement of Ivan’s fingers curling around hers. She glanced at Jovanic and nodded. He gave her a thumbs-up.

“That’s good, Ivan,” she encouraged. “Really good. I need to ask you some questions, but I don’t want you to tire yourself. If the answer is yes, I want you to squeeze my hand once like you just did, and if the answer is no, squeeze twice. Do you understand?”

Ivan’s fingers responded again, and the pressure seemed to gain a little strength.

“Good. Do you know me?”

Squeeze.

“Okay, do you know where you are?”

Squeeze.

The rhythmical whooshing of machines punctuated the silence as Claudia sought the right questions, reluctant to upset him. Jovanic came around the bed and stood behind her. He touched her shoulder, prodding her.

She shrugged him off. “We need to go slowly.”

“We can’t. We might not have another opportunity.” Jovanic leaned forward, his jacket brushing her cheek. “Mr. Novak, do you know who attacked you?”

Ivan turned his head, moaning, a guttural, animal sound. Instantly, the heart monitor changed rhythm, peaks and valleys squeezing together. Heart rate 140. “Dammit, don’t push him,” Claudia said, feeling a flash of irritation heat her face. “I thought we agreed that I’d handle this.”

“We need to get some answers.”

Jovanic had his own agenda. As a cop, he saw things through a different lens than she did. His first concern was apprehending the suspect.

Ivan’s hand moved in Claudia’s, squeezing with an urgency that made her lean in closer. “I know you want to tell me something, Ivan, but please don’t try to talk.”

She glanced at the heart monitor. Still too fast.

“Call the nurse,” Claudia said to Jovanic. “I’m worried about him.”

He shook his head. “If anything’s really wrong, they’ll know it. That’s what all this equipment is for. Keep going; we have to find out what he knows.”

Misgiving flooded over her, but she saw again in her mind the bloody scene in Lindsey’s kitchen. Jovanic was right. They had to draw out whatever information they could. But she would do it her own way.

“Give me your pen and notebook; I have an idea.”

Jovanic flipped to a blank page in the little book and handed it to her along with his pen. “What’s the plan?”

“Different areas of the brain govern speaking and writing skills. It’s just possible that he might be able to communicate better in writing. I need you to hold the pad steady for me.” Restraints were loosely tied around Ivan’s wrists. With the reflexive grasp of an infant, he grabbed the pen in his fist the moment Claudia touched it to his fingers. She covered his right hand with hers, using a light touch that would allow her to assist the writing movement and at the same time give the plump fingers some support.

As his hand moved in an unsteady, circular pattern, Ivan’s first efforts were like a toddler’s scribbles. But as he continued to struggle at it, the mental images of letters learned in childhood gradually began to be restored, impressing themselves on his injured brain to begin forming new neural pathways.

Soon, a teetering line appeared next to a jagged oval, then another oval with a line going through it. Then a possible letter
‘e.’

When he’d finished, Claudia looked at the marks Ivan had made, then at Jovanic. “Do you think this is an
‘l’
?”

“Hard to say. You’re the handwriting expert.”

“Analyzing personality doesn’t mean you can always read the words,” she retorted. Jovanic’s presence in the small room made her uncomfortable. She wished she could have been alone with Ivan and taken things at her own pace.

Ivan was tugging at the pen. He drew a shaky horizontal line above the vertical one. A new form took shape as they watched. All at once, it became clear to Claudia.

“It’s not an
‘l’
, it’s a
‘t’
. I think it says... is this word
“tape,”
Ivan?”

Affirmative pressure on her fingers. “You wanted to give me a tape, didn’t you?” Stronger pressure.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Jovanic said, watching their hands closely. “Where is the tape, Mr. Novak?”

Ivan tried to say something, gagged. The monitor beeped a caution.

“Dammit,” Claudia snapped at Jovanic. “Don’t upset him. Only ask yes or no questions.”

Jovanic backed off. She worked to get Ivan settled down, expecting the nurse to respond to the alarm. A couple of minutes passed and the alarm stopped beeping.

Claudia rolled her shoulders to release the tension and repositioned the pen in Ivan’s hand. This time a clear letter ‘B’ emerged, but the rest was chicken scratch. Ivan jerked on her hand, attempting to speak.

“Ivan, is it a videotape you wanted to give me?”

The sounds he made were thick, alien. Words that Claudia could not understand. She glanced back at Jovanic, but his face was a blank. His shoulders lifted, and he shook his head in frustration.

Ivan struggled to sit up. The ventilator alarms went wild and Claudia felt her stomach drop as the blood pressure display on the monitor glowed 220 over 120. The duty nurse flew into the room, a cannonball in tennis shoes. She did a brisk check of her patient, pushing Claudia and Jovanic aside as she recycled the blood pressure cuff and reset the alarms.

Having satisfied herself that the readings had dropped to a more normal range, she swept them both with a stern glare. Before she could scold them, Jovanic said, “We were just starting to get somewhere; could we have a few more minutes?”

Claudia stared at him in amazement.
The man has balls the size of grapefruits.

Her amazement doubled when the nurse threw Jovanic a wink and said, “Just make it quick,” then hurried away to answer another call.

Claudia watched her leave, her expression darkening. “If it was me prodding her like that, she’d have tossed me out on my ass in a flash.”

What the hell is wrong with me? He’s just a passing acquaintance. What do I care who flirts with him?

This thought was followed by a flash of brutal honesty. She was attracted to him and she’d better get over it fast. The urgency to get whatever information Ivan had was far more important than a case of the hots for the inscrutable detective.

“It pays to know the right people,” Jovanic said placidly. “I helped her kid out of a jam last year.”

“Well, I think we should stop.” She indicated Ivan, slowly writhing in the bed. “This can’t be good for him.”

Jovanic stared her down. “Bowman’s the nurse, not you. We need this information. Keep going.”

“Do you have to be an asshole about it? He needs to rest. Let’s come back tomorrow.”

“Listen,
Ms. Rose,”
he said, giving her the granite stare.
Do they teach it in the Detective’s Manual?
“This could be our only chance. It’s the best lead we’ve gotten so far. The longer we wait, the less chance of catching the guy who did this to him. He’s responding to you. Ask him, otherwise, I will.”

Silently cursing the detective’s impatience, Claudia took Ivan’s hand again. His skin felt cooler, almost clammy to her touch. “Ivan, did the guy who attacked you get the tapes?”

Squeeze, squeeze
—
No.

She looked at Jovanic in excitement. “So, the tapes are at Lindsey’s apartment?”

Squeeze, squeeze
—
No. Then squeeze
—
Yes. What the hell?

She looked down at him in confusion. His eyes were fully closed now, his breathing labored from the effort of trying to communicate.

“You’re doing great, Ivan. I can’t read the second word you wrote. Can you try writing it again?”

The affirmative pressure on her hand had weakened significantly. They repeated the routine with the pad and pen, but Ivan’s hand grew heavy, even with Claudia’s help.

A series of illegible marks crept across the paper, crooked curves pitched at odd angles. A capital
“B,”
maybe; what looked like an
“r,”
a
“d,”
a couple of other marks that might have been
“n”
and
“I,”
but Claudia was far from confident that she had it figured out.

“B -r -n -d” she said, puzzling it out. “Burned? Brand? Barn?”

Ivan’s body twitched restlessly as he again strained to form words that were unintelligible to Claudia’s ears.

“I think he’s out of it,” Jovanic said softly. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“Shhh, he hears you!”

Jovanic bent over Claudia’s shoulder, leaning toward the injured man. He spoke with a surprising gentleness that revealed something decent in him after his earlier insensitivity. “Mr. Novak, Ivan. What are you trying to tell us?”

Ivan’s body jerked. The wrist restraints tightened against his struggles, draining the blood from his hands. The pen clattered to the floor.

Suddenly, his eyes flew open and he stared wildly at Claudia. “Bran,” he cried, his arms flailing violently against the restraints. “Branbranbran.”

Then, chaos.

The heart monitor exploded in a riot of peaks and valleys that widened with each beat. The screen flashed
V-tach
.

The duty nurse ran in, took one glance at Ivan, hissed “Get out,” and hustled Claudia and Jovanic through the door. “Go. Hurry.” She shouted down the hallway, “Code Blue, get a crash cart.”

In moments, the small hospital room was overflowing with nurses, doctor, a respiratory therapist. The duty nurse expertly whipped the pillow from under Ivan’s head. A technician rolled the bed flat and raised it to waist level.

The respiratory therapist connected an ambu bag, pumped it up to one hundred percent oxygen and gave Ivan a few breaths. An IV team nurse grabbed his left arm and began a new IV. Doctors and nurses shouted commands: