His basic advice was simple: set the stage for a photograph, and that "stage" was me. How did I want to look in those photos? Like Olivia Taylor-Jones. Polished, poised, and prepared.
He gave me until four. It was enough time to do the best with what I had, which wasn't much, and as I sat on the front step waiting for him, I began reconsidering the wisdom of the entire plan.
When a shadow passed over me, I started and looked up to see Gabriel at the foot of the steps.
"Ready?" he said.
I nodded and followed him to the car.
"There's more than one way into the hospital, isn't there?" I asked as we drove from town. "I'm guessing any reporters will be parked at the main entrance."
"Most, yes, so I'll take you in the back. I'm sure we'll encounter a more enterprising journalist on that route. Preferably only one. That will allow us to control the situation."
"Actually, I ... I'd rather control it by avoiding it altogether."
A faint smile. "I'm sure you would."
I looked over at him. "I'm serious." I lifted a hand against his protest. "Yes, you're right that I should dictate when and how I let myself be photographed. But I look like a twelve-year-old who tried to cut and streak her own hair. I can't afford my usual brand of makeup, and I picked the wrong shades. This is the best clothing I have--the jeans and shirt I wore when I left home. Not exactly haute couture."
"Not exactly Walmart, either. The cost of your sneakers could feed a family for a week."
"Which is the problem. With the crappy haircut and bad makeup, I look as if I'm trying to pretend I'm just a regular girl, yet I'm wearing three-hundred-dollar blue jeans. Not the image I want to project."
"I think you're overreacting."
"Really? I've spent a lifetime being taught how to project an image. I want to show the world I'm still Olivia Taylor-Jones. This"--I swept a hand over myself--"is not Olivia Taylor-Jones."
"Should it be?"
"If you're going to give me some existential bullshit about whether or not I still am Olivia Taylor-Jones, you can save it. What's important here is the image. Give me a week and I'll have enough tips saved to get myself a real haircut, decent makeup, and an outfit. The laptop can wait. Not the way I'd like to structure my priorities, but if I'm going to get myself in the paper again, I need to think of what my mother and James would want, too."
"Do you?"
"Yes." I reclined my seat, ending the discussion. "I do."
Gabriel bustled me into a side door. His gaze traveled along the corridor and darted into each open doorway we passed. He might not have been thrilled with my decision to postpone my media reveal, but having agreed to respect it, he apparently wasn't going to betray that by letting me "accidentally" bump into a reporter. I appreciated that.
I also appreciated the brisk pace. Nobody loves hospitals, but just one whiff of that smell--antiseptic and overcooked food--and my chest seizes up. Soon I'm gulping air, praying I don't hyperventilate. I've been told it's a panic attack. Which would make perfect sense ... if I wasn't so damned healthy that I'd never spent a day in a hospital. I'd only been to the emergency room once, when I was fourteen and broke my arm playing rugby at school and my parents weren't home. Otherwise, my family doctor came to us; my deep phobia of medical care extended even to office visits.
That day, I had enough else on my mind that I didn't go into a full-blown panic attack. I still had to breathe deeply, and I caught a few concerned glances from people walking past, but Gabriel was thankfully too intent on vulture-watch to notice.
We were near Pamela's hospital room before I saw any sign of added security, and even then, it was only a young officer posted outside her door. He was reading a newspaper, as if his job was more to keep curiosity seekers out than to keep a notorious serial killer in.
When I commented on that, Gabriel said, "True. There will be another one or two inside, though. And they'll be eager to get her back to prison as soon as the doctors say she can be moved. But that's not because they're worried she'll escape. They're ensuring her condition doesn't worsen at the hands of someone who thinks the world would be better off if Pamela Larsen suffered a fatal relapse."
"Oh."
My mother had to be guarded against being murdered ... by a complete stranger who might decide the justice system was better served if she left this hospital in a body bag.
As Gabriel spoke to the guard, I caught the murmur of Pamela's voice, and my shock froze into a moment of perfect clarity. I heard the squeak of a bed being pushed down the hall and caught the faint smell of urine and tasted something cold and harsh and metallic. And pain. I felt pain, a sudden wave of it and Pamela's voice, saying...
Nothing.
Pamela's voice was a mere undertone, nearly drowned out by the squeak of wheels.
I turned to see a nurse pushing a bed with a woman on it, so thin she seemed like a skin-covered skeleton. The woman opened her eyes. They were empty sockets, blood weeping from the holes, spilling over her sunken cheeks.
I wheeled and plowed into Gabriel. He caught me and murmured, "Olivia?" I blinked and turned. The nurse was still there, pushing the bed, frowning at me. The old woman lay on the bed, but her eyes were closed. She wore a white nightgown covered with red flowers.