The Secret of the Villa Mimosa Read Free

vulnerable. Colored a vivid velvety red, it made a statement. She was a woman to be reckoned with. A woman at the top of her profession. A woman who knew what she was doing every minute of her day. Even if sometimes, she thought with a pang, her nights seemed a bit lonely.
    She clipped gold and onyx studs in her ears, no other jewelry, just a man-size watch, big enough for herto tell the time without lifting her arm, big enough so her patients wouldn’t think that she was keeping her eye on the clock.
    She picked up her black suede purse, felt for her keys, and checked her working uniform one last time.
    After grabbing the big black bag containing the files she needed for the day, she took the elevator down, got her car, a compact black Lexus, as understated as she was. Then she drove to the real world: the San Francisco General Hospital on Potrero Hill.
    It was only 8:20 A.M. , and her first appointment wasn’t until 9:00, so she headed for the cafeteria and the cup of coffee she hadn’t been able to stomach earlier, after seeing the dead woman on television. Halfway along the corridor she changed her mind. The Italian deli down the street made more powerful coffee—and a wickeder Danish.
    Outside, she heard the scream of an ambulance. She turned to watch. The paramedics were out in a flash, and a second later they had the stretcher on a gurney and were running with it, one holding the drip leading into the patient’s arm, toward the waiting group of doctors and nurses. The patient’s body was swathed in shiny aluminum shock foil. Her head was strapped to the stretcher and supported by sandbags on either side. Phyl caught just a glimpse of a bruised ashen face, tightly shut eyes, blood-matted copper hair.
The girl from the ravine.
    She’s not dead after all
, she thought, surprised. Then, remembering the waxen color, she added grimly,
Not yet.
    Somehow the Danish didn’t seem as enticing as it had a moment ago. She turned on her heel and walked back into the hospital, her head down, thinking about the young woman; about the parents who would be summoned to her bedside, about her chances of survival. It was clear she had serious head injuries, andLord knew what other damage, internal as well as external.
    Poor, poor girl
, she thought sadly.
    Shaking her head to clear it, she grabbed a cup of coffee from the machine and headed down the shiny corridors to her office to begin her day.
    By twelve-thirty she had seen eight patients, and she was starving. Gathering together her notes and her files and putting them in the black bag, she thought hungrily of tomato, chicken, and fresh basil on focaccia. Halfway to the door she hesitated, glancing undecidedly at the telephone. She still hadn’t been able to get the sight of the young woman from the ravine out of her mind. Right through all her interviews this morning she had kept superimposing herself on her thoughts: the foot with the jaunty red sandal dangling from its toe; the battered face as colorless as moonstones; the bloody head. A shudder ran through her, and she strode quickly out the door and down the hall to the Trauma Unit.
    Recognizing her, the nurse on duty smiled. “You mean the Jane Doe who was brought in at eight twentytwo this morning,” she said briskly in response to Phyl’s inquiry. “They assumed she was dead when they saw her down there in the ravine, but when they got her up, she still had a pulse. And broken ribs, possible internal bleeding, and a couple of holes in her skull, left temporal area. They rushed her right into OR, and she’s not out yet.” She glanced up from her notes. “I guess they’re doing their damnedest for her,” she said encouragingly. Then suddenly alert: “You know her then?”
    Phyl shook her head. “I saw the rescue on the morning news. Somehow she just stuck in my mind.”
    “I can imagine,” the nurse said feelingly. “It’s a pity you don’t know her, though, because we have no identification. The cops are