Chapter Three

Jason packed up the blackmail letter and murder weapon that Sage uncovered during her quasi-legal search of Glen Durst’s office, and left the scene. Sage and her sisters, disheartened to learn that their prime suspect in Maybelle’s murder had an airtight alibi, returned to the hotel lobby to rethink their strategy. 

“Now what?” asked Cinnamon. “If Glen Durst isn’t the killer, we’re back to square one.”           

“Not necessarily,” replied Sage. “We don’t know for sure he’s not the killer. He could easily have hired someone to murder Maybelle.”

“So how are we supposed to check out that possibility?” asked Pepper. “Hired assassins aren’t exactly listed in the Yellow Pages.”           

“I guess we’ll have to leave that part of the investigation up to Jason,” admitted Sage. “The deputies have contacts and informants who can check that out. What we can do though, is find out more about Maybelle—talk to her friends, neighbors, acquaintances and family to see if she had any other enemies. If she resorted to blackmail to get what she wanted from Glen, she’s probably pissed off a few more people in the past.”           

“That could take forever,” complained Cinnamon. “Maybelle Jamison practically ran this town.”           

“Mother might be able to help,” offered Curry. “She’s lived here as long as Maybelle.”

“That’s true,” agreed Sage. “Let’s go back to the hospital.”

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

            Once again, the four sisters converged on the nursing station in the ER, where Nurse Crane was packing up to leave for the day. 

            “Oh, Lord,” she said, when she realized the spice group had returned.

            “What happened to our mother?” asked Sage. “The exam room is empty.”

            “They’re moving her to Three-South,” replied the nurse, nervously checking her watch. Just six more minutes and her shift was over. She had actually managed to make it through the rest of the day without any more weirdoes showing up—until now, at least. Just six more Friday minutes, and she could go home and put up her tired, sore feet and forget about this loony bin for the entire weekend.

            “So which room is she in on Three-South?” asked Sage.

            “She’s not in any room yet,” said Nurse Crane. “She... Did you say empty?” she frowned, looking from the spice sisters to the hallway and back. “Maybe you checked the wrong exam room,” she smiled, mentally ticking off the seconds.

            “We can read,” argued Cinnamon, her spiky reddish hair vibrating with irritation. “Room number four is empty.”

            Nurse Crane bounded out from behind the desk and waddled as fast as her short legs could carry her down the hallway, with the spice group tight on her heels. She pushed open the door to exam room four and pulled up short at the sight of the empty bed. The four sisters piled into her before they could stop.

            “You don’t know where she is?” asked Sage, grabbing onto the nurse to keep her from falling after their abrupt collision.

            “Stand back,” demanded Nurse Crane, fighting her way back through the tiny, crowded space. She hit the hallway at a gallop this time, with the sisters hanging back at a safer distance.

            She grabbed the phone on the desk and punched in a few numbers. “Sandra,” she said, gasping for air. “Did you send someone to pick up the patient in exam room four, Ginger McCormick?” The nurse winced at the stitch in her side—she wasn’t accustomed to doing the fifty-yard dash during her shift. Damn these people! They weren’t supposed to move her patients without telling her. As if this job wasn’t stressful enough, now she had to play detective and track down the whereabouts of her patients.

            The four sisters stood in wide-eyed silence while Nurse Crane waited for a response.

            “No,” replied Sandra, the equally frustrated nurse on Three-South. “Just keep your panties on. We don’t have a room ready yet. We’re packed to the gills up here and can’t get these damned doctors off the golf course long enough to release their patients. Are you backing up down there in ER?”

            Nurse Crane paused with a heavy sigh. “No. We’re good. I’ll get back to you later.”

            She hung up the phone and drummed her short, chubby fingers on the desk. Now what? Four anxious family members on the verge of hysteria were standing right in front of her, expecting an answer—now.  “I don’t know” was not an option at this point.

            “If you ladies will just have a seat in the waiting area,” she said as calmly as she could, “I’ll make a few calls and we’ll get this cleared up.” 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

            The wary sisters made their way over to the sparsely populated waiting area, claiming a row of alternating turquoise and burnt orange vinyl upholstered chairs, while they awaited the verdict. They had no choice really—what else could they do?

            “I don’t like this one bit,” complained Pepper, trying to keep her voice low, in spite of her mounting concern.

            “Somebody screwed up big time,” snarled Cinnamon, sliding down in her seat and propping both feet on the magazine-littered coffee table. “And now they’re trying to cover their butts.”

            “Let’s call Dad,” said Sage. “Maybe he knows something.” 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

            An exasperated Nurse Crane called the Chief Administrator to put out an alert for a missing patient. Did she leave the hospital against medical advice? She was supposed to stay overnight for observation, but not everyone agreed to follow doctors’ orders. 

           Somehow the nurse didn’t think this was the case for Ginger McCormick. A shiver ran down her spine. That nagging premonition was back, but this time it wasn’t for herself. She had a bad feeling about Ginger McCormick’s disappearance. This situation was going to get worse before it got better—if it got better.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

           

“Dad?” said Sage, when Mace answered the phone. “Did you check Mother out of the hospital? Is she home with you?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “The hospital staff said they were going to move her up to Three-South. I came back to work for a while and planned to return to the hospital tonight to visit her. Did you check with the nurse?”

  “Yeah,” replied Sage, slowly, not wanting to alarm her father. “The hospital is checking into it now to see if they can locate her.”

“What do you mean—locate her?” he cried. “The hospital has lost your mother? Oh my God!”

“Calm down, Dad. I didn’t say they lost her. I said they’re checking into...” Click. The phone call was terminated abruptly by an overwrought Mace.

“Well, damn!” said Sage.

“What did he say?” asked Cinnamon.

“Did he check Mother out of the hospital?” asked Pepper.

“No,” replied Sage. “He didn’t check her out and now he’s gone ballistic over the news that she’s missing. It will be a miracle if he doesn’t stroke out before he gets here. At least, I assume he’s coming here—he didn’t really say.”

“What a mess!” exclaimed Curry, on the verge of tears. “What could have happened to Mother?”

For the first time in her life, Sage’s “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” attitude had deserted her. She had no response to that question.

“Ms. McCormick,” said a short, slightly plump, balding man.

“Yes,” replied all four sisters in unison.

“Oh,” he raised his dark, bushy eyebrows in surprise as he surveyed the motley group of young women. “I’m Norman Spears, the hospital’s Chief Administrator. We seem to have a slight miscommunication involving Ginger McCormick, who is your mother, I understand?”

“Miscommunication?” squeaked Cinnamon, as mounting anger turned her otherwise creamy-white complexion three shades of red. “Is that the official term for losing one of your patients?”

Sage rested her hand gently on Cinnamon’s arm, hoping to thwart a nasty confrontation—at least until they determined the appropriate target for their combined wrath. “Yes, Ginger McCormick is our mother,” she replied, willing herself to remain calm. “We just spoke to our father, who told us he did not check her out of this hospital; so she must be here somewhere.”

“Right,” confirmed Norman, nervously pulling a white handkerchief from the pocket of his dark pin-striped suit and blotting a trickle of perspiration running down the side of his bald head. “Our records also indicate that she has not checked out.”

“So, what’s next?” asked Sage, trying not to jump to any conclusions. “Could she have been moved to a different floor of the hospital by mistake?”

 “We’ve already checked all the nursing stations,” he replied, tugging uncomfortably at the heavily starched collar of his white business shirt. “Unfortunately, none of them received a patient from the ER this afternoon.”

All four sisters stared at him in silence, trying to understand the implications of this news. They looked at each other, then back at Norman, waiting for another explanation—anything but “she’s gone and we don’t know where she is.”

Norman understood the pleading stares. “Is there any chance that she might have left the hospital on her own?” he asked futilely.

“Oh, my God!” cried Curry. “She’s been kidnapped!”

At that moment, all hell broke loose. Pepper and Curry began to sob uncontrollably. Cinnamon launched into a tirade, screaming at Norman Spears about hospital negligence and security incompetence. Sage whipped out her cell phone and called 911 to report a kidnapping.

Nurse Crane, deciding there was nothing more she could do to stop this avalanche, sneaked out the back entrance, trying desperately to save her own sanity.

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Jason and Mace arrived at the entrance to the ER at the same time.

“Ginger’s been kidnapped?” asked Jason.

“She has?” replied Mace, in horror.

The two men stared at each other in a moment of confusion, as three more deputies arrived on the scene. They all tumbled through the ER doors into total chaos.

The chief of hospital security, Dan Bartels, who had arrived just moments before, was backed into a corner by four hysterical daughters and one frantic administrator—all demanding the return of the missing Ginger. Upon Jason’s arrival, the entire group transferred their angst onto the beleaguered Sheriff; as Mace tried desperately to get an update on Ginger’s status.

“Stop!” yelled Jason. “I can’t understand a thing any of you is saying. Norman, tell me what’s going on here.”

“Ginger McCormick is missing,” replied the frazzled administrator. “She didn’t check out of the hospital, she wasn’t moved to another floor, and no one saw her leave.”

“Oh, no,” cried Mace, sinking down onto one of the waiting room chairs. His daughters rushed over to comfort him. Sage held his hand, trying to reassure him that everything would be okay, while Cinnamon fanned his pale face with a dog-eared copy of Woman’s Day Magazine, fearing he would pass out from shock.

“What have you got so far?” Jason asked Dan.

“Nothing—I just got here, but I plan to check the videotapes in the security cameras.”

“Let’s do it,” ordered Jason. “The rest of you wait here. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Once again, Sage locked eyes with Jason. Only this time, her eyes were pleading for help. He understood, and gave her a slight nod before racing up the stairs to the security office.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Dan pulled the videotape for the ER exam room hallway and put it into the tape player. He pushed the fast forward button to advance the tape to the afternoon footage. The two officers watched as the ER staff went about their usual routine, taking patients in and out of the various exam rooms; but their attention was focused on exam room number four.

Around three o’clock, Mace left the room. At 3:15, a man wearing a hospital scrub suit wheeled an empty laundry cart slowly down the hallway. A scrub cap covered his hair, and he kept his head lowered to avoid a direct view from the security camera. 

Jason and Dan moved to the edge of their seats, intently watching his every move. After pausing in front of room number four, he glanced in each direction down the hallway and pushed the cart into the room.

Each officer held his breath as they waited for the man to emerge. Finally, the door opened. The suspect checked to make sure the hallway was empty, and then pulled the laundry cart out of the room. There was a large, white bag inside, and it was much too big to be a laundry bag. Jason and Dan stared at each other in stunned silence, and then watched as the man wheeled the cart slowly down the hallway toward the exit.

All Jason could think about at that moment was, “How am I going to tell Sage?”

They returned to the ER to deliver the bad news about Ginger’s kidnapping, feeling certain that she was in the laundry cart the suspect wheeled out the back exit to the hospital delivery parking lot. The parking lot camera recorded him loading the cart into the back of a black van, but the license tags were covered to prevent identification. They weren’t dealing with amateurs. These kidnappers had their act together. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

 

“We believe she was taken out of the hospital in a laundry cart and loaded into a black van,” Jason told the incredulous family members, who stared at him in helpless shock.

“Why would someone kidnap Mother?” asked Cinnamon.

“It couldn’t be for money,” added Mace.

“It has to be Maybelle’s killer,” surmised Sage, her criminal lawyer mind rapidly clicking the tumblers into place. “He thinks Mother saw or heard something at the murder scene.”

Jason nodded sadly to confirm his agreement with her theory.

“The killer has Mother?” cried Curry, sobbing once again. “Is he going to kill her, too?”

Mace dropped his face into his hands, stricken with grief and fear.

“I’ve already issued an APB on the van,” said Jason, trying his best to offer hope in what appeared to be a hopeless situation. “There’s nothing more you can do here, Mace. I think it’s best for you to go home now, in case the kidnapper calls. I have a deputy assigned to stay with you. We’ve called in extra police officers from the surrounding areas to help with the search. We’ll find her,” he added, trying to sound more confident than he felt. 

Mace nodded sadly and left the hospital, escorted by one of the deputies. He had never felt so helpless in his entire life. Just when he managed to recover from this morning’s heart-stopping scare, he was hit with another life-threatening blow. How could this be happening? He had to do something to save Ginger. But what could he do? And then he smiled, remembering his four beautiful, intelligent and resourceful daughters. “We’re on our way, Honey,” he whispered. He knew in his heart that, with his daughters’ help, he would find Ginger and bring her home safely.

Jason switched into high-gear, barking orders to his deputies, as they tripped over each other in their haste to carry out their life-saving missions. “Sage, get me a recent photo of your mother. We’ll hand out flyers and give notices to all the local T.V. and radio stations.”

Sage jumped up, glad to have this assignment to boost her morale. She promised to e-mail a photo to the Sheriff’s office within the hour and gathered her sisters around her to plan their search strategy. She was a fighter—she wasn’t about to give up yet. 

Jason saw the hope in her eyes and knew she was back on board. That’s what he loved about her—that feisty spirit. Hell, at this point, he didn’t care if she broke into offices and tampered with evidence. He could use all the help he could get.