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Yale and Dalton had decided on a stakeout after several other angles had led to dead ends. Though the consistency of the assault location pointed to the hospital as the primary connection between Nancy Jenkins and Sandra Yee, Dalton had also been investigating the possibility of it being secondary. If both victims stayed in the same hotel attending a medical conference, for instance, they might have been selected by the suspect off the hotel guest list. Unfortunately, they'd taken no trips at the same time and had not attended any similar conferences. According to the women's credit card bills and records, there had been no overlap between workers and servicemen they'd had through the house in the last six months. Dalton had been briefly excited when he'd discovered they'd both received FedExes on the same day, but a few phone calls had confirmed that the packages had been delivered on different routes. The hospital files had been difficult to get hold of, but conversations with other physicians and nurses revealed little regarding patients Nancy and Sandra had treated together. It was looking more and more as though they'd been targeted merely because of their association with the hospital.

Yale had been slogging through pending lawsuits against the hospital and had yet to uncover any solid suspects. No reports on disgruntled ex-employees. No alkali- or even acid-throwing incidents had come back from PACMIS or CCAB. A car accident victim who felt he had received poor ER treatment last year had sent hostile letters to the hospital board, but he now lived in Massachusetts. Yale had run him through the Automatic Wants and Warrants System anyway and had found no red flags.

When Yale stretched, his hands touched both sides of the ambulance interior. Dalton shifted on the small stool and groaned, then checked his watch. The first two assaults had occurred in the early morning, two days apart. The last attack had been Tuesday, and it was now Thursday morning.

Someone was due to be attacked.

The stools inside the ambulance became increasingly uncomfortable as morning dragged into afternoon. Yale and Dalton received the occasional alert from Garcia and gave a few heads-ups to the officer working reception inside, but the majority of the patients and workers coming in were not suspicious. Blake had an argument with a news van that tried to pull past the parking kiosk down toward the ambulance bay and succeeded in fending it off without blowing his cover.

Despite the fact that Yale kept the front windows cracked, the ambulance remained stuffy; they couldn't run the air-conditioning without starting the vehicle and giving away their location. They ate lunch around one-sandwiches from Jerry's-then sat some more.

The officer disguised as an orderly called in laughing when a woman dressed as Barbie was admitted to the ER with bad flu symptoms. Evidently, the same Mattel executives who had purchased the UCLA Children's Hospital had hired and costumed a Barbie to tour the pediatrics ward, bringing good cheer and product placement to the sick children.

With the exception of Explosive Diarrhea Barbie, the rest of the afternoon passed without incident.

Nancy barely stirred when David stepped through the curtains surrounding her bed, though he made an effort to rattle them to alert her of his arrival. Her torso was slightly elevated, and she'd pulled her hospital gown up high to hide the scarring from her esophageal resection, a small act of modesty that David found at once pathetic and moving given the massive distortion of her face. A bandage pushed out her gown where they'd lifted skin for grafting from above her clavicle.

The ICU stood mostly empty-just an elderly man intubated across the way on a monitored bed, multiple IVs stringing around his arms. The sunset, diffused through the LA smog, glowed orange through the venetian blinds, lighting the room in bands of color.

David became aware of the intensity of his heartbeat and realized it was probably due to the ICU's similitude to the MICU, where Elisabeth had been removed from life support. He closed his eyes for a moment, clearing the thought.

"Nancy," he said softly. "It's me. David."

Her head rolled slowly to face him. Her response was relaxed and listless, as though she were moving underwater. "Dr. Spier." Speaking around a tongue sluggish with morphine.