The man heard a gasp from the backseat as he turned onto Fifty-Second Street. The girl named Samantha opened her eyes in a sudden panic. The eyes of the other girl in the backseat darted back and forth several times, as if she were trying to figure out where she was.
The man slowed the Cadillac Escalade at the parking lot of the emergency room. The lot was empty except for an ambulance, its back doors open toward the building. He spotted a camera and then a second one pointing downward, covering the parking lot and the wide glass doors that opened into the ER.
He jabbed the brake and stopped.
A uniformed security guard sat inside at a small desk. The man backed into the empty street and continued to the traffic light at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. A wide grass median divided the six-lane thoroughfare into northbound and southbound lanes. Above, the elevated tracks for BART rested on huge concrete pedestals that looked like giant gray mushrooms in the fog that rolled in nightly from the San Francisco Bay. Traffic was light. The digital clock on his dash read 4:02.
He turned right and stopped at the bus stop just north of the corner. A Plexiglas shelter covered the bus bench. He climbed out of the drivers seat and jogged around the front of the SUV to the passenger side, opened the back door and lifted the older girl, Jenny, to the ground, wrapping his arm around her to hold her up. He shuffled her to the bench and sat her down, then returned to the car and brought Samantha to the bench in the same manner. Samantha leaned against her friend, resting her head on the other girls shoulder, her eyes locked open in a zombie-like stare.
The man slipped Samanthas cell phone out of her clutch purse and turned it on. He scrolled to Mom and pressed the number.
Sam, where have you been? Youve had me so worried.”
He spoke slowly. Maam, Samantha is with a friend named Jenny. They cant talk right now, but they need your help.”
Who is this? Is this some kind of joke?”
Please listen carefully. The girls have taken some drugs and need to go to the hospital. Get something to write with and Ill tell you where they are.”
Who is this?” she demanded.
When he didnt reply, her voice softened. Okay, I have a pen.”
Outside Childrens Hospital in Oakland, at a bus bench on Martin Luther King Way, just up from Fifty-Second Street. If you cant get here fast, you might want to call the hospital and have them pick up the girls.”
I got it. Now, who is this?”
A friend.”
He pressed the end button, wiped the phone on his jacket lining, and returned it to Samanthas handbag. He scanned the area to ensure no one was watching. A car zipped by without slowing, and the driver didnt look his way.
Girls, stay here,” he said. Your parents are on the way.”
Samantha seemed to focus on him for a second, but then her eyes resumed their distant, Rohypnol stare.
He drove a block up the street and pulled to the curb. In his rearview mirror, he saw one of the girls poke her head out of the front of the shelter.
Go back and sit down,” he said under his breath.
She stood, looked straight ahead, and wobbled onto the sidewalk. She paused at the curb, and then stumbled, straight-legged into the street.
No, no,” he muttered.
A pair of headlights in his mirror grew larger, and car tires screeched on the asphalt. Then he heard the thud.
He jumped out of his SUV. The car stopped and two people got out. They bent over the form in the street. One yelled something. Seconds later, people dressed in blue, pink, and green hospital scrubs ran toward the accident.
He climbed into the Cadillac and drove off.