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Chapter 6
Jack looked down at his little sister and remembered. He felt her tiny weight as he carried her on his shoulders, remembered her first sunburn as he taught her to swim, felt such pride as he watched in amazement while she learned math as she was learning to walk. He reached out with his inside touch and asked her to respond. He felt nothing at first, and then he felt that special warmth he felt when they connected. Not like before, but still there. Much of her essence was still alive. He knew it. At least he hoped he knew it, hoped he wasn’t just hoping, telling himself lies.
Jack and Dvora waited through the rest of the night. The nurses kicked them out of Meghan’s room to change her dressings, so they moved to the waiting room.
Somewhere in the small hours of the morning, the feeling came to him. The attack on Meghan was part of something else. Not just random violence, or thieves’ frustration, but something more. He didn’t know what it was a part of, but he’d learned to trust his gift. As Deepak Chopra once said “Our guts have been giving us information for millions of years longer than our brains, and our guts haven’t yet learned how to doubt themselves.”
He left the room and asked an aide to find the head administrator. Allison Palmer-Chung was that sort. Competitive, tough, straight-talking, the kind that have to prove they are as strong as a man. Allison was maybe fifty under the suit, tight and fit from hours in the gym, careful diet, and a few strategic nips and careful tucks.
He said, “I’ve noticed you have many empty rooms.”
Allison said, “Yes, we do.” Tiny, hidden cautions chased each other around her face.
“I would like to use an empty room for the next few nights to be near my sister. I would, of course, move out instantly if you needed it for someone who was ill or injured. I will pay the standard billable rate, including upkeep and less any charges associated for health care and monitoring.”
The uncertainties disappeared into narrowed eyes, and crossed arms. “I am afraid I couldn’t possibly do that. It is inappropriate for us to turn the hospital into a…hotel.”
She stretched the last word out and managed to say it while looking up at him and down her nose at the same time.
He smiled gently and made soft eye contact as he asked, “Mrs. Palmer-Chung — is it okay if I call you Allison?”
“Yes,” said her mouth.
“Allison. I absolutely agree with you. It would be a terrible thing to turn your magnificent hospital into a …hotel. And, I know that maybe $4,000 a day would drop to your bottom line by allowing us to stay in an otherwise empty room. I am sure Dorothy Jones-Hadad and Shzi Lui-Mao, among others on your board, would appreciate anything, even something slightly out of the ordinary, which would drop dollars directly to your bottom-line. And, at no risk to you or your hospital! My rider will cover any perceived insurance liabilities. I am so very tired, worried sick, and need so little from you. Let’s take care of this right now. Which is the room closest to the SICU that would impact you the least?”
Allison smiled with her mouth, hated him with her eyes, and instantly agreed. Name-dropping two of the hospital’s board members had been effective. If it was Jack’s hospital and somebody turned down $4,000 free dollars a day, he would have been pissed. He knew many powerful people, some of them friends. He would call in all his markers and run his friendship debt to the limit until Meghan was home and safe. He would not stop until he had squeezed the life out of the men who had nearly killed his sister.