Curse of the Jade Lily (Mac McKenzie #9)

Curse of the Jade Lily (Mac McKenzie #9) Page 65

“Wow,” I said.

The sculpture was not nearly as fragile as the photographs had made it seem. I rubbed a jade flower petal between my thumb and forefinger. It seemed quite sturdy. It also had the soaplike feel that India Cooper told me to look for. I pulled the magnifying glass she had given me from my pocket and trained it on the stalk where it sprouted from the ground. “M, M, M,” I chanted as I looked through the glass. It took a moment before I realized I was looking on the wrong side of the sculpture. I turned it around, surprised by how heavy it was. I searched again. This time I found it, easily. “M for McKenzie.”

The M brought a smile to my face, but it didn’t last long. I saw movement outside the window. A red SUV was moving through the parking lot, moving much faster than it should have been. The SUV contained the artnappers and the money—I knew it without knowing it.

The phone rang. It was sitting on the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed. Someone had lain down on the bed before I arrived—the spread was matted, and two pillows were squashed against the headboard. The phone startled me as it had in room 122. I paused for a moment, then circled the bed and answered it.

“Yes,” I said.

“Are you satisfied?”

“I am.”

“Are you sure?”

“You kept your end of the bargain.”

“All right, then. McKenzie?”

“Yes.”

“There is a bomb in the room. It will go off in ten seconds. Good luck.”

TWELVE

I snapped awake the way you do when you hear a sound that shouldn’t be there. The sound was two voices talking, two women. One was a doctor; the other was a nurse. The nurse said, “I don’t know if I should go out with him,” and the doctor said, “He acts like a jerk sometimes, but he’s awfully cute,” so I knew they weren’t talking about me.

“Keep it down,” I said. “There are sick people trying to get some sleep.”

“Good morning, Mr. McKenzie,” the doctor said. She picked up my hand, careful not to disturb the device clamped to my finger that resembled a white plastic clothespin. The clothespin was attached to a wire. The wire ran to a monitor above my head that the doctor was reading. The lights, except for those that came from the monitors, were dialed down. The blinds were drawn over the window, yet I knew it was dark outside.

“What time is it?” I asked.

Instead of answering, the doctor said, “Do you know where you are?”

“Target Field?”

She sighed with exasperation.

“North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale,” I said.

“Do you know why?”

“Because it was closest?”

She sighed again.

“C’mon,” I said. “We’ve gone through all of this before.”

“And we’re going to go through it again. Tell me who you are.”

“Rushmore McKenzie.”

“How did you get a name like Rushmore?”

“My parents took a trip to the Badlands of South Dakota. They told me I was conceived in a motel near Mount Rushmore, so that’s what they named me. I’m sure they thought it was a good idea at the time. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been Deadwood.”

The doctor smiled but did not laugh.

“You thought it was funny the first time I told you the story,” I said.

“When did you do that?”

“A couple of hours ago—the last time you woke me.”

“You remembered.”

“You don’t think I’m still demonstrating perseveration, do you?”

“What is perseveration?”

“I don’t know the clinical definition, but it manifests itself in the repetition of a particular response and is often associated with head trauma. I’ll ask, ‘Where am I, how did I get here?’ and you’ll answer. Fifteen seconds later I’ll ask again.”

“Who told you that?”

“You did, Doctor—when you woke me up the first time.”

The doctor smiled some more. “What happened to you?” she asked.

She already knew—I had explained it twice before, so I gave her the abbreviated version.

“I was in a motel room off I-694. I was examining the Jade Lily. I was looking for an imperfection caused by the carving process that resembled an M. And then—”

“What happened next, McKenzie?”

“I don’t remember.”

“What do you remember?”

“I was in the parking lot of the motel next to my car. I was on the ground, the asphalt. My shoulder…” I tried to sit up in the bed, and when I did, the broken ends of my collarbone rubbed together and a pain as excruciating as anything I’ve ever felt rushed like a tsunami from my shoulder to my brain. “Oh—God!” My hand went to my collarbone. Touching it only made the pain worse. “Dammit.” I started laughing because it hurt so much. “I remember that. I remember the pain in my shoulder.”

“You fractured your clavicle,” the doctor said.

“I know,” I said. “I know, I know.”

“You also sprained your left ankle and sustained numerous cuts, contusions, and abrasions, mostly on your extremities.”