FREE OF BOTH INSIPID MUSIC AND VOICES FROM Beyond, four flights of stairs led down to the lowest of the three subterranean levels of the hospital.
Ethan and Hazard followed the familiar, brightly lighted white corridor past the garden room to a set of double doors. Beyond lay the ambulance garage.
Among other vehicles belonging to the hospital, four van-type ambulances stood side by side. Empty parking stalls suggested that additional units in the fleet were at work in the rainy day.
Ethan went to the nearest ambulance. He hesitated, then opened the rear door.
Inside, red tinsel was strung at the ceiling along both the left and right sides of the compartment. Six clusters of tiny bells hung here, as well, one set at the beginning, another at the middle, and a third at the end of each garland of tinsel.
At the second ambulance, Hazard said, “Here.”
Ethan joined him at the open back door.
Two lengths of red tinsel. Only five sets of bells. The missing set, in the middle of the right-hand garland of tinsel, was the one that had been given to him as he lay dying.
[380] A cold tremble, almost a pressure, moved slowly down the center of his back, as if the fleshless tip of a skeletal finger were tracing his spine from cervical vertebrae to coccyx.
Hazard said, “One set of bells is missing, but between us we have two.”
“Maybe not. Maybe we have the same set.”
“What do you mean?”
Behind them, a man said, “May I help you?”
Turning, Ethan saw the paramedic who had attended to him in the racing ambulance less than twenty-four hours ago.
The discovery of the bells in his hand outside Forever Roses had already been one piece of dark magic too many. Now, to come face to face with this man, seen before only in that dream, made the death in the ambulance seem real even though he still breathed, still lived.
The shock of recognition was not mutual. The paramedic regarded Ethan with no greater interest than he might have shown toward any stranger.
Hazard flashed his department ID. “What’s your name, sir?”
“Cameron Sheen.”
“Mr. Sheen, we need to know what calls this particular ambulance answered yesterday afternoon.”
“What time exactly?” the paramedic asked.
Hazard looked at Ethan, and Ethan found his voice. “Between five and six o’clock.”
“I was crewing it then with Rick Laslow,” Sheen said. “Couple minutes after five, there’s a police call, an eleven-eighty, accident with major injury, corner of Westwood Boulevard and Wilshire.”
That was miles from the location at which Ethan had bounced off the PT Cruiser.
“Honda tangled with a Hummer,” Sheen said. “We carried the guy in the car. He looked like he’d butted heads with a Peterbilt, not just [381] a Hummer. We took him street to surgery in personal-best time, and from what I hear, he’ll come out of it good enough to jump and hump again.”
Ethan named the two streets that formed the intersection half a block from Forever Roses. “You catch calls that far west?”
“Sure. If we figure we know a way to beat the gridlock, we go wherever the blood is.”
“Did you answer a call to that intersection yesterday?”
The paramedic shook his head. “Not me and Rick. Maybe one of the other units. You could check the dispatcher’s log.”
“You look familiar to me,” Ethan said. “Have we met somewhere before?”
Sheen frowned, seemed to search his memory. Then: “Not that I recall. So do you want to check the dispatcher’s log?”
“No,” Hazard said, “but there’s one more thing.” He pointed at one of the garlands of tinsel in the back of the ambulance. “The middle set of bells is missing.”
Peering into the van, Sheen said, “Missing bells? Are they? I guess so. What about it?”
“We’re wondering what happened to them.”
Puzzlement worked Sheen’s face into a squint. “You are? Those little bells? Don’t recall anything happening to them during my watch. Maybe one of the guys on another shift could help you.”
At a glance from Hazard, Ethan shrugged. Hazard slammed shut the ambulance door.
Sheen’s puzzlement resolved into amazement. “You don’t mean they send two detectives ’cause maybe someone stole a two-dollar Christmas ornament?”
Neither Ethan............